Agree. Tax on imputed rent is a good thing and it is a shame that it is being scrapped essentially because people are too stupid to understand it.
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I think we need to differentiate between value creation & income generation
Otherwise one can argue about having unrealised capital gains tax on stocks , capital gains tax on crypto etc
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Another way is to force home owners to charge a market rent. That way it is explicit.
I am a bit confused, isn’t this about owner occupied property?
For second house -: totally agreed. Market rent should be deemed income to avoid empty apartments . Or else people will buy houses for fun and others won’t have enough
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But I would say the fairness is the whole point of inputed rental income: to counteract unwanted distortions caused by other taxes (in this case income tax).
I agree it’s quite technical and thus difficult to understand, but effort should be spent on educating people why this is a good thing, rather than scrap it because it’s too difficult.
Generating tax revenues is just a nice side effect.
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I think this would happen during referendum
In a country where majority lives in rented accommodation, I think such votes have tough path anyways
It is an unfair situation, either way or the other. Tax depends on what you prefer, a nice sports car or a nice house. You can buy both on credit and deduct the interest now, but you pay only tax on the nice house.
Now, the proposed change will quit the tax on the nice house and the tax-reduction of the interest. With one exception: houses that are rented out. This creates another unfair situation, my example was with a REIT or a house to rent, both bought with a credit.
In my opinion the imputed rental value should cease to exist. Deductions of interest should only be granted to credits that create taxable income, not only to rental homes. Excluding interest tax deduction for the sports car credit is OK for me, it does not produce taxable income.
If you live in your own house now produces taxable income but will not after the change. So it is OK that you cannot deduct the interest of the mortgage. But whatever credit you take to buy goods that produce taxable income should still be deductible; limiting it to houses for rent is just thumb and unfair.
I’ll have to check the situation again next year, houses in Kanton Zurich will be revalued. 2024 I did save 2192 CHF compared to the tax proposal. But that is mainly because the high Dollar interest on my margin loan.
Yes. But you can be forced to charge a market rent to yourself. This makes the income part explicit and can be taxed without the shortcut of an imputed rental value.
The rent is based on the tax value of your home, in Kanton Zurich it is 3.5% of the tax value for a house, a bit more for an apartment.
But the tax value is very low, especially for older houses. The value will be corrected this year. I suppose next year I’ll pay a lot more.
The only financial “advantage” of owning a house versus renting and holding stocks comes from the mortgage. If you use credit on stocks too, paying rent and investing the money in stocks gets you financial advantage with or without tax over a period of a few decades. Of course it gets you more risk too, but with real estate most people just ignore the risk.
Of course there are a lot of other advantages in owning a house vs. renting. But if you just look at your wallet it is bad business. Especially with current real estate prices… they may not rise forever.
There is a capital gains tax on real estate in most municipalities (30%-50% depending on holding period), while stocks don’t have that.
?
If the goal is truly to level the playing field between homeowners (who actually own their homes in 
?) and renters, a proper comparison table with real numbers based on a representative use case (e.g., the average Joe) should be provided.
By the way, isn’t this very forum already full of discussions highlighting why buying is often a worse financial decision than renting?
Yes, sorry to bring this up in the context of imputed rental value.
I just wanted to point out that as a renter with the same financial background as a buyer you cannot deduct the rent but don’t have to pay capital gain taxes on the money invested. And that the difference in performance is often only based on a mortgage; if you use a credit for stock investments you probably are better off, moneywise and taxwise.
Whenever there is a situation where there is no fair solution, the solution should be at least easy. And that is not the case, not with the old nor with the new proposed tax system.
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No need to apologize — my comment wasn’t directed at your post above.
I got the impression from @PhilMongoose comment that he might be suggesting an increase in the imputed rent instead of its removal (since imputed rent is typically 65-70% of actual rent). If that’s the case, it feels like an unnecessary penalty for home-owners ‘mortgage payers’—but perhaps I misunderstood 
In general, I believe the housing issue should be viewed from a broader perspective. The cost of having a shelter — whether rented or mortgaged — should take up a smaller share of one’s income than it does today…
I think the only thing missing here is to note that the current system is somewhat resilient to interest rate shocks:
- if the interest rates go up like at the end of the 80s you pay vastly more interests, but also deduct them from your taxation. Automatically this buys people some time to figure out what to do, without immediately putting them in the streets
- when the interest are fairly low like now the current system gives some financial advantage to owners (without considering the lost opportunity of investing, etc.)
Another possible good point of the current system is that owners in a PPE are all on the same footing, whether they live in their property or let it, creating a easier environment fo manage the whole property with less fightings.
To me this is enough not to change the current system.
Disclosure: I’m renting currently, but I have also owned my apartment in the past
Not sure about that, it incentives people to keep a mortgage which is why there are more shock risks to begin with (amount of debt in Switzerland is a known issue wrt financial stability, and it was at least a partial goal when doing the change).
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Sure, this is a possibility.
OTH, I’m not sure this is really an incentive to keep a mortgage: if you pay the mortgage back, you are blocking your funds on a totally illiquid investment and paying the “impot sur la fortune” without any additional income, not a great strategy for me at least.
I think default should be that you have forced market rent. However, you can have the option of taking the current cheaper imputed rent. That way, those who complain about the imputed rent system can simply opt out of it.
I don’t think this is going to pass, and what difference it makes to imputed rental value, anyway?
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It makes the income explicit and so easier to understand the basis of the tax.
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If you pay yourself no money changes hand. That is exactly what happens now. I don’t understand your solution.
You cannot force market prices because you either force or let the market decide.
The current system is complicate and unfair. The new system is complicate and unfair.
I will vote with my wallet; everything depends on the new tax value they put to my home this year. But while my mortgage stays the same the margin loan will grow with the portfolio according to my money management rules. But then interests are falling again. Difficult decision…
You can and it already happens commonly with corporates. There’s a whole branch of taxation called Transfer Pricing which is dedicated to this.