I have a margim account and the tax authorities never asked me anthing.
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Out of curiosity, how do you declare a margin account on your tax return?
It’s a private account for the tax office, isn’t it?
If you use margin, then put the negative cash balance (on31 dec) as debt and interest paid in the associated interest column.
If you generate an activity statement for whole year, these numbers will be on on the first page.
Thanks for the info, it makes sense as long as the loan is on money that doesn’t belong to you.
I’ve never used a margin account. I had thought that the tax office would consider it as a loan rather than a debt. If everything is indicated on the activity statement, at least the situation is clear.
A loan is a type of debt, so I don’t understand what you want to say here?
It seems to me that the tax office distinguishes between a loan and a debt in the sense that a debt is made available for interest and a set repayment date, whereas a loan can in theory remain open for life.
For a margin account, I imagine that as long as the account is positive, there’s no obligation to repay the loan, is there?
What do you mean by that ? At least in my tax declaration form (in TI) I don’t see such difference.
From the perspective of the broker or of the authority ? And what do you mean by “as long as the account is positive” ?
I don’t see such a differentiation in my tax return, I also don’t see why tax authorities should care whether there is a repayment date or not. What matter is the amount of debt you have now, as it reduces your taxable wealth and the interest you paid, as it reduces your taxable income.
What do you mean with positive?
Maybe for your understanding, if you have a margin loan at IB, you won’t have a separate account for the margin, but rather your cash accounts will be negative. You also don’t say “I take a margin loan of e.g. CHF 10’000”, you just withdraw from your cash account, the balance gets negative and you have to pay interest on it.
Your overall portfolio will always be positive and as soon as you breach the margin requirements, you’ll get a margin call from IB to pay back part of the margin loan until you fulfill the margin requirements. If you don’t pay back within a certain timeframe, they’ll start selling your positions to cover the loan.
No you won’t. They are known for this. They will start liquidating your positions as soon as margin requirements are breached. Can’t blame them, this is the policy that helped them to stay afloat for 50 years while other brokers went down due to the excessive leverage of their clients.
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Thanks for the correction, I somehow assumed they work thr same way like other brokers. But anyway my leverage is so low that it would take a Black Monday squared to trigger a margin call xD
Thanks for the explanation. I consulted again the documents of the tax office of my canton, and indeed, the tax office considers a loan as a debt. In both cases, on the tax return, both are to be indicated in the debt category. It was a mix-up on my part.
As for the margin loan, as I said earlier, I’m not an expert in this field. When I mentioned “as long as the account remains positive” it was in the sense that a margin call applied and therefore there was a decrease in the portfolio value. In any case, I think it’s essential to educate myself on how margin loans work, it’s an interesting system but one that requires a good knowledge 
.
It’s actually not that complicated IMHO, but you need to be extremly cautious when using it. Leverage is dangerous, even genius fail (e.g. Long-Term Capital Management).
And what ist when I am 65? Then I have no income only AHV, can I sell all or a large position of my portfolio? Thanks!
You overthink it really, as long as you are not trading for a living you are fine.
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surely you can’t be
then you are retired. 
But if I want to take out like 100k or more to buy something big? I saw that one should not take out more than they earn per year, so I wanted to know if this still applies if one is retired ? Bc if it is, then I could not take out more than 100k. Its just a topic that I like to know well bc I don’t want to suddenly pay tax on all of my take outs :). Nobody here retired already? 
Many people replied already, cashing out isn’t particularly professional investor behavior, I’m not sure what else you want to hear.
What it is described is definitely not professional investing.
Here is an analysis that may allay your fears. If still in doubt ask your tax authority
Hello,
I am curious about a special case in being classified as professional investor. Take this example:
- A person earns CHF 300k a year brutto, but only spends 50k nett a year due to frugal lifestyle
- In one tax year, a person realizes CHF 900k from capital gains.
Would such a person break the following rule:
- Achieving capital gains from securities transactions is not necessary to replace missing income to sustain your living. This is regularly the case when the realized capital gains are less than 50% of net income in the tax period.
So, it is much more than 50% of net income, but it does not replace the missing income. What does it mean “this is regularly the case”, if it is not usually the case? What if the person did not spend any of that money, and the sale was solely to rebalance the portfolio?
Does anyone have any such personal or documented examples of such situation?
Do you actually mean realized capital gains, i.e., that person sold investments? If so, for what purpose, if that person only spends 50k a year?
If you instead mean unrealized capital gains, that person wouldn’t break the 50% criterion.