How to efficiently fill your taxes - Geneva

Taxes
1

Hello everyone,

I am an accountant/fiscalist in Geneva and I I would like to provide you with a few advices on how to fill your taxes for those of you who live in Geneva. I advise you to use the supplied software and not the web version (GeTax). I won’t go into the exceptions and will remain focused on average taxpayers who work in Geneva.

Let’s get straight to the heart of the matter! We will procede by the section listed in GeTax.

0. Personnal data

Not much to say except if you have children:
0-18: every child earning less than CHF 15’557 per year is deductible (you can also add childcare costs, up until 14 years old, but be careful because it will lower the fixed fees that is already deducted; you have to try different combinations yourself to find the most efficient deductions)
18-25: all children in school who are in the care of their parents and who earn less than CHF 15’557 (a half-tax burden is accepted if they earn between CHF 15’557 and CHF 23’335 and their assets are less than CHF 88’776)

1. Income

This is the section where you record your salary certificate information. Simply report the numbers in the corresponding heading.
I’d like to draw your attention to a few points:

  1. Talk to your employer about maximizing your LPP (insure your whole salary up to CHF 88’200); the more you contribute, the less taxes you’ll pay (and the interest and conversion rates applied to compulsory LPP are higher than those applied to buybacks).
  2. I would advise you to buyback LPP whenever possible (unless you want to buy a property quickly by withdrawing it, in which case you should not make any purchases in the 3 years preceding the property purchase). Indeed, you’ll save tax, the LPP buyback will earn interest and the tax savings can be invested on your side (in addition to the buyback purchase).
  3. 3A pillar (in a bank, don’t put it in insurance): contribute the maximum amount each year (CHF 7’056 in 2023) and depending on the offered possibilities, you can invest it on the markets through various funds. I know some institution allows you to buy individual stocks but I would advise against that: this is part of your retirement: do not risk losing it by yoloing on Gamestop :wink:
  4. Business expenses: depending on your home and workplace, the AFC will accept different expenses. The most efficient way to claim them is the following (again, for an average taxpayer; but it is not 100% sure that the AFC accept those numbers, based on the distance between your home and your work):
    frais prof

Regarding your situation you could also claim different expenses. For example, if you work and live in another town during the week, you could claim up to CHF 6’400 meal expenses ICC and IFD and also CHF 6’000 (ICC/IFD) if you rent a place for the week, in the city where you work.

2. Assets

Simply enter the various fortune elements in your possession as of 31.12.N.
Regarding banking fees, the AFC published a really interesting document.
I won’t go into detail about this section as I’m sure other users have posted very detailed instructions for each institution.

3. Real estate

I won’t go into detail about this section as I’m sure other users have posted very detailed instructions for each institution, but I will list below a few interesting points. You can deduct many fees such as (those are often forgotten):

  • Water treatment tax;
  • Waste tax;
  • Property taxes;
  • Building insurance.

4. Interests and debts

Simply enter every amount owned as of 31.12.N and every interests paid during the year. Don’t forget to include credit card debts (regarding those, I advise to always pay the debt in full each month to avoid negative interests) and taxes debt (you can also claim interests on taxes debt but only for the year the taxation was emitted; you can ask the AFC for the year-end statement.)

6. Other income and fortune

Simply enter in this section every other income/fortune you possess, such as health insurance subsidies, family allowances, income from solar panels, etc…)

7. Deductions

This section is interesting ans is composed by a few subsections:

  1. Life insurance: here, you can either enter the life insurance premium you pay or your pilar 3b contributions (the two are often link). Geneva is one of the only Canton where Pillar 3b is deductible (you can contribute up to CHF 2’232 yearly (different deductiosn are accepted regarding your professional and marital status, which results in about CHF 600 in tax savings).
    My advice here would be to start a pillar 3b at Rentes Genevoises (no affiliation whatsoever, it’s just that it is the only institution where you keep 100% of your contribution) and you can even invest it (they launched this product a month ago and you can invest up to 60% of you contributions). You only pay about CHF 1’000 contract management fees the 1st year and nothing more (they will be reimbursed in less than two years since you save about CHF 600 per year in taxes)
  2. Health insurance: here, you can register every health insurance premiums you pay (do not forget to include in this section, under the “accidents insurance” any IJM or LAAC premiums that were deducted from your salary by your employer.
  3. Medical expenses: you can enter here any medical expenses you encountered during the year (even those that were not reimbursed by your insurance, such as dentist, pharmacy receipts (dafalgan for example). My advice here would be to send any invoice to your health insurance and they will include all of them in the year-end fiscal statement they emit.

I hope that this little guide will help you navigates the tax meanderings of the administration! I like paying taxes, I really do, but always the smallest amount possible. :wink:

PS: A few last-minute tips:

  • Pay your taxes in their entirety before the 10th of February and you will receive a 0.25% discount (and maybe even more in 2024 because the rates have risen a lot;

  • Annualize your health insurance (and pay the whole amount in one go) and your health insurance will reward you with a discount.

  • Pay every invoices you can before the 31st of December (especially taxes or health insurance because of the amount if represents) because it will lower your fortune, thus reducing your wealth tax.

Do not do that if you estimate you can earn more than that while investing but they’re still useful little tips.

8 Likes
2

A pension plan with a rate higher than legally required will not increase your compulsory LPP, though. I.e., interest and conversion rates will be the same for buy-ins and monthly contributions above the legal minimum. Higher monthly contributions can potentially still be interesting as they will increase the potential for buyback, or if the employer matches your additional contributions, of course (you also don’t pay any AHV or ALV on employer contributions to pillar 2).

In general, I would always prioritize pillar 3a over voluntary pillar 2 contributions as your pillar 3a returns will never be distributed to other people (retirees) and you have more investment options. Whether voluntary pillar 2 contributions/buy-ins make sense depends on lots of variables.

3

Thank you; I was indeed maybe not clear enough; by maximizing I meant the compulsory LPP. Contribution above the limit have another treatment (and you can also choose yourself where to invest it, through Swisslife LPP for example).

4

This is still not clear to me. Compulsory LPP is not variable for a given salary and age. There is no way to increase your compulsory LPP. The law dictates how high the compulsory contributions are (sum of employer and employee contributions to retirement capital).

5

For example, at the CIEPP, there are various pension plans. There is a CHF 25’725 deduction in the worst plan, so for a CHF 70’000 salary, only CHF 44’275 will be submitted to the LPP if your employer chose it.
Thank you for your remarks, I will update the post later by including this !

6

For compulsory LPP, you always have the CHF 25’725 deduction (as long it doesn’t fall below the minimum of CHF 3’675). Some pension plans remove or reduce that deduction. However, the resulting extra retirement contributions don’t count as compulsory LPP capital, as I understand it. I.e., the BVG minimum interest rate and conversion rate are not guaranteed by law for that extra part.

7

The extra-mandatory portion applies only to salaries in excess of CHF 88,200; the coordination deduction has no impact on the mandatory LPP, which is defined by this threshold.

8

Thanks for helping everyone with your great post. Until now I always ignored assurance vie as too complicated, due to the relatively small amount and the crappy looking products

Do you understand how the cap works? Isn’t there a limit you can deduct based on the sum of life insurance plus interest from savings (?)

Do you have any insight what Rentes Genevoises invest in and fees ?

1 Like
9

That doesn’t match my understanding. According to BVG Art. 8, the insured salary for mandatory BVG is defined as the part of the salary between CHF 25 725 and 88 200 and that’s not up to the pension fund, as far as I can tell. Art. 49 states that pension funds may offer more than what is required by law. However, it lists which articles of the law apply to the extra-mandatory part and Art. 14 (minimum conversion rate) and Art. 15 (minimum interest rate) are not among them.

Am I missing something? Does anyone else have further insight?

10

In my mind, every amount, even small is useful. “Little rivers make big ones”.
Yes, there is a limit (you have to add health insurance and interest on savings capital) but in my line of work, I have only client who cannot deduct pillar 3b.
I don’t have any insights on their product (I am in the process of transfering my own pillar 3b (already at Rentes Genevoises) so I don’t know the details) so I will update this post once I receive those answers !

11

That’s what I meant :wink: I only mentionned to maximize your LPP contributions so that your salary is insured up to CHF 88’200.

12

What is IJM and LAAC? Googling them they look like additional insurances.
I had the doubt to include there my Non-industrial accident insurance (the one you get from your employer), but it is already included in point 9 of the tax declaration, so I don’t think I should put it here.

Is this correct? Thanks

13

Quick question: what is the practice in Geneva for estimating a car’s value for the net wealth tax?

14

Hello Nasgarr,

In addition to 3a with VIAC and other providers, I am also interested in this 3b product offered by Rentes Genevoises. Have you moved forward ?

The products does not seem to include any insurance thing. For people of Geneva and Fribourg, it seems interesting (approximately 2220 chf tax deduction) while investing up to 60% in an equity fund of which I do not don’t know the performance. Even if mediocre performance, the approximately 30% of income tax gains already do the job. Did i miss something ? :wink:

See you mustachians

15

Hello,

Can you gave us the product code or ISIN ?
Rentes Genevoises is an insurance company and it sounds unlikely they will offer a low TER product.

16

An advisor answered my question about fees.

Acquisition costs :
2.5% * 20 only on the first annual premium (CHF 1115 with a premium of CHF 2230)

1.5 %/year from the 2nd year (CHF 33.45/year with a premium of CHF 2230)

Management fee :
On the fixed-rate portion: 0.4%/year (yield of 1.05% - 0.4% = 0.65%/year)
On the variable-rate portion: 0.3%/year

There are custodian bank fees based on performance (approx. 0.17%).

3 Likes
17

Hello,

Will have a meeting soon with them, so will ask about fees, track record, etc

Only document i have is the pdf you can find here:

Cheers

18

Interesting…are we sure that we can deduct this product from our revenue (2’232 CHF in 2024) ?

19

Yes, if the non-professional (and complementary) accident is included in vour salary certificate, you shoudl put them in the same section as your revenue.

20

Honestly no idea; I put the purchase price of mine so that the fortune evolution would not seem strange to the tax administration.