Multiples 3a: Frankly, viac, finpension or all of them?

Howdy everyone!

I’ve finally cancelled out my 3a life insurance thanks to your advices and am now looking for creating some accounts for my 3a, but I’d want to have your thoughts here: do have all your accounts in only one, or do you mix up a bit to not have all your eggs in the same basket?

I’d create one account, fill it up to 50k CHF over 9 years or so and then start the next one.

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I already have 3 in VIAC and currently I’m considering another 2 with finpension (I’m in Vaud, so 5 is max from what I heard). Please let me know about your thoughts about this approach.

Don’t do what @MrCheese is suggesting, it’s a pretty bad idea. I would strongly advise to open up all the accounts you plan on having in the end and evenly contribute to them. That way you don’t run into problems of having way too much in one account in the end.

Let’s assume someone is 30 and will pay 30 years into 3a and plans to withdraw 5 seperate accounts starting from 60. Let’s assume that he/she is investing in Global100 (or whatever) and expects 6%/year in returns.

If this person would pay 6 years into the 1st, 6 years into the 2nd etc. the end balance with 60 would be quite a difference in each account. The first would have the most time to compound, the last almost no time to compound. If we would do it like that and pay 6800/year for 6 years into each account (one after the other), you would end up with the following amounts:

  1. 206k
  2. 144k
  3. 100k
  4. 70k
  5. 49k

You end up wasting a lot of money due to paying more taxes. If you would just split it up into 5 accounts from the start, each one of them would end up with exactly the same amount, 114k each in my example (which is the same amount as those numbers combined devided by 5).

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Fair point. But how will the tax statements look like? 5 times a contribution of 1200 CHF? Or are you still suggesting to only use one provider and they aggregate it?

I always contribute the full amount of e year to the account with the lowest balance. They won’t be perfectly equal, but the difference is probably too small to make a big difference.

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I’m opening one account per year and contributing fully to it that year. Then rotate. However, to get as evenly distributed amount in each account as possible, it would probably be better to open 5 at once and contribute each year max/5 to all of them.

You get one tax statement per provider. So if you have 5 portfolios/accounts with Viac, you get one statement with the combined contributions. In the end it won’t matter if you use 5 providers for 5 accounts and get 5 tax statements, just enter 6826 CHF in the tax program and attach all the statements. It’s just 1min of work each year.

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I second …er, third that.
Keeping things reasonably where they don‘t make a difference.

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what about the choice between a global equity 60 or 80% on finpension or a 60-80 global with VIAC, the fees look a bit less on fin pension, suggestions? thanks

Quick update as my GF started with 3a last year and we opened up 5 accounts at Viac. She received 5 individual tax statements. But in EasyTax you just have to enter the total amount and include all statements.

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