Thank you all so much for your help, I really appreciate it! I’ll reach out to my bank to figure out the best way to deposit this money into my account. I’m not going to stress about it, especially since I’ll be reporting my Interactive Portfolio and bank accounts as assets, along with my Lohnausweis as income at the end of the year.
Maybe the bank can offer some advice, or perhaps the tax office could provide some guidance in person. Thanks again for all your help—feeling hopeful everything will work out smoothly!
Ok fair.
The relatives could still throw it back into their bank accounts, and use Wise to send it through (if from another currency).
That’s what I did with my family.
The cash is in a different currency and my grandmother is old, she cannot bear the hustle of opening a bank account in person. My current solution is to deposit the cash into a foreign bank account slowly, transfer it to Revolut to exchange it, send it to my Swiss bank account, or directly invest it in IBKR. At the end of the year, I declare what I have and that’s it
I don’t understand the need to transfer things slowly, and other sneakiness. As others mentioned, cash gifts from any non-Swiss resident can not result in a Swiss gift tax. The correct way to go about this is:
Receive cash from your relative, gift is made, the cash is now yours.
No need to do anything immediately from the Swiss tax perspective - this is not a Swiss-taxable gift.
Move cash to your bank or broker account, in any way you want - this is your money and there is nothing wrong about it. You can deposit it in the original country and then transfer to your revolut or Swiss bank or IB. You can also just bring cash with you in Switzerland and convert/deposit it if you prefer (if you cross the border with more than 10k chf, you just need to declare it - but as we said, you have nothing to hide).
When filing next year Swiss taxes you 1) declare the gift in the apposite section, this is a mere FYI to tax authorities to explain the increase in wealth and 2) you declare these money in whatever form you have it, in Swiss bank, in foreign bank, in cash, etc. and you pay wealth tax on it
On top of all this, deal with any gift tax implications from your relative’s country, if any - you need to do your own research here (or you can mention which country it is and maybe you get lucky and someone knows)
So unless you are trying to avoid some gift tax or bureaucracy from your relative’s country, I think you are overthinking this
Yes, my goal is to avoid unnecessary bureaucracy since it’s only 20k, not a significant sum like half a million. I have no intention of avoiding taxes on anything else, but for now, I’m focused on simply transferring the money, closing any empty bank accounts, and ensuring everything is streamlined by 2025. This way, my tax declaration will be straightforward, with just 2-3 bank accounts and one brokerage account to report. I’ll have a signed document from my grandmother regarding the gift, so I can provide it if required. I still need to look more closely at the wealth tax, but I don’t expect to pay much… I’ll rely on the tax calculator to confirm by year-end. Thanks for your detailed response, much appreciate it
Np! But what I mean is that there is really basically no bureaucracy from the Swiss side anyway, it’s one line in your yearly tax declaration (at least in ZH), and if your income is high enough - if you don’t put it no-one will probably care anyway as the impact on your wealth will be negligible. If you still have your foreign bank account that’s also just another line in the tax return. I think it’s also highly unlikely that Swiss institutions will raise any eyebrow for a 20k transfer. So just focus on what’s the easiest / most comfortable way for you to get that cash into an account
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