Pillar 3a: More than 5 accounts

From my understanding, this is only for house purchase cases.

No, for house purchases it’s already possible. They want to extend this to withdrawal for retirement and self-employment.

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Silberschmidt striking again. More tax breaks for the wealthy and business for pension scheme providers. Must be his clientele.

I get that self-employed may be better served by allowing partial withdrawals rather than all-or-nothing, and yes, persons insured with a pension benefit benefit (not only from eligibility to receive monthly pensions but also) from possible staggered retirement, which vested benefits account holders don’t.

But the supposed „reduction of complexity and bureaucracy" is utter nonsense. If there are tax incentives to do staggered (partial) withdrawals, it’s all going to create more bureaucracy, especially if limits or restrictions are imposed.

The wording is a bit complicated if you’re not a native speaker

Der Bundesrat wird beauftragt, Massnahmen zu treffen, um wie bei der Wohneigentumsförderung einen Teilbezug der persönlichen Vorsorgegeldern (FreizĂŒgigkeit und SĂ€ule 3a) zu ermöglichen. Dabei sollen wie beim Teilkapitalbezug aus der beruflichen Vorsorge eine maximale Anzahl BezĂŒge und ein minimaler Betrag pro Bezug vorgesehen werden.

This says, the federal council should enact measures to make it possible to partially withdraw the 3rd pillar, as with withdrawing it for self used real estate. It’s already okay to do so for RE strangely.

Sure, but you can only stretch the withdrawal over so many years. In terms of tax savings, this is already possible, you just need to own a property. Also and this is my opinion: We’re on a FIRE forum, we should take any tax cut we get lol.

Imho they should just allow 5 or even better 10 withdrawals total - would be more transparent. Or they could just remove this nonsense and adjust the tax rate to a lower rate (so this doesn’t cost more for anyone).

We can disagree with policies on moral or philosophical grounds - despite taking advantage of them ourselves.

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Absolutely, this is the most Swiss thing to do after all :sweat_smile:

Just charge an accumulated progressive tax rate over multiple years rather than resetting the tax rate every year.

Make 10 withdrawals pay the same tax as for one.

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Yeah, but then imho the tax rate needs to be lower, as atm. the real tax rate is only a stupid tax - and anyone with some planning pays the staggered rate.

Then again, for an employee, even with a lot of money, this doesn’t matter that much. If anything, I’d like to have tax free principal inside 3a, but that likely won’t happen. In Switzerland, the state doesn’t really help the middle class. If you have a well funded 3a, you’re likely saving the government more in life end costs than you’d ever pay in taxes. That could be appreciated a bit more imho.

In your opinion, how could the state help the middle class?

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For people who really care, there’s always the option of moving to a low tax canton. Also not all cantons have a progressive tax, if there’s a flat rate instead splitting doesn’t impact the tax paid.

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It’s not the first time I hear this statement in this forum. I find that statement strange, really strange. I can only speak for my own circle of friends, but no one would leave their local circle of friends just because of taxes. The statistics show that, too. Most people stay where they grew up.

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Switzerland is pretty small - moving “away” can literally mean 5’ car drive to save 1/2 on your tax.

Hence the “for the people who really care”. I value the place I live in and are not planning to move even so I could save a lot in taxes. I’m happy to contribute and keep things working well for my community.

I actually have the other problem. I’d love to own Real Estate in ZG, grew up there, but unless @Butch chipps in, I would have absolutely no chance to do so - the money I’d need to spend would be FIRE money everywhere else in Switzerland.

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I was living in a great place in Schwyz but it was impossible to find a place there (to buy) which stayed within our guardrails
 so that’s how we ended up in Nidwalden.

Switzerland and real estate is all about compromises. In any case, no complaints.

What also helped for us is ditching the idea of living close to work. Work from home made that leas important. Additionally, we simply did not want to adjust our life to work anymore.

As a result: we live in a house which we’d never have been able to afford in Schwyz, it feels like vacation (mountain and lake view, nature at our doorstep), and ultra low taxes.

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