You forgot tax rebate of ~CHF2k for putting in 3p.
So investing 6.8k in VIAC is the same as paying 2k more tax and then investing 4.8k in VT.
You also forgot wealth tax which would be an extra drag of 0.1%-0.7% per annum.
My conclusion has been that VIAC 97% equities is the best passive investment you can get in Switzerland and pretty much every single taxpayer in the country should really be abusing it yearly.
Totally. Assuming the extra 2k in saved taxes gets reinvested in VT, the return after 30y grows from ~630k to 800k CHF.
With some quick Excel modelling I came to the below conclusion. Can debate the parameters but I think these ones are fairly reasonable and show how strong VIAC 97% equities can be over a career.
You assumed a very high withdrawal tax.
This shows that it’s worth to split 3A over multiple accounts.
Mr. Rip wrote a nice blog post about this topic:
I think the most important things are:
This alone will overcompensate any loss from the higher TER and the 3rd pillar withdrawal tax in the future. It’s a no-brainer!
a few years back, i came to the conclusion of VIAC being very similar to non-viac up to a small margin:
using my back-then sophisticated 3a modeller
for being locked away and subject to uncertainty of future legislation, I personally decided that I’d rather stick to my IB-portfolio.
If I had marginal tax of 30% instead of like 15%, i should reconsider.
Dont’t forget Kapitalbezugsteuer, applying once on recieving your 3a stash.
bottom line: to me there is no clear “VIAC 3a is best!”
Here is a simulation with very low marginal tax rates. Kapitalbezugssteuer is calculated for each year.
Looks nice, but you are missing the fact that the dividend tax is a lot lower in 3a. (No dividend tax on 3a and Switzerland is currently negotiating tax free dividends on US Stocks in retirement funds)
You get the withholding tax of US securities back.
If VT is what you are investing in if you are not contributing to your 3rd pillar then I don’t really agree with naming it “saving 2k in taxes”. hippo put it together nicely in his spreadsheet.
If you have CHF 6826 which you don’t need to spend in a particular year then you can
You don’t save taxes which can you reinvest the following year.
How so? I work with standing orders. So by doing that I can reduce my standing order to my tax savings account by 150 CHF and increase my monthly investments into VT. It’s that simple.
The money you transfer with your standing order is in addition to the CHF 6826. The 6826 amount you already have transferred to your third pillar. So any “saved” money you invest has to be on top of the 6826 amount…
From the other twisted angle…
If you invest 6800, get 1700 (of those 6800) back, and invest 1700 - how much of “your money” did you invest?
You could argue that you were able to put those 1700 into an investment vehicle twice, no? 
Hi all,
I’m currently working on optimizing my overall portfolio and as a result considering shifting my VIAC (currently fully in Global 100) to an own strategy. Please note, I’m not considering changing my overall asset allocation, but only optimizing which particular asset classes to hold in VIAC.
My thoughts are:
It has been mentioned above that the US-CH tax treaty will be coming into place 01.01.2020. That would speak for a stronger allocation to US stocks.
On the flip side, I did some research on average dividend yields of the MSCI indices the CS funds are mirroring:
Looking at this, one could argue to focus on Pacific, Europe and maybe EM in VIAC and leave the US stocks for the private account, especially given one can already reduce withholding taxes to zero for US stocks in a private account (US funds and DA-1).
What are your thoughts on all this? Do you think it’s worth the effort or better keep Global 100 and turn my brain off. Does anybody have a complete view on withholding taxes for the available funds? I know of US and Japan which are withholding tax-free, what’s the situation elsewhere?
Many thanks for your thoughts!
I was also thinking about this and came to a similar conclusion.
I will use VIAC for Switzerland (home bias), Europe, Pacific/Japan, Canada and EM. In IBKR I will buy VT and enough VTI to keep everything balanced (US should be at 55% if looking at neutral market cap).
exactly what I am doing, it is workign out well so far!
I even made an Excel sheet with all Viac fonds and their country/region exposure. So I know at what % to set everything in VIAC to get the desired region weight.
Just pay attention to South Korea: VIAC works with MSCI, Vanguard with FTSE. So in VIAC South Korea will be in Emerging Markets and not in Pacific. Poland is also considered EM and not Europe in VIAC. Just to keep in mind to not leave it out completely or overweight it massively by accident.
Would you mind sharing with the rest of us? 
Here is the Excel sheet: https://drive.google.com/open?id=10QF7dvJKo6PU8oP7-M6LAgwE2XYEc76u
I classified South Korea and Poland as Emerging Markets (because not doing it makes everything more complicated with VIAC), so that’s why market neutral region weights are at 58% North America, 15.9% Europe ex CH, 2.6% Switzerland, 11.6% Pacific and 11.9% Emerging Markets (& other). FTSE would be 13% Pacific and 10.5% Emerging Markets.
You can adjust the VIAC portfolio in row 93.
I invested my 3rd pillar money in VIAC this month. Got confused with the performance (markets went up from 2. December) and got this response from VIAC:
Wie Emir geschrieben hat, kaufen wir die ETF jeweils am Rebalancing Day nach der Berechnung (also im Verlauf des morgens am 2.12.). Die Indexfonds werden jeweils zum Schlusskurs gekauft, wobei du hier unterscheiden musst: Die t+2 Fonds werden zum Schlusskurs des Rabalancing Days gekauft (2.12.), die t+3 resp. jene Fonds mit Asien Exposure aufgrund der Zeitverschiebung erst zum Schlusskurs des Folgetags (3.12.).
Bzgl. Rendite musst aber auch folgende 2 Dinge berücksichtigen:
I’m not sure if VIAC is really that cheap? 0.5%/year is nice, but 0.5-0.75% on FX fees and 0.1% on order fees? And these fees will apply monthly on some part of the portfolio because of monthly rebalancing.
What are your thoughts on this?
