Deductible Interests from Government Bonds (Fixed Income)

Hello Everyone,

I noticed something interesting while browsing the list of possible deductions from my Canton’s Tax Guide. The interests coming from ‘Fixed Income’ obligations are deductible (with a maximum) from Cantonal and Federal Incomes, (in French: “Intérêts échus de capitaux d’épargne”) . This includes most of regular bank accounts interests, but also I guess Government Bonds ETF’s revenues.
I understand this as a way to encourage taxpayers to invest into governments debts.

I know Government Bonds ETFs are not encouraged for Swiss investors right now, but I would like to know if some of you have experience related to tax declaration of such assets, and if I understand correctly this deduction rule?


Sources (in French):
Page 16, item 17 of the tax declaration guide: https://www.ge.ch/document/18775/telecharger
"Intérêts échus de capitaux d’épargne—Titres et Relevés fiscaux
Sont déductibles au titre d’intérêts échus de capitaux
d’épargne :

  • Les intérêts sur obligations à taux fixe et bons de caisse
    qu’ils soient suisses ou étrangers (les obligations contenant
    un droit de conversion ou d’option ne sont pas considérées
    comme des obligations ordinaires, mais comme des produits
    dérivés / structurés non déductibles au titre d’intérêts d’épargne)
  • Les rendements sur fonds de placement exclusivement
    obligataires (type “Bonds”, “Fixed Income”, etc.)

The deduction does not really help for 2 reasons:

  1. deleted

  2. The deduction is lumped together with the one for health insurance. As they have risen a lot over the past 15 years, those alone usually eat up the deduction.

Hi,

At cantonal level, intérêts échus are not capped with health insurance but with life insurance premiums up to CHF 2’196 (single person) annually. At the top you can add your health insurance premiums which (deduction capped to 2 times the cantonal average premium CHF 14’340 for 2019).

If you have CHF 1’500 of interest income from bonds, bonds funds, bonds ETF and CHF 6’000 for healh insurance, you can deduct CHF 7’500.

However, at Federal level, all these deductions are capped together for a maximum deduction amounting to CHF 1’700. Much less interesting to reduce the tax burden