Thanks guys, very interesting. Sorry for the noob - questions but why do i don’t have to pay Stamp duty when I go over IB?
and @oogie boogie: Is there any disadvantage to buy the Vanguard ETF at SWX compared to US?
And how is it with the witholding taxes on dividends?
Why would someone prefer SQ over IB anyway if IB is cheaper in any case?
The bid/ask spread might be a bit broader than on the US markets and it is in CHF (which is a plus for me).
Pure personal decision
I am not hardcore frugal and those points above are important enough for me to stay with SQ for now.
SQ has pretty bad FX rates compared to IB.
All costs are covered with the monthly fee of 10$/month. As soon as you get over 100k, it’s basically for “free”.
For me Swissquote is a great solution if you:
Only swiss brokers have to charge it. IBKR is, technically, british.
Double taxation by the US.
This is a big topic where the correct answer depends of your personal situation. Please read this topic completely in order to get a view of all the options.
There’s nothing there that’s contradicting my reply that you’re quoting.
You will get ripped off and double taxed by the US by going with Irish funds. Except if you’re taxed at sourced low earner (and a few other rare cases), in which case yes, it depends.
He talked about Vanguard ETFs. SQ offers US ETFs too.
They are not traded “at SWX”
Going through the blog and the forum has been really helpful for me in the last few days.
I am quite new to investing and want to start soon. I am still not sure of the broker yet. IB seems a good option but is it still better for investments <100k
Also, what about tax declarations?
I plan to start with US based ETFs
Currency exchange alone makes it worthwhile. You need $$$ to trade those US ETFs, everyone else will rip you off on the exchange.
Tax declaration is same like with every other brokers, you still have to enter all your positions and trades by hand into tax software. For small accounts you can try declaring just the depot and total of dividends, but they may scrutinize and demand itemization anyway, this could be more likely with a self-prepared summary vs. broker prepared but I wouldn’t sweat over it.
Thanks for the response. I agree the exchange rate fee would make up for the difference in fee.
Also, comparing IB with a US based broker like TD? Does IB still wins for Swiss residents?
Most american brokers work only with $$$! No $$$ => you’ll get ripped off on currency exchange when transferring your CHFs to them. IBKR will change your currency for 0.002%, most banks will take 0.3-1%.
Trading on US exchanges with IBKR, while not free (unlike a few other US brokers, I don’t know about TD, but Schwab is free today except for small SEC fees), it’s so cheap, it’s basically negligible. I pay about 30-40 c/trade - this cost hardly matters if you’re just investing in a few select ETFs.
Honestly, you’ve been pretty loose at throwing the “rip-offs” around lately (see also the VIAC thread). 
Currency exchange costs something (virtually) everywhere. And we all pay some taxes and fees here and there. There’s nothing wrong per se with optimising one’s choices and taxes and going with a lowest-cost option. But there’s large enough a grey area of more vs. less expensive and other factors preferences to consider in choice of funds and brokers. In my opinion, we don’t need to blatantly call everything - except that oh-so holy grail of investing in US ETFs through IBKR held so highly in this forum - a straight-up “rip-off”.
You know what’s another rip off? This forum - a rip-off of my time. Same old topics rehashed over and over again. I’m out.
Guys
if anyone is willing to help me on my below 2 basic questions please
i have a Swissquote account for years - and i consider switching to IB
how does it work with the tax report with IB ? so i can declare my investments /dividends etc to my local canton ?
with Swissquote - i get a tax report for 100 swissies which makes my tax filling a lot easier. (in theory i can do it ‘manually’ and save the 100 )
how do you manage that point with IB ?
if i was to switch to IB - how does it work with the Automatic Exchange of Information ? the account would technically be in UK (not in US if my understanding is correct).
the UK authorities will pass my data to the Swiss Authorities ?
many thanks for your comments
Pandas, I think that you should sort some things out in reallife first. Then start posting here again.
They don’t offer a proper Swiss tax report.
You can declare all holdings and all transactions in your tax return.
Or try to include a summary account statement - which is what I do. Though in principle that might not be 100% correct. For instance, even my IBKR base currency were CHF, I believe it would be 100% correct to use the tax administration’s official exchange rates, rather than IBKR’s own (and that applies to each and every dividend payment).
Yes, but irrelevant, as you have to declared the account or its holdings yourself anyway. Exchange of information is no substitute for declaring yourself.
I use the canton Zurich web app to fill in my declaration. I only attach the default IB Activity Statement, where you can see my positions SOY and EOY, as well as all trades. Then I fill in the missing dividends from the ICTax Kursliste. Since every title I have is on that list, I assume they should be able to very easily verify that it’s correct. It’s public knowledge.
But I don’t know how they react. They still didnt evaluate my 2017 declaration !
Do you enter every order you made in the list?