33yo Newcomer - Looking for advice on moving back to Ireland in the future

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Hello All,

I moved to Switzerland at the beginning of January 2019 working as a Manufacturing Engineer in Solothurn.

I began with value investing strategy, buying monthly with Degiro - approx $25k spread between BABA, PFE, JNJ, JBL, AJAX, NOVN.

Since then I discovered this superb site as well as other FIRE sites and have since invested with IKBR - approx $35k between VT, VWO, SMMCHA.Planning to continue investing monthly - VT.

I have also been putting aside some emergency funding - approx CHF 30k to date.

I have a contract until the end of this year but have been told it will be extended by another 12 months.

I am from Ireland originally and my father has a small engineering fabrication company manufacturing equipment for a number of medical device and pharmaceutical companies. He would like to retire or semi-retire and was hoping I would return to help with the company.

I was hoping to remain here a little longer - Ideally until at least the end of 2022. But it may be the case now that I return the end of 2021.

With that in mind, I’m wondering if you could advise on an investing strategy going forward? What should be done with the money already invested with IKBR here?
With ETF’s in Ireland you have to pay income tax at a special rate of 41% on all returns (dividends and gains) every 8 years either as a sale or deemed sale (Maybe i should try move the company to Switzerland :D).

A huge thanks to everyone who has shared information throughout the various threads on the forum - It is a wonderful resource. I hope to meet many of of at a meetup at some stage in the future.

Blaa

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I see two issues here:

  1. Where you hold your assets
  2. How to avoid income tax in Ireland on capital gains

On the first issue, I would be very pragmatic about where you hold your assets. Firstly, you should check with your current broker if you can keep your account and your portfolio when you move to Ireland. If that’s possible, you just need to let them know the new address.
If not, since trading cost on DeGiro and IB is very cheap, sell everything you have, transfer the money to your new broker in Ireland and buy the same ETFs. This is likely to be way cheaper than transferring your portfolio broker to broker.

On the second issue, if you want to avoid income taxes on capital gains, the only way I see it would be to keep your residence in Switzerland (or some other place where capital gains are not taxed). I don’t know if you can get away with that (kind of a long commute).
The best would be to consult a good tax consultant in Ireland and see if there are ways to optimize your taxation. This will cost you some money, but if you get to keep more of your capital gains, this would probably be worth it.

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Note that buying us domiciled etfs my not be possible.

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You’re correct. But it’s irrelevant.

If those ETFs are cheaper (lower TER) you should still buy them no matter how long you hold them. You’ll still end up with more money.

Then you either find a broker that you can invest in from your new domicile to buy the same ETFs (should be possible even from Ireland). E.g. open an account with an American broker.

Or you buy the UCITS equivalent and earn a bit less.

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