I’m currently living in Zurich with a B permit and would really appreciate some advice on a few tax-related concerns.
Here’s my situation:
I have a Neon bank account, which doesn’t allow for cash deposits.
Earlier this year, I received a CHF 5,000 gift from my relatives. I used Western Union (WU) to send the money to myself, which was then transferred to my bank account. At the time, I wasn’t worried about it since my salary was under CHF 120k, so I didn’t have to file a tax return.
However, I recently switched jobs, and it looks like my income for this year will exceed CHF 120k, meaning I’ll have to declare my taxes.
I’m also expecting another gift of CHF 20-30k from my relatives, and I’m unsure how to proceed. WU requires me to sign a paper declaring that the money is mine, not a gift, otherwise, I can’t use their services.
Given this, I have several questions:
Now that I have to declare my taxes, how should I handle the gift money I’ve received? What’s the best way to ensure I don’t end up paying unnecessary taxes on it?
I have multiple accounts—Neon, Revolut, Etoro, and Interactive Brokers (IB). I transferred money from Etoro to Revolut, then from Revolut to Neon, and finally from Neon to IB. Do I need to declare every one of these accounts, even if there’s no money in them? Should I also declare accounts outside of Switzerland?
What’s the best way to invest the gift money I’m expecting without incurring heavy taxes? I’m a bit clueless about how this works and am hesitant to deposit it into my bank account without knowing the tax implications.
I’d appreciate any guidance or experiences you can share. I want to ensure I’m compliant with Swiss tax laws while making the most of the gifts I receive…
Tax return in Switzerland requires global income and assets disclosure. So all accounts need to be declared (banking, real estate, insurance, crypto, brokerage, whatever) irrespective of where they are.
Gifts can be declared in Tax form as well. There is a specific section for it. There are multiple scenarios and exemptions. However it depends who is the gift donor , their relationship with you and I think also their actual location. It might be best to check with your tax office. It could very well be that money you are going to receive would be tax exempt but it’s best to check with the tax office to be sure defining the details.
It is always good to have a clear paper trail for source of income. Otherwise you will end up having troubles explaining how the money ended up in your accounts.
So, I need to declare everything. It’s going to be quite the task generating all these reports and documents. What should I do about the cash I received? My grandparents had been saving their pension, and they’ve given me the money now…
For the cash, I assume you mean paper notes or something.
I think the mode of payment is not a problem (in the end cash, bank transfer all results in same outcome). However cash transactions are always scrutinised more than electronic ones for obvious reasons.
If you declare that you received this money from your grandparents and you have a written document to prove it, it should be fine. I suggest to ask tax office to advise what type of document would be deemed sufficient. For example an notarised affidavit.
In most countries as soon as you would try to deposit big chunks of money in cash in bank accounts , you will be asked for source of income (with documentary evidence) because banks would need to protect themselves against money laundering allegations.
P.S -: the main point is declaring gifts / income etc is important. It doesn’t always means that all of it would become taxable income. There are lot of exemptions
I’m not aware of there being any gift/inheritance taxes on direct-line gifts/bequests.
If you used WU to send you your money, then obviously the gifting happened before you used WU.
Generally, you can just declare the gift in the tax report and if the tax office wants more details, they’ll ask you about it.
Declaring “empty” accounts is a nuisance and annual reminder to close down things you do not use anymore, so helpful in some sense.
Investing the money “without incurring heavy taxes”, you can do this just as well as you would your own savings. There’s no tax on capital gains, so just take a long-term approach, throw it into the markets (diversified broad index funds, or whatever niche you want to focus on), forget about it, and it’ll hopefully yield tax-free gains after a while.
Unfortunately, I don’t have written proof of this… Would it be possible to deposit it in smaller amounts? For the tax declaration, I only need to report my earnings from the Lohnausweis and the total amounts in my Interactive Brokers and Neon accounts, correct? Do I need to provide details of every transaction, such as deposits into my bank account?
If I close an account that’s empty, I won’t need to declare it at the end of the year. That makes sense and seems logical, so I’ll go ahead and close my empty accounts. It will make things easier. Sorry if I seem unsure; this is my first time handling taxes, and I want to make sure I don’t make any mistakes. How does it work at the end of the year? Do I generate a tax report from my bank and brokerage accounts, add my income from my employer, and that’s it? Do I need to declare every transaction that occurred in my bank account, or just the final balance?
If the final balance is all that matters, I could gradually deposit the money into my bank account to avoid triggering any money laundering alerts, then transfer it to my IB account to invest. No one would notice since it’s only 20-30k, right? Then I could avoid dealing with the whole thing altogether… Is this legal?
Why can’t they write a document saying that? It doesnt have to be notarized or anything.
(That said in many countries, gifts like that need to be documented since it’s usually counted as part of inheritance, once they person dies those gifts added back for computing things like minimum amounts)
For tax declaration, you need to declare everything
salary income in Switzerland
Worldwide assets (stocks, ETFs, Crypto, insurances , Real estate, bank accounts)
Worldwide income -: interest from bank accounts, dividend income, royalties, rental income etc) which means you need to have an annual statement from these accounts showing what was beginning balance, what was year end balance and what was income generated.
If you don’t declare Gifts from grandparents, you might get a question from Tax office to explain how you got that money. Because your bank balance will increase from one year to another.
If you cannot show a documentary proof that money was gift from grandparents , then automatic assumption would be „undeclared source of income i.e black money“, „money laundering etc“.
What you need to be aware of is following
if you cannot prove the money was obtained via legal means, it would be assumed that it is obtained via illegal means.
Tax office might overlook that your bank balance increased without an equivalent source of income OR they will notice it and send you a notice to explain. It all depends on how they review these things and what they consider suspicious.
My recommendation would be to ensure you have documentary evidence that money was given to you „in cash“ by your grandparents before it makes way to your bank accounts
With digital finance, it’s not rocket science for tax offices to figure things out. What they do with that information is entirely up to them.
This will be my first time filing taxes in Switzerland, so theoretically, I could claim to be a millionaire, but there’s no way to prove it, as I’ve accumulated my wealth outside of Switzerland.
Hypothetical scenario: I have CHF 500,000 invested, CHF 500,000 in my bank account, and I earned CHF 150,000 this year. Would this raise any suspicions? Essentially, the tax authorities have no knowledge of my financial situation before 2024, so I’m only declaring what I currently have. This doesn’t necessarily mean all of it came from this year’s CHF 150,000 salary. Could they question how I accumulated this amount of money without earning a salary exceeding CHF 1 million this year?
In reality, since this is my first time filing taxes, my net worth will be lower than my gross salary for this year, even if I gradually deposit gift money into my bank account in small portions.
Could someone recommend a tax advisor with reasonable hourly rates? I really want to get this right and avoid paying taxes on the gift money…
I cannot say. Most likely they would rely on vigilance of tax authorities in previous jurisdictions. But I don’t know how it works.
There are checks and balances in various institutions but to be honest I never had to deal with this , so I don’t know.
As others have already pointed out, it might well be that you won’t have to pay any taxes on this gift. Or even so, it would probably end up cheaper than paying 1h of tax advisor.
If you are really afraid, just give a phone call to the tax office of your canton
Note that a millionaire would have had filing obligation as soon as they move to Switzerland since I’d guess they’re above the threshold where filing tax is mandatory in every canton (the limit is something like 70k in ZH).
Also foreign financial institution are going to report your account balance to the tax authorities (it might include balance at beginning and end of fiscal year)
Many cantons have no taxes for donation/inheritance in direct lineage (or a very high allowance). So yeah should be a non issue (but afaik should be declared, at least to keep track of the allowance amount)
(credit suisse used to have a very nice summary but looks like this was lost with the UBS merge)
No taxation in Switzerland in my understanding.
Taxes on presents in CH have to be paid to the canton where the money came from. If the money came from another country, it’s (only) subject to the rules in that country.
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