It may but I doubt it can gather a political majority, so would be impractical to implement and probably not be worth the time and resources to study. In order for it to work as intended, it would also require to ban early payouts for home-ownership and independent business ventures. The home-ownership part would probably get massive backlash, as people consider it too hard already now to buy a owner occupied home, in big part because of the downpayment.
That being said, increasing taxation on retirement savings withdrawals seems to also be attracting a lot of backlash so who knows what the better way to handle it is? My own understanding, given the very few data I have on the topic, is that it is a false problem and we donât need to tackle it. Itâs only on the table because the federal government is looking to cash-in more money and Iâd posit itâs not actually a necessity as is.
Given the current international context and with humility because I really donât know much on the topic, Iâd wonder if running a deficit and issuing more debt wouldnât help the SNB with itâs monetary policy, getting the Swiss franc to stay more stable in regards to EUR and USD. The higher SNB interest rates that it would allow, which should also allow for higher interests for savings accounts, should also help pension funds and people handling their retirement money (and it would also generate more taxes).
Edit: that being said, Iâm biased because I really hate the economic distortions caused by negative rates and really, really donât want to get back there.
You do realize that annuity means that money is only given to the individual and benefits to dependents or survivors are reduced significantly? Switzerland does not have state pension model like EU countries. So what would be purpose to block money of people forever?
Pension funds are already struggling to pay annuities for BVG mandatory portion at regulated conversion rate. And the âfixâ would be to make it even more difficult by making annuities mandatory across the board (BVG Mandatory, BVG extra mandatory, VB, 3a, 1e) ? What problem would be fixed by doing so?
I think all these things are being talked about together, but they are being discussed to solve different problems -:
Problem 1 -: BVG mandatory conversion rate is unsustainable. VOTE was to reject govt plans to make reforms. Reform 2.0 awaited
Problem 2 -: Federal govt need to raise money and one option suggested was to increase taxes on lumpsum withdrawals
Problem 3 -: apparently people burn through their pension funds and cost tax payer later on
What typically happens is that since raising taxes is not popular, politicians come up with some ârationale to justify itâ. For #2, the justification so far has been
a- lumpsum withdrawals are advantages vs annuity , so its only fair
b- people are finding tax loopholes , so its only fair
c- and actually Problem 3 also exists, so it would be best if we de-incentivize such withdrawals
My conclusion also. And perhaps to demonstrate to the misbehaving electorate how futile it is to vote for proposals the government disapproves of, like 13 months of AHV payoutsâŠ
Not sure how real the burning through money thing is. Maybe the money lasts even longer and they save the government money, otherwise if the annuity was such a great deal, theyâd probably have taken that instead.
In a hypothetical scenario, wouldnât it be more socially acceptable if the CH govt decided to introduce capital gains taxes rather than taxing the 3a (more)? The 3A is a potentially much smaller pot, and itâs already taxed on exit.
From a macro perspective, itâs good for a state to have a rich population, potentially: lower crime, more consumption, lower chance for social unrest.
I wonder how much money theyâd make off that change i.e. are there substantial capital gains being made.
Should it be taxed as income? Do you allow capital losses to be offset by income? If in a separate stream, do you have tax bands and a tax free threshold? Does it replace wealth tax? It starts to get complicated quickly.
Introducing capital gains tax for private investments would be a very big reform & would indeed need other changes to other taxes as well. It is not on the cards & itâs not going to happen.
The only thing I think will happen is higher Federal tax rate for lump sum withdrawals (versus todayâs rate) and perhaps some changes to staggered withdrawals rule. And even this will cause a lot of drama
People just dont realize how bad that would be for CH as a finance hub. These taxes also always fail basically. Look at Sweden on what that did there.
Companies will just leave/do business outside CH as a consequence.
And swiss companies that stay will be less competitive.
Short term a little extra money, longterm terrible for everyone involved.
I feel like itâs really hard for people to understand the impact, they just think all those transactions are useless so it doesnât matter.
HFT and most financial actors have a pretty bad reputation, so it doesnât help (even when they actually improve things, like extra liquidity/lower spread/more stable markets).
(and as you mention, finance actors can just move elsewhere)
Swiss business model is based on services⊠so I think this kind of taxation is not going to happen.
Already the ETF industry moved to IRELAND due to the Swiss WHT & CH not able to get same deal with US for ETFs
BTW. Dont we already have Stamp duties? CH govt is getting more revenue vs Swissquote when people buy / sell ETF leaders.
Itâs surprising to me that across party lines people have the financial transaction tax in the top three of desired measures to generate more income at the federal level. Again from the sotomo study:
This could tempt say, the SP and the Greens to launch an initiative to introduce such a tax as they could hope for votes even from the SVP.
Just a gut feeling, but I believe âthe peopleâ just in general are suspicious of banks, the âfinance industryâ etc. and recent events like Credit Suisse f-ing up and UBS buying them very cheaply while risks were âexternalizedâ to Switzerland (i.e. tax payers) didnât help with this.
The people might want to âstick it to the manâ without realizing theyâre probably taking a shot at their own foot.
This documents the recent decision by the federal council why they donât want to introduce further financial transaction taxes and lists the ones that were proposed in 2021 by but rejected on Oct 9 2024:
Finanztransaktionssteuern können namentlich auf Wertschriftentransaktionen (Emission und Handel von Wertschriften), auf Kredit- und Einlagetransaktionen im ZinsdifferenzgeschÀft der Banken und auf Devisentransaktionen erhoben werden. Die Schweiz kennt mit der Emissions- und der Umsatzabgabe bereits heute zwei Finanztransaktionssteuern
Edit:
I doubt, though, that the average voter will ask your question what the Finanztransaktionssteuer actually is (and I would also claim that the average participant in the referenced sotomo study did not ask the question).
I think in the average voters mind itâs a tax âthat financial institutions and the bankers making the big moneyâ will pay. Hence the broad support across party lines to introduce such a tax.
Itâs interesting how everyone goes after banks and financial institutions without thinking too much in detail.
Anyways thanks for sharing the data
Itâs interesting how people react to various things and how difficult the job of politicians actually is to make reforms
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