Married to a UN worker and tax declaration: need help

Taxes
1

Hello,

I am about to fill out my tax return in Geneva for 2020, and I would need help as my situation is somewhat complicated.

My wife and I live in Geneva and have been married since 2020. My wife is Indian and has been working as an international civil servant with a UN agency for about 4 years. As for me, I’m Swiss and do not work in a UN agency.
As we already knew (Les particularités fiscales | ge.ch), my wife is exempt from paying income and wealth tax as she is a foreign national and works for a UN agency (see link above). Therefore, she does not have to fill out a tax return.

However, and where things get complicated is that we have been investing in ETFs via IB since mid-2020. The IB account is registered in my name: my wife first makes her monthly payments into my bank account, and then I send everything (her payments and mine) to my IB account. The payments are split 50%-50% between my wife and me.

We also invest in cryptocurrencies and proceed as described above.

As my wife is not subject to income and wealth tax, what do I need to state on my tax return? Do I have to declare the entire Net Liquidation Value shown on the IB? Or only half, since I only contribute 50% of the payments made to my IB account?

If I only have to declare half, how do I declare dividends? On what basis can I calculate the amount of tax?
The same question applies to cryptocurrencies. Do I only have to declare 50% of our investments?

Thank you in advance for your answers!

2

I’d ask whoever processes your tax declaration because they will judge if it is okay or not.

If you know the situation is as it is, why do you share a account with her? Try to keep things simple.

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3

I’d declare the portion that belongs to her as “creditor money”, that however might still trigger wealth tax for you on that money… Asking the tax office is certainly a good idea.

4

So I wrote to the tax office in GE, and they told me that I must only declare half of our ETFs and cryptocurrencies given that my wife is exempt from paying income and wealth tax.

Thanks for your replies!

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