Other country ETF that we can buy tax free with the DA-1?

Hi all
We know that buying an Us Stockes ETF USxxxxxxxxx from the NYSE and declaring it in the DA1 form we can retrieve the withholding tax on the dividend (basically a reduction on the amount of taxes due)

are there other countries to which Siwtzerland has a double taxation treaty? Before doing any research I was hoping somebody already did the gorundwork :smiley:
Particularly I’m interested in the UK, Japan, Germany etc. So that Ideally you could buy 5/6 ETF and replicate the Dev World index by using proxy for the different countries. So 55% the USxxxxxxx , 9% JAP ETF JPxxxxxx etc.

Do we know for which countries we can purchase ETF at the local stock market?
Probably you pay way more fees to buy a JPxxxxx at the Tokio Exchange that I don’t know if it is worth it

What’s wrong with VT? For what you plan I think it makes no sense toreplicate it yourself when others do it within one ETF.

1 Like

with VT you get only the US withholding tax, so more or less 55% with the DA1. There are money lost in taxes from dividend distribution from companies not in the US bought by the US-etf
I use VTI for the moment so that I get the most tax efficient ETF. I was wondering if Switzerland has double treaty that works in a similar way with other countries.

2 Likes

Yes, Switzerland concluded multiple treaties:


or

The US also concluded a lot of treaties, which are maybe or maybe not better than Switzerland.
For example: If a US ETF buys a UK stock and receives dividends. The ETF provider will beneficiate from the treaty concluded between the US and the UK. In the end, you will indirectly beneficiate from this treaty.
In this case, if the US/UK and CH/UK treaties are the same, there is no advantage to buying the stock directly on the UK market

This area is very tricky and unless you managed millions, I wouldn’t bother with that.

Have a look at this page more info on L1 and L2 dividend tax withholding
https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Nonresident_alien_with_no_US_tax_treaty_%26_Irish_ETFs

2 Likes

Thanks! Will take a look

Hi @Grog,

Did you dig further into this? I’m starting to check value investing and will have to do my homeworks.
Current interest is Japan, France and Germany. I didn’t even quickly googled yet as I wanted to see if you did some ground work in the end :smiley: #lazyweb

See list of contracting states. The form should always be DA-1. That’s, for example, also what I did with Canada.

No research done from my side sorry.

See list of contracting states. The form should always be DA-1. That’s, for example, also what I did with Canada.

Thanks!

No research done from my side sorry.

Np will document my findings when taxes’ time comes in :slight_smile:

With the exception of the US, most other countries represent a rather small percentage in world indexes and on average they tax less than the US even with the treaty. If I recall correctly it’s on the order of 8-10% in aggregate

Sure, you can go ahead and buy a tax optimal ETF for each market you can, but you will very quickly hit diminishing returns with this strategy and your time is much better spent doing something else.