Don’t mix up. Pension funds have nothing to do with that. It’s a different field, even if they manage the same stuff.
Also it will piss many many people off. Not happening.
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I invest once a year and just let it sit there unless a business case changes drastically.
Dont wanna cause bad blood here 
I dont know the actual motivation behind it for those people, but you know mine now and obviousely you see it the same way, otherwise you would be at Degiro or IB 
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I am using IB and DEGIRO and I don’t think just because SQ is in Switzerland that it is necessarily any safer. So I just go for the cheapest, it’s as easy as that. But maybe that’s just me not trusting much all these corporates… In my honest opinion the odds are equal that something goes badly wrong with any of them and that you will never see your money again.
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The cost difference between VT and VWRL is around 30 basis points if you include non-recoverable withholding taxes (15% of 2% of the 55% US part of VT + the 14 basis points cost difference).
That is around 300 chf with 100’000 chf invested. With a single 32k trade per year, you would pay something like 5 chf with IB and 140 with SQ, so another difference of 135 chf.
Now it is around 430 chf more per year that only grows bigger every year.
With 200k invested the opportunity cost is 600 chf + 245 chf = 845chf per year.
That is quite a bit of money.
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That is nice, but
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I dont have 100k invested
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I dont wanna deal with the IRS in case a president suddenly decides to change tax-treaties or a forum user misunderstood something
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I dont act against the advice of several financial and tax experts just because I read it in a forum, where everyone can post everything (nothing against this community, I see myself as part of it)
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Read this topic:
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What are the costs of, for example, moving 100k of VT from IB to Swissquote?
I haven’t seen anyone talk about the (monetary and time) costs of not having a stable Broker over time. And it seems as if chasing the cheapest broker means changing your broker every couple of years.
Are there some brokers, where one can be sure that they’ll offer a somewhat marketable offer even in 5, 10 or 20 years? (Maybe Charles Schwab would be a likely Broker for people in the US, when considering this criteria.)
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Care to explain more? Thx
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I dont know what I should explain more, so you have to be a little more specific 
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In the end, the return of capital is worth more in my opinion than returns on capital. I’m willing to pay more fees for what I consider better odds of getting my assets back in case of fraud, bankruptcy or assets seizure by a government, so I’m with a Swiss broker.
As a local resident, I expect the government to provide more help in case some big trouble happens than it would for a foreign investor. I also trust my chances of success more if I have to hire a lawyer and sue a swiss domiciled broker than if I had to find a knowledgeable lawyer qualified to handle a case against a foreign broker, under laws I neither know nor understand.
I still plan to use a foreign broker for a smaller part of my portfolio once its size will warrant it (it doesn’t as of now) as a way to diversify against the risk of fraud or bankruptcy.
If we’re not considering scenarii where either fraud and/or government uncooperation are possible, I see no need to fear using a foreign broker. The risk being loosing all your invested assets, I’m willing to consider some dire scenarii as part of my risk assessment. If we’re considering the risk of fraud and/or a government being voluntarily unhelpful (or downright seizing your assets), there’s no telling if you’ll have the time to move your ETFs out when the regulation changes…
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I dont act against the advice of several financial and tax experts just because I read it in a forum, where everyone can post everything (nothing against this community, I see myself as part of it)
This one. Is there anything I missed about VT which causes issues?
These are all very good personal reasons… as @vanessa was seeking for reasons / advices, let’s show her all the faces of the coin so that she can make an informed decision (which is also the purpose of the forum or of many of its contributors imo)
With reference to your three points:
- people seeking FIRE (as many here) need to save 100k quite quickly, otherwise we are talking about standard retirement
- IRS / forum user misunderstanding / advice of “several financial tax experts”: did you look for independent advice / pay for it ? Who are these experts supposed to be ? Are they talking in their interests or in yours ? I’ve seen people here more experienced that alleged financial experts you can meet out there
By the way, buying only once a year you remain outside of the market for a very long time… is this just to save transaction costs or are there other reasons ?
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Use what ever you feel good and can sleep well. Everybody has a different level of being careful and many times it is not fully rational. I am using SQ because most of the arguments above and also because I bought some Bitcoins and whant to have those clean in a Swiss Bank.
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There isnt really much to say about this point unless that every single tax or finance expert told me to avoid non Irland, Luxemburg or Switzerland based ETFs if you want to avoid headaches as swiss investor and I dont think that they said that out of pure laziness. I dont know the actual reasons for such a comment, but it somehow amazed me that I heard it from different person. I dont know anything about the original post that advised VT and what the posters background was / if he has professional knowledge concerning us-swiss-tax-treaties. I personally dont want to spend the money to consult an expert in that field and neither do I trust everything I read in a forum. That simply means for me that I dont invest in a product that vanguard itself doesnt offer to their swiss clients.
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Vanguard Switzerland is probably in a bit special position. Contacted them in the past and asked how to open a Vanguard account etc. They are not looking for “normal” retail clients, but looking out for institutional clients ie. Pension Funds.
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If you can save 100k while studying you probably are exploiting either the system or your parents
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Those experts are talking in my interests, because I am not their client and they dont need me as a client
Funny thing about experts is that it takes one to recognise one and I am far from calling myself one 
it is in no field harder to tell luck from skill, then in investing. My tax knowledge is limited to what I need to fill out my own taxes
The main point is that this is a forum and my granny could post something about Us taxes and no one in here could verify it unless he shares with everyone his identity and becomes liable for his advice as working professional in that specific field.
Or other question: What do you do incase the IRS sends you a nice letter? Do you take a screenshot of a forum post and write back but User1000 said so?
Agree. Wanted to open there an account for myself, they dont offer it to swiss retail client.
The original tax treaty has been referenced / linked several times.
You have several options:
- Your read it and try to build your personal interpretation
- You ask an advisor
- You remain with irish ETFs
- Any other option
As we are are talking about investing everyone should do its own due diligence and define its own risk tolerance of course.
Also to note that we are not talking about US ETFs only but US securities in general
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Doesnt take much from my perspective to get to a solution. Why do we have litigation if nowadays nearly everyone in the developed world can read the law? Why do we have series of commentaries concerning certain specific swiss laws if you just need to read the law?
In the end do whatever you feel comfortable to do 
We are talking about EU…
Anyway I partly agree, sometime in the future I might move stuff back here, not sure when and how much… probably around 300-400k probably to SQ or PF.
I’ve seen states touching people’s saving but it’s usually some other type of investment. Bank Accounts, Bonds, Post Bonds…