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?
They are still the cheapest compared to the rest of the 3a competitors.
However the monthly rebalancing is also something which I was wondering whether it hurts performance. I would prefer a pure buy-and-hold, even if this hurts my asset allocation. (They could still rebalance, but only with new funds.)
Your 3a is buy and hold for the next 20-30 years, so try to forget the 0.5%+0.1%. And hopefully the 0.5% will come steadily down.
The FX fees are known & what they are, but not ideal of course.
In my experience (>1 year) the system has never rebalanced outside of a month that I didn’t change something myself. I think it allows the % of each position to deviate a bit from the set amount (maybe +/-1% i don’t know). And since most markets do go up and down together mostly, rebalancing is rare? (My experience - it would be good to hear if others say the same)
As a fore-warning - also you will notice your dividends in USD will be changed to CHF and then back to USD to buy USD positions. I’m not a fan of that. Of course it would be “nicer” to use USD divs to buy USD positions directly.
I still think it’s way cheaper than all others, cos these are one-time fees, but elsewhere u are paying at least 0.4% more yearly.
0.5% will compound to 16% in 30 years. Plus there are additional costs with FX fee, order fee and spread. That’s not compounded but might increase your total costs to 18-20%. VT costs 2.7% in 30 years.
So I’m not sure anymore if the 3rd pillar is really worth it with the current investment possibilities and fee structure.
Maybe I’m being irrational here, but these transaction/FX fees suck.
Have you added the projected marginal wealth tax and the cost of taxed dividends to your cost analysis? A marginal tax rate of 20% and a dividend yield of 2.5% already adds up to 0.5%. Now add 0.2-0.4% of wealth tax and 0.1% for VT and you are up to 0.7-1%.
You are right of course. And maybe we’ll have better solutions in 10 years. Then I’ll be happy to have 100k invested tax-free.
But this will change my strategy. I was planning to adjust the strategy regulary because the regional weights will change over time due to the fact that the IBKR portfolio growths faster (due to higher contributions). So I will let it drive for a longer time before adjusted and getting back to the desired overall asset allocation.
It is also important to remember that you “pay” your marginal tax rate if you invest in VT, but you have a deferred reduced tax rate at withdrawal with 3a.
Managing an overall asset allocation with tax advantaged and not advantaged account is a bit tricky because you have to estimate your future reduced marginal tax rate and deduct that from your 3a allocation.
16% of what? …
Of your end portfolio value after 30 years. Let’s say it’s 400k, it would have been 465k with 0.5% less costs/year.
I’m too lazy to work it out, but I don’t think it works out that way cos it’s a one time cost 0.5% on a “small amount” each year (6800) and not each year on everything. Also since 40% is CHF not on that amount either.
…and don’t adjust within VIAC - you’re making it all too complicated.