Did you consider AVS? If you are resident in CH you have to pay.
Questions might come up when you return to Switzerland or when you try to claim at retirement age.
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That’s a great point. I have been looking for a way to keep making AHV/AVS/OASI contributions while retired abroad. I would have to earn at least CHF 4’800 per year in Switzerland.
One option is to be a member of the board of any Swiss company. But this compensation will be taxed at a high rate of 25%. Another way would be to be a “cleaning lady” to somebody’s private household, where the tax is only 5%.
Whether any actual work is done, either as a board member or a cleaning lady, does not matter. All that matters is that some AHV contributions are reported and paid on the stated salary. I could effectively pay such a salary to myself, without doing any actual work, as long as the AHV reporting and contribution is handled through a company or a person in Switzerland.
My thought was they might force you to pay based on wealth or salary for all the years away if they decide you were really resident in CH
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That’s not the case. As a Swiss national abroad, you have the option, but not the obligation, to make AHV contributions based on your wealth and income. Unless you have very minor savings, the terms of this voluntary program are not attractive. You have to make very large contributions for a minor increase in your future pension. In most cases, a board membership or a “cleaning lady” employment is the cheaper option.
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But the jurisprudence seems to be that if you haven’t established residence somewhere else, you are not really abroad, you are still resident in CH. Therefore you would have to pay AVS
AVS are more on top of getting paid than cantonal tax authorities, I wouldn’t be surprised that when an event happens they ask “show us the statement that proves you were resident elsewhere”.
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As someone who is forced to pay I kind of hope the person treating the case would halve half a brain and ask you what happened to the contributions in the missing years - whenever you move back or when you claim at retirement
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It, again, boils down to being illegal but probably getting away with it.
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AHV contributions are not due because someone is a resident in Switzerland. They are due because someone earns an income in Switzerland that is subject to AHV contributions. Your employer is responsible for these payments, not you. Even a resident of another country such as Germany pays AHV contributions if he earns an income in Switzerland. So the residence simply does not matter. In some special cases, such as that of a student or a Swiss national living abroad, there is a possibility, but not an obligation, to make voluntary AHV contributions.
Absolutely not. It would be stupid to do anything illegal. Switzerland has a rule of law: The government can only do what the law prescribes. The government is forbidden from doing anything else. You can only be fined or otherwise punished if the code of law says so. It also means that a government employee has no discretion. Everything he does is prescribed by defined processes. You can observe this every time you interact with the state. And the government employee is not allowed to do anything else. If he observes a crime, he can alert the authorities, of course. But there is no crime here, and nothing illegal. We are only taking actions that are allowed, for which there are no fines and no legal consequence whatsoever. We are simply trying to find a legal way to protect our savings from undue taxation.
Let’s look at the other thread then…
…which, by your own admission, you do…
…which means you are subject to taxation in CH and (would) have to pay taxes here, wouldn’t you?
In „theory“? Let‘s be honest what the word means:
It means law and its interpretation by the courts.
…which, again, by your own admission you will not.
To summarise:
- One stays tax-resident in Switzerland until they establish tax residence somewhere else. You said it yourself.
- You‘ll deregister in Switzerland but will not establish tax residence somewhere else.
- In fact, you‘ll even lie to the authorities about settling in Montenegro, when you instead plan on travelling the world without doing so. Again, you said it yourself.
- You plan not to pay taxes in Switzerland, even though by law your Swiss tax residence will be upheld - as you said yourself.
Not paying taxes when you’re still tax resident (and have income) is illegal, isn’t it?
Please point out where I’m wrong?
Note: pointing out “…but they’ll never ask you about fact X, investigate circumstance Y and ask for proof Z” (as you did over the last couple of days) only substantiates why you’ll get away with things.
Is it illegal to tell the authorities you’re moving to Montenegro? No, it isn’t. But devising and executing a carefully crafted plan to mislead authorities about establishing residence elsewhere when you know you won’t become resident there, to escape taxation? As they about parts and sums of parts….
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I believe Swiss residents have to pay AHV contributions of ~0.8% of wealth if they are not working
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Updating this thread since I saw this from the Federal Social Insurance office:
[Edit: above post should have read “Swiss residents have to pay AHV contributions of ~0.2% of wealth if they are not working”. ]
Given that the law and the jurisprudence are clear, what you are describing seems to be like a fraud.
What’s clear to you and the newspaper journos is not that clear internationally.
One thing Permanent / Perpetual Travelers do to get around all this rigmarole is obtain residencies in places with territorial taxation (i.e. where only local income is taxed, and global income can be obtained tax-free)
There’s a few of those that most PTs I’ve heard about tend to crowd to. Malta is the closest to this in Europe (still quite territorial, but not enough to piss off the rest of the EU), Panama being the one that frequently comes up.
See e.g. Oh wie schön ist Panama: der optimale Wohnsitz für Perpetual Traveler
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