# Professional investor/trader status

**URL:** https://forum.mustachianpost.com/t/professional-investor-trader-status/1328
**Category:** Taxes
**Created:** [October 8, 2018, 12:11am UTC](https://forum.mustachianpost.com/t/professional-investor-trader-status/1328 "2018-10-08T00:11:11Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 121

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### Author: ![FIREstarter](https://forum.mustachianpost.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/b38774/32.png) [@FIREstarter](https://forum.mustachianpost.com/u/FIREstarter)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2021, 6:09am UTC](https://forum.mustachianpost.com/t/professional-investor-trader-status/1328/121 "2021-09-20T06:09:30Z")

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> [@Fidelio](#):
>
> if one is classified as professional trader, then he /she will need to pay taxes and AHV only on the portion of Investments where the 5 rules are not met, or also in the rest of the investment universe of this person?. For example extending into capital gains of a portfolio of stocks that are kept for the long haul?

The way I understand it ALL of your portfolio is counted, meaning that all capital gains are then taxed. So you are infecting your “private” portfolio. Which is rather unpleasant, because you don’t want to pay capital gain taxes on the long term stocks which you are not planning to sell. Note: I’m still not sure if my understanding is correct.

> [@Fidelio](#):
>
> if one has a full time employment, the professional trader classification might count as a violation of the employment contract ? Will the employer be notified of the authorities decision reg. Professional trading?

Yes, that _could_ be classified as a violation of the employment contract. I don’t think the authorities will be notifying the employer though. This is an assumption though.

I guess it really comes down to the percentage of income you are generating with the option writing, plus the canton you live in. You might be classified as a professional trader in canton Schwyz for just writing options which generate 1k per year, while you are not classified in Zurich for writing options which generate 25k per year (while earning 100k).

I read a little bit more on the topic, and found the following article from NZZ in 2019: [here](https://www.pwc.ch/de/press-room/interviews/pwc_press_20190826_nzz_wick.pdf) (in German)  
It mentions that canton Zürich only classified 100 private people in the previous 5 years (before 2019) as a professional trader. One reason for this: once you have professional trader status, you can also deduct losses from the profits.

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