How your heirs know about your bank/broker accounts

[CurlyChicken]

In my origin EU country banks/brokers and every institution that works with money are force to inform to tax authorities about the balance and movements you have done over the year. But I believe in CH it does not work like this. They don’t inform anything and tax authorities are not aware at least you inform them year after year in your tax report.

If that is the case, if you pass away and your family is not aware of all your bank/broker accounts you have opened during your last year, they would not be able to access those assets.
I said “you have opened during your last year” because probably the CH tax authorities could inform your heirs about the accounts you had in your last tax report.

Does somebody know how this works actually?

[Dr.PI]

There was a thread about making a will that goes along the lines of your post.

Do you have a will?

Same here. Don’t want to bother AND what I want is a default option. But I store some printouts with information about my brokerage accounts etc in a place where it would be logical to look for it.

[CurlyChicken]

@oslasho

they (heirs) can still search for transfers out (of the existing/known accounts) in order to get to know new bank accounts. this could additionally be told to them by person or in a will / separate document

I do not think they would have (legally) access to your bank transactions (it seems to me a bit private), that allow them find the big out transfers and find your new accounts.

[FunnyDjo]

I created a PowerPoint for my heir.
You can remind them about this ovation in your gmail inactivity notification.
An email will be sent automatically 3 months after your last connection

[Cortana]

I have a will and listed all my financial accounts there.

[CurlyChicken]

so I see that my thoughts about the risk of such bank Swiss secrecy were right.

in one way or another we should keep informed our relative about new accounts, just in case

[CurlyChicken]

@Cortana

I have a will and listed all my financial accounts there.

how much is the cost of a will in CH? how is it the process? where do u do it? I guess it should be a kind of lawyer.

[FunnyDjo]

A good will should not list your bank accounts with account numbers.
You should talk about wealth percentage for the repartition between heirs or their descendants if deceased.
So the attorney may miss a bank accounts if no one knows about it.
That’s why you could send the information to the person that will execute the repartition of your will.

[San_Francisco]

@CurlyChicken

how much is the cost of a will in CH? how is it the process? where do u do it?

Cost: a piece of paper. I trust you already have (access to) a pen. You simply write your will (entirely!) in handwriting. Hopefully respecting the legal minimums for next of kin.

That’s it. Everything else (e.g. notariaation) is a bonus and possibly good safety precaution.

[Cortana]

@FunnyDjo

A good will should not list your bank accounts with account numbers.

It doesn‘t. There is just a list of all the financial institutions where I have my accounts. So nothing gets lost (like Coinbase for example).

[tarioch]

In my experience it was the other way around. The inheritors needed to provide this inventory to the tax authority (because there is a special tax statement until the day of death).