I just use this: swisstaxcalculator.estv.admin.ch > tax burden statistics
Gives me everything for every municipality (including canton, and federal). As an XLS-spreadsheet, or as a colorful map.
Where did you get that quoted text? Hopefully you are not simply posting unattributed AI slop which adds to disinformation.
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Sure, it is just when you talked about municiaplities, it wasn’t clear if you were restricting to just one level of taxation.
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Haha, it was indeed AI in this case, but the german text says “Ruhegehalt” - a lump sum payment is not a “Gehalt” (by definition).
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Another case where AI gets it wrong. I would suggest for legal matters and things requiring precision, you don’t rely on AI and go to authoritative sources.
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Do you have any proof of your statement? I have read the German text (Art. 18 on fedlex) and it doesn’t support your claim. I don’t know if the English one is binding here in Switzerland, not sure how this works.
Yes. While I could give you the answer, wouldn’t you rather have the satisfaction of practising your research skills and finding it yourself? 
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Imho that’s a weirdly passive agressive response for my genuine question and you also didn’t answer anything I responded, but okay 
EDIT: I did research and the Canton of ZH has published a “Merkblatt”/info sheet for said use case and it is telling a different story.
So the way I read it is, for 2nd pillar you seem to be right, but for 3rd pillar, absolutely not.
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Sorry if it comes across as aggressive, but it was a genuine offer to not spoil an opportunity to develop useful skills.
Plus, you revealed something important! You were right that I was focussed on Pillar 2 (as this is much larger than my Pillar 3a).
If you look at the signed ratified protocol:
You see on page 36:
With reference to Article 18 It is understood that income referred to in Article 18 does not only cover periodic payments but also includes lump sum payments.
So specifically addresses the lump sum payment point, which might be ambiguous due to language issues.
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I had another thought. If saving the income taxes in year 1 does not matter for 3a to be profitable, paying in more even if not deductible would be beneficial.
Now, I remember accidentally paying too much in some years, but only once I got an order allowing me to take it back out from the 3a. All the other times they just reduced the deductible to the maximum.
A more correct (but complicated) way to do this would be the 2nd pillar. If we can ensure a high stocks allocation, the calculus stays the same. Using our own company and setting the salary appropriately, we can funnel a lot of assets into 2nd pillar. We either leave it there with a reasonably good provider at e.g. Gemini, or we fire ourselves and put everything into vested benefits accounts at e.g. Finpension. If we need some income that we can not leave in our company, we can also do this partially: Take out a low salary, put the needed amount from the vested benefit accounts into our 2nd pillar provider (which won’t take everything, because we have too many assets for our small salary). This, of course assumes, we don’t need an employer that we don’t control (i.e. we can sell all our labour through our company).
That’s strange. So if this is allowed you could use 3a as a wealth tax shelter.
But given the loss of liquidity, I wonder if real estate funds might be a better alternative?
You have to read the “lump sum” within the reference frame, that is “remuneration paid in consideration of past employment”, so pensions. In other words lump sums instead of pensions are also covered. 2 and 3a are not seldom treated differently in double taxation treaties.
Edit: Pensions from public entities are also sometimes treated differently (taxed at the pay-out state).
Having said that, a double non taxation is possible, but happens mostly with / for enterprises, e.g. when applying the Dutch sandwich strategy.
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Exactly. And I’ve seen cases of this ‘non-taxation’ of Pillar 2 which is where I learned of it.
But I’m not sure if it is really appropriate to really call it double non-taxation. After all, we also don’t get taxed on capital gains etc. isn’t it simply just ‘non-taxable’? It feels different from a complex structure designed to carefully thread a loophole.
It’s just a word play I heard from an international tax lawyer. They try to use “double taxation treaties” to create “double non taxation”. This happens when a treaty designates taxation jurisdiction to one state who then in its jurisdiction does not tax it (edit: “non-taxable”). Usually not so complicated as the Dutch sandwich.
Page 17 has the list of countries where you can get money back on 2nd or 3rd pillar, I’m sure some of those may not tax it locally. (Eg Koweït has no income tax probably doesn’t tax lump sum either)
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Narrowing down to unequivocal yes for 2nd pillar refund:
| Country |
|---|
| Albania |
| Algeria |
| Argentina² |
| Armenia |
| Austria |
| Azerbaijan |
| Bangladesh |
| Belarus |
| Colombia |
| Croatia |
| Czech Republic |
| Côte d’Ivoire |
| Ecuador |
| Egypt |
| Estonia |
| Finland |
| Georgia |
| Germany |
| Ghana |
| Greece |
| India |
| Indonesia |
| Iran |
| Ireland |
| Jamaica |
| Japan |
| Kazakhstan |
| Kuwait (until Dec 31, 2024) |
| Kyrgyzstan |
| Latvia |
| Liechtenstein |
| Lithuania |
| Luxembourg |
| Malaysia |
| Malta |
| Mexico |
| Moldova |
| Mongolia |
| Montenegro |
| Morocco |
| New Zealand |
| North Macedonia |
| Poland |
| Portugal |
| Romania |
| Russia |
| Serbia |
| Singapore |
| Slovakia |
| Slovenia |
| South Korea |
| Spain |
| Sri Lanka |
| Tajikistan |
| Thailand |
| Tunisia |
| Turkey |
| Turkmenistan |
| Ukraine |
| United States (USA) |
| Uzbekistan |
| Venezuela |
| Vietnam |
What is that fee? According to the Poor Swiss, viac has 0 currency conversion fees.
Edit: the above link goes to viac invest. It is therefore not relevant for this discussion.
I don’t have any knowledge about it. But my gut feeling would tell me that pension funds would have much higher management fees than 3rd pillar. Also, you choice of investments is more regulated than in the 3rd pillar.
That is only true for VIAC Invest. From the FAQ for Invest:
Here is the one from their FAQ for 3a :
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I suggest looking it up then.