Hi Barto, does that mean then, whilst living in Swizerland, I can take the 25% Tax free lump sum (after 55 years old) from my UK pension and not be taxed on it by Switzerland - suppose only Wealth tax will apply then?
I’d be surprised if with such salaries there are companies not insuring the full salary. Do you know of any?
My cheap employer does that. They’re a class act.
I do.
Though I agree that major Swiss employers will be unlikely to do so. There are also financial incentives to offer or shift a part of compensation to occupational benefits rather than paying it all out as taxable salary for higher earners.
Isn’t it an easy 10% comp bump to switch to an employer with a nicer 2nd pillar? I’m always amazed by how little 2nd pillar is taken into account when getting an offer (I think sometimes it’s even hard to have any info…).
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Yes, can’t wait to leave. It was my first contract in CH and I had no idea about these things then. Also, it was all in German which I speak very little of.
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Yes I believe so. Only UK income taxes would apply. I believe you would also benefit from the UK personal allowance whereby the first £12,570 of income is not taxed in UK (whether the UK will continue to allow non residents to benefit from personal allowance after Brexit is another question)
It would be interesting to know when you claim the withholding taxes in case of moving to a Non-EAA country with a DTA, can you have the amount transfered to a Swiss account and keeping them there?
I don’t think so, claiming the tax at source just means that your destination country subtracts from the amount you owe however much was withheld by Switzerland on the payment. It’s not really refunded by Switzerland, they keep the tax they took. That’s my understanding anyway.
Not sure what the exact question is, but you can have a bank account everywhere.
So why shouldn’t you be able to receive the fund on a Swiss (or third-country) bank account?
Location of bank account generally doesn’t mean much with regards to taxation (with the exception of remittance-based systems, but these generally only trigger on domestic accounts).
The forms ask for a bank account to wire the refund to. 
If it’s refundable, it’s refundable.
(As a side note: the oft-discussed offset (“subtraction”) of foreign tax withheld on dividends through form DA-1 generally applies to non-refundable foreign withholding tax - whereas any refundable part of foreign withholding tax on dividends would need to be claimed directly from the foreign tax authority. The documentation requirements often make this quite cumbersome and expensive though. And common investment fund domiciles such as Ireland, Luxembourg, the UK, or even the US with W8-BEN typically don’t charge us refundable withholding taxes on distributions from funds).
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It is an ongoing process and it will work like the test I did with pillar 3a (but with lower resulting taxes). The tax authorities in Luxembourg will stamp and sign form Q-IS, as shown in the article. I expect the reimbursement of withheld taxes in Dec 2022
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Very helpful, Thanks.
Interestingly the form Q-IS you linked dated 2019 does not make the same mention of Malta as in the 2021 form that I linked above (it suggested Maltese authorities had to confirm pension had been remitted to Malta which I understand would have triggered Maltese taxes). The form on ESTV site is the 2019 version. So perhaps the Malta option that was suggested does exist
[Edit: I just checked, the Q-IS form on the Geneva tax website requires Maltese authorities to confirm pension has been remitted to Malta ]