Still don’t get it. If my employer pays my rent or gets me car, that’s income in kind to me.
Me saving money and then getting a mortgage for the rest to buy something is different. Well, I am heavily biased, but we might agree it’s a rather obscure concept 
You have capital (real estate) producing a widget (housing).
Yes but then you are occupying your home so it is as if you were renting it to yourself. 
Today I was stuck though. I wanted to use my own pen at my desk and as everything I own and use, I wanted to sign the lease between me and myself beforehand, but how could I sign since the pen was not leased at the moment of signing.
Whether it’s fair and functional is one question, it’ll never be logic imho.
Something you have bought and own is not something you rent to yourself, it’s something you’re free to use.
So I fully agree.
Well it happened to me that a home you buy comes with the housing feature in the price.
Otherwise income capital is due on writing, programming, driving, sleeping with respective “capital” tools providing it. What about the kitchen producing meals. Income capital on feeding…
There’s a lot of example in economy where two different situations leading to a (gross) zero-sum game are not equivalent tax-wise, since transactions involve … stuff. Generally. Comparing a “each one stay at home and do nothing”-situation with “two people enter mutual lease contract to live at one another” is really tricky.
Don’t think it’s worth arguing since we’re all talking past each other 
(iirc the federal tribunal clearly said it was in kind when it ruled over it)
I think the assumption is that the cooking labor is negligible (also it’s labor so not exactly the same thing).
If instead of buying a house you buy a company that produces something, anything the company gives to you (in kind) would be taxed (even tho you fully own it and the price reflected it).
A company you own is a third party, it’s another legal entity. RE you own is not. Well, I gave myself a chance to understand the logic before it disappears, I failed, thank you all for arguing.
(Still, even if I don’t understand it, my “don’t touch a system that works”-mindset is not convinced by the recent move)
That’s more likely in response to JEPG, but I’d be genuinely interested in the arguments.
Not to drag it on endlessly, the vote is done, implementation is pending, I’d just like to understand it more
Capital gains of house owners tend to be taxed lower the longer you hold the RE.
Is this fair? I have no clue.
How are market risks an argument in this discussion? Income tax also has to be paid if you hold one million CHF in a ZKB Sparkonto with zero market risk.
I think without inputed rent there are scenarios where it is beneficial to create a company around one’s house and there is rent being paid, because you can still deduct repairs, savings for future repairs and bank payments and you can financially engineer the rent so that it allows maximum tax savings.
But I am not an expert
I think people finding logic in there have been hypnotized.
Hope this does not sound disrespectful, it is not intended to be.
Being able to deduct cost of ownership (interest and renewals) is good for the economy as it gives incentive for more turn over. → Someone will profit and pay taxes on the profit as well as MWST.
Interest being deductible does not lead to tax distortion. Because Interest you gain, is taxed. Therefore interest you pay should be deductible, because you will pay that interest to someone else who pays the taxes on these profits. It is always a zero sum game.
With the new regime you now earn money, get taxed, then pay interest with already taxed money then the other side also taxes that interest as income.
So effectively we have now a double taxation of interest.
From a tax perspective if I owe someone money and pay interest on that money. But at the same time I am lending another person the same amount of money (I might have better credit than that 2nd person) at the same interest rate. This would have cancelled out with the old tax regime. I basically hold the risk of the 2nd person for no gain.
In the new tax regime I will not be able to help that friend, as It would cost me a lot of money as taxes.
The logic was to make the underlying situation equivalent (or closer to equivalent), no matter what wrapper or scheme you employ. Reduces the need for more complicated laws balancing the choices. And there are always people trying to combine the choices so they can pay less. I mean look at us.
The idea with imputed rental value was that it should not matter if you have the house yourself, put it in a “third-party” that you own, or actually have a third-party provide the service. Each time value is created and each time it is taxed.
You find similar things for farmers. They need to pay taxes for the produce they eat themselves.
A related idea can be found in the fact that attempting to avoid a tax using a clever trick will result in the tax being applied anyway.
This idea is not perfectly enforceable. A reason why you won’t get taxed for wiping your own ass. Negligible and difficult to calculate.
The Swiss voter in their wisdom said they don’t want that, so be it. But to say there is no logic to it is stretching it.
Let me try to give another example than the “two people swapping houses”, which I agree is unrealistic and hard to understand. Hopefully it shall be more relatable whilst still being fundamentally the same.
Let’s say you live and work in place A. You own a home worth 1M, which you could rent for 2k/m. Let’s forget about mortgages, deductions and so forth to simplify, and assume you pay a 25% marginal rent on that 2k fictive income (the inputed rental income is the same as the real rent you could get in our example), thus 500/m.
Let’s now say you get a job offer in place B that looks interesting. B is a bit too far away to commute comfortably, but has the same housing prices. You’re looking for a place nearby.
Problem is, you own your home, so what do you do with it?
You could sell it and buy something in B. But it’s a big effort/commitment until you’re sure you like the job and the place. Plus, between capital gains tax (if your home as appreciated since you bought it), transfer tax, fees, … you would get less housing in B than you have in A despite the prices being the same.
The obvious answer is: I know, I’m going to rent something in B, and rent my place in A. And if I like it after a while, I could look at selling/buying (or not).
So renting for the same housing costs 2k/m as well since the prices are the same. So you pay 2k in rent, but you get 2k in rent from your home in A. After the income tax on the (real this time) rental income, your housing expenses are still 500/m. You’re no better or worse off than before.
Let’s now say inputed rental income is removed. Living in your home in A now costs you 0. Moving to B and renting costs you 500/m.
Again, multiple choices:
I hope this example shows a bit why the inputed rental income can be a good thing, by correcting the inefficiencies/distortions introduced by taxing income.
(and btw I get why home owners were unhappy about it, most people don’t want to pay tax 
for me it’s like the fact that real estate funds are sheltered for tax/income, I’m happy to benefit from it but I don’t think it’s very fair )
There are a few caveats here:
So it is not an easy solution
P.s. and don’t forget that the sale of your property to your company will be subject to the ~5% register and notary fees just like any other real estate sale
P.p.s and you might have to pay tax on the capital gain of your property sale
I think the whole idea that a home “produces” housing is quite alien to me, as a home IS a house, for me at least…
That one needs an award.
I get it, but for me there is a difference in tax treatment when you enter contract, transaction, lease, cash flow, and when you’re not, even if in the end it’s a zero-sum game.
AFAIK two companies sitting on their cash/assets are not taxed the same way as two companies providing services/trading to each other, even if those trades do not create added value for one
another.
thanks anyway, I am starting to grasp a bit of it, but it needs some hypothesis in the beginning that depends on certain points of view…
It’s not special to farmers. It’s the same for each company. A farmer is a “einfache Gesellschaft”, they do accounting for her business. If you are a carpenter you also should not enter the costs of the wood used to make your own kitchen table as cost in your accounting but no revenue. You should offset the costs of the raw material via private use (Privatbezug / Naturalbezug).
The specialty about farmers is only that there are some standard values depending on familiy sizes and farm production which can be used. Probably because it would be some work to account for each potatoe or liter of milk consumed.
IMHO thy won’t allow a rent lower than Eigenmietwert. I think Eigenmietwert will stay for the situations where the housing is in the company inventory (Geschäftsvermögen) but used as private use. Private used on company inventory is always taxed.
About the examples with cars, pens etc: I think we could describe the situation like this: Cars, pens etc are consumer goods. You can not account the costs of maintenance as private person, you can not deduct this from your taxable income.
Housing was one of the few things (or the only?) where private persons could deduct costs for maintenance etc. Similar to a company. Now it was only normal that you should also account for some income and imputed rental value is not the only value where the fiscal systems works with some “standard numbers”. So I dont say the system was perfect as it was. But it was absolutely logic that some income was accounted, because you could deduct costs.