Removal of imputed rental value

OK, so my negative carry trade trick to not pay any tax does not work any longer. Too bad…

Anybody knows when this will go live, is it already for next year?

BTW: if somebody still wants to do the completely legal negative carry trade trick to not pay tax this year: long CHF, short USD, deduct the interest difference from your income and put the capital gain tax free in your pocket. If the Dollar gains against the CHF at least you have the tax benefit.

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The posters on the street wanted to warn me about some radicals that want to ban air travel or barbecue. But that was likely directed at some other vote, I didn’t really get it :rofl:

You’ll have to answer why Romandie votes so differently :wink:

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At least in Zürich I don’t remember seeing campaigning about the imputed rent (while I did see some eg in Neuchâtel)

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I think all “Hauseigentümerverbände“ propagated a yes, because those are also full of boomers.

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I can only speak for Valais and I’m biased because I work in the construction sector but I’ve seen several articles and debates (so there has been a dialog on the topic) as well as architects/engineers/contractors taking position on social media against the proposal because of the termination of the deductability of renovations for self owned homes.

I don’t think the difference is due to the composition/self interests of the electorate because I’d expect the Graubunden to be closer to Valais than Zürich on that topic and Zürich and Geneva to be closer together than from, say, Jura.

It could also be cultural, hence my asking for the feeling of people who are in the area.

I’m curious on market moves of real estate funds tomorrow.

Rental value tends to be higher in D-CH.

Abstimmungen benefiting wealthy people tend to have more success in D-CH. I don’t know why. Oh, I know why. There are more. Rich people.

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What do you expect the impact to be? The impact should be mostly on the owner occupied housing.

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I have no clue tbh. It should have an impact on overall housing prices though, even though it’s not the subset of housinng directly affected. It effects supply/demand that should translate.

I think it depends …

Atm it seems like many prices that are paid are usually around the maximum that DINKs can afford to get a mortgage for regarding their salaries. If this is the case, a lower cost while operating the house can not move the needle much regarding normal Eigentumswohnungen. OTOH very expensive residences might well go up in value.

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Not sure if I’m representative, but I struggle to grasp the concept of imputed rent. All the argumentation I came across was based on “less taxes, renters will need to cover it” or “less renovation, meaning less business for us”. Disguised as not hitting climate goals, of course.

My own self-interest aside, all the arguments were just no really convincing.

That aside, I didn’t notice some massive media campaign around Zurich, so the results might as well we “cultural”, even though I don’t experience that difference in daily life.

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Well if you zoom in, city of ZH said no. But the surroundings where ratio of owning vs. rent is higher overruled it.

My question would rather be, why the same didnt seem to manifest on the left side of the Röstigraben.

That being said, it should not be allowed to let people vote on sth. with a title different from what everyone is talking/writing. IMO that’s deceiving. Very obviously, a crucial pillar of that vote was ‘Eigenmietwert’ and that word was not in the title.

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I agree with you the content and its implications were not clear at all for the lambda person who has no interest in the topic… I think a lot of people have not yet realized that they won’t be able to deduct consumer credit interests from taxes as a result of that vote although as the title suggested this should completely unrelated. Also how the mechanics of deductions for rental properties with the pro rata part and how properties held abroad will be taxed going further is not 100% clear, I did not find examples on those. What I assume at least on this topic is that owning a second home abroad for self usage will not impact taxes anymore as you won’t have to declare a rental income on it.

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Please enlighten me what a lamdba person is, and why they should have consumer debt and/or property abroad that should be deducted from their tax return.

Just out of curiosity, I’m not in touch with latest lingo

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do you have a reference for this? not that i don’t trust you, i just don’t know how to look for this myself

You can check the law it changes the art 33 lifd.

I would qualify the lambda person as someone who has no interest in personal finance or politics and there are a lot of people like that ^^. One thing that made me think that this would not pass is the fact that any kind of credit interest will not be deductible anymore unless you own rental units or are a first time buyer. Although Switzerland is a rich country personal consumer credits are still a thing and I would not be surprised to see people wondering why they can no longer deduct their interests on their purchases other than real estate when that new law comes into force. Unless you read the full extend of the law, the title of the votation object did not say anything about that lol.

That’s actually the one thing that made me vote no for this ^^. I’d have supported one of the previous versions of the text from early 2020 where they proposed to still be able to deduct some of your interests but that proved too much for the left ^^.

I must confess that I wasn’t expecting to find here so many supporters of the status quo and therefore so many expressions of opinions against the abolition of one of the most debatable taxes (at least for a foreigner).

As mustachians, I was on the impression that buying on credit (goods, vehicles, services…) should not be the way to go. Obviously buying a property where to live, cannot be done in any other way in this country (besides for truly wealthy families).

Cumulating interest on debt to lower the tax bill, sounds quite odd to me. I’d rather have no debt and pay my taxes, but I understand that is a personal preference. Exception made for carry trades or sophisticated financial strategies which I ignore and I just learnt about in this thread.

Personally, I’m very happy for the abolition of this stupid tax, having very recently purchased a newly built house in canton Zurich, with a quite large mortgage. My imputed rent would amount (after standard deductions) to 45k chf. Yearly interests with saron mortgage are around 7/8k chf. Hence around 13k chf of extra tax with zero chances of further deductions, since the house will not need any big renovation expense for the next 20 years.

Other than the mortgage, I don’t plan to have any other debt or margin loan, while at the same time I’m not planning to repay any of the mortgage.

To my perspective - and I’m kindly asking you all to challenge it and point me to what I’m possibly missing or misunderstanding - it was overly unfair that after saving money for the downpayment, depleting my pension fund, paying extra taxes on the withdrawal of 2nd and 3rd pillar, paying interests on a large mortgage, I was also penalized in my tax bill for an income I didn’t have. Having the possibility to deduct interests was just another twisted way to sugar coat a very sour pill, with the side effect of encouraging personal indebtedness to the highest levels globally.

Why would somebody have a tax benefit from buying expensive cars (or anything else for that matter) on a loan, is beyond my grasps of ‘fiscal equality’. Why would somebody consider renovation works to lower their tax bill, is again something counterintuitive, as the first and utmost reason should be to improve their quality of life and preserve the value of their property. Both of which will not disappear because of this referendum outcome.

The only scenario where I would benefit from the current status quo, is with interest rates rising above 2.5% for an extended period of time. That hopefully won’t happen anytime soon, and I will take measures to dampen their effect should it happen.

As I said, maybe I’m missing something since so many of you guys are of the opposite opinion, and I’d be very grateful if you could point me towards what that is.

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