Professional investor status

I was reading this article (Taxes on Dividends and Capital Gains in Switzerland Explained - moneyland.ch) on private investor vs commercial investor status. I was just wondering : let’s assume that, some year, I make transactions that lead to me being classified as “commercial investor”. Is this a then permanent status, or does it apply only to the fiscal period over which the violation of the five rules happened ?

Please search the forum, this topic has been discussed many times. It’s not as simple breaching one of the rules and you suddenly become a professional investor. There are many people here incl. myself that breached one or even multiple rules for qualifying as a professional investor and none of us has been classified as such.

The tax authorities also have an interest in being careful whom they classify as professional, because you can then also claim your losses from your investments.

Sure, I understand this, and fully agree with you. But I’m just genuinely interested in my question: is it a status that is attributed once, or assessed yearly ? I couldn’t find any answer on this.

I doubt there are general rules (will depend on cantons anyway), and if you think you should no longer be treated as pro you can probably request a reassessment :slight_smile:

You can give a call to your cantonal tax authorities (but given how hypothetical this is, I doubt it’s worth anyone’s time).

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