Hello all. I am looking for a report in IBKR showing the fees of the underlying ETFs I hold. For example, the currency amount of Vanguard’s 0.22% VWRL fee. This is useful for claiming a tax deduction for management fees.
The IBKR reports I see only show the IBKR commissions. I am familiar with other brokers that show the total fees affecting the portfolio. Anyone have any ideas?
I don’t know whether tax authorities would even accept fund TER from such a report. And transaction fees are definitely not tax deductible. Most cantons accept a 0.3% flat deduction (up to 6k) without any evidence, though. Is that not a suitable option for you?
Forget it, you won’t be able to deduct TER from your taxable income.
Thanks for the response. Looks like I’ll just be claiming the flat deduction!
I asked the tax authorities in my canton two years ago whether I could deduct TER. Took ages for them to respond. Ultimately got an email from them that I should include a statement of the fees in my tax declaration. Did so, did not even declare them (as I still was not convinced) and instead asked once again in the tax declaration whether this would be deductible. Ultimately they indeed deducted it…
Did not include transaction fees though. It seemed pretty clear to me that these are not deductible…
hya @Sunnyberny , this is interesting.
What did you include as “statement of the fees” for the corresponding ETF?
Did you simply attach the ETF Fact Sheet?
Did they then allow a deduction = TER x value of your investment in that ETF on 31.12?
Much thanks.
And much did you deduct as a percent of overall equity?
Pretty small amount, TER was around 0.2%. I have a German broker and they issue an annual statement of fees that I added to my tax declaration. I also have some funds on IB but did not declare any fees for these I as did not find an appropriate fee statement from them.
Obviously micro optimization…
Sounds like you would have had a bigger deduction with the 0.3% Pauschal?
Which is also why I suspect we should not take that as a hint that deducting TER works 
There was a mentioning of a cap for pauschal deduction. Was it 4k? Effective deduction might make sense starting from 1 400 000 in funds.
6k in zh
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Pauschal in my canton (BS) does not exist…
Not pauschal, but the upper limit is also 0.3%, <= which things usually go unquestioned.
I suppose you’d want to be able to back up even a 0.1% deduction, no?
So, for a place with no Pauschalabzug, do you do an Abzug for ETF TER? And calculated/(estimated ?) by yourself for an ETF at IBKR for example?
Quite nice that the German broker supplies such info. Maybe this could be a “report” one could request IBKR to generate (they have an area where they collect client requests/recommendations and others can upvote etc.).
Micro-optimization… well, yes and no, maybe one day 1M in ETF’s, = CHF 2000 deduction from your income, = maybe CHF 500 less taxes p.a. … it can add up. 
Anyway, I’ll probably try to sum up my TERs for next year’s declaration and see what happens. Thanks for the initial idea @Sunnyberny 
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In Zurich you can only deduct half of the fee (past the 6k) (Weisung des kantonalen Steueramtes über die Abzugsfähigkeit der Kosten für die Verwaltung von Wertschriften des Privatvermögens | Kanton Zürich).
(I assume your ETF provider won’t give you a breakdown of cost between eligible/non eligible).
I’m not completely sure it refers to half of the TER, I understand it as half of a bank all-inclusive fee.
My general understanding is that custody fees as well as fees to obtain the Steuerauszug are deductible (because these costs cannot be avoided even by just buying and holding) but not transaction fees and TER (because these are costs to buy, sell, or delegate buying and selling directly to the bank or indirectly to the ETF, and buying and selling are personal life decisions that people are in control of).
Some banks have wealth management mandates with an all inclusive fee containing custody, transaction and TER but without the details, and I think this is what the document may refer to.
But it could depend on the canton, and I’m also not a tax advisor. Personally I use the Pauschal because it makes it easier.
I’ve went back and forth on this so I don’t really know. Can’t you make the case that an ETF or mutual fund has administration and safekeeping fees (incl. in the TER) that are purely for value preservation (not increasing capital).
Edit: I wonder if big etf provide publish a breakdown, but I actually assume that research and transaction aren’t the bulk of the TER.
Ditto, but it can be relevant when you hit the limit if you want to deduct more than 6k.
Edit: but with TERs of ~0.1% or below (typical for large vanguard funds), you’d need to have >12M to be able to deduct more than 6k 
Yes, that’s possible indeed!
Is a bit funny (and don’t know how much the tax office would like it, there doesn’t seem to be supporting jurisprudence), it argues that if the return is X%, we should be able to deduct (1 - X%) * cost incurred, since that’s the part of the fee that “preserved value” of the wealth.
(I don’t quite follow why that would be true, don’t think I’d attempt it)