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…
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 ?
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.
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.
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.
If you can save 100k while studying you probably are exploiting either the system or your parents
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?
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?
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…
You can call me very conservative, or apocalyptic driven thinker, but I’m not certain the EU and Switzerland have been in the best of relationships, lately. During the EU debt crisis, I could envision the EU trying to strongarm its way to some swiss assets (not as a likely scenario but as a non-zero chance of occurring one).
Do you really want to expose all my weirdness in one smooth move? I have no good rational reason to not like PF but my simple emotional side doesn’t like the idea of the Post dealing with retail financial services (told you I’m weird).
I’ll tell you the costs of BCV’s TradeDirect once I’ll have more than one year of experience with them to spot the hidden costs.
Honestly, haven’t you already answered the question for yourself?
You don’t feel comfortable to switch a broker abroad (1st paragraph quoted).
Now you’re looking for people on an internet forum to talk you out of your fears (2nd paragraph).
I’d like to ask the question: How “painful” does it feel to you, losing 15 CHF each quarter in fees?
Why have a bank safeguard them for you - if you can keep in a cold wallet outside of it?
… with good reason.
The EU have already shown how far they’re willing to go. They had all but agreed to impose a haircut on bank accounts in a EU member state (Cyprus) - even on savings of less than €100k, which had (supposedly) protected.
Also, talking non-zero chances: Who would have predicted (or been taken seriously) only a year ago that the EU would ever close borders on Switzerland for several weeks?
You should be able to transfer them in and out, but I don’t do that. Just buy them and they keep my crypto in their wallet (or with their crypto partner). I don’t like to have my own wallet and then 5-6 years later I lost my credentials or something like that.
Looks like I am not the only one thinking like this. May I ask where you have your depot?
In some ways I have but there are this high fees, especially for trading. The quarterly costs are in my opinion still rather negligible than the higher trading fees and the stamp tax, which must only be paid using a Swiss broker.
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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 
