Tax Declaration: list your deductions!

Dear community,
although i tried to get source taxes (B permit…) in 2019, my stach-growing with IB and Vanguard funds got my dividends above CHF 2500. This means I will switch to the standard tax declaration for 2019, thus have to take care on the deductions for the first time, yey! A tax advisor once told me you always have to try to deduct stuff, in worst case they just don’t accept it, but you don’t get punished for trying. See the guide of ZH

Let’s make a deductions-database!

What do you deduct from your taxable income? please list the following properties, as far as they do not comprise your feeling of privacy:

  • Canton
  • what (e.g. mobility cost, commuting, bicycle)
  • amount of deduction (e.g. CHF 700)
  • do you provide a bill or is it lump sum “pauschal”?
  • any additional infor relevant for this point, like “successfully deducted before”

here what I figured out so far:

Kanton: ZH

  • bicycle for mobility, CHF 700, “pauschal” (no bill attached). is a default option in the tax software.
  • lunches, CHF up to 3200, “pauschal”, don’t know the correct calculation as of yet
  • any other non-commut costs of employment, 3%
9 Likes

Guy from Zurich here (single person).

My deductions in 2018:

  • Bicycle: CHF 700
  • Mobility costs (1y ZVV ABO with three zones + Halbtax): CHF 1’335
  • Lunch: CHF 3’200
  • Pillar 3a: CHF 6’768
  • Health insurance premium
  • Donations / various charitable contributions: CHF 300 (I think, that’s the maximal amount as a “Pauschale”)

Looking forward further insights :slight_smile:

I find it super easy for the normal deductions to use the tool the cantons provide. I have experience in Aargau and Zurich and with most standard situations (job(s), savings, stocks or ETFs and even real estate) the sofware works perfect.

I see not much point that ever user here lists his CHF 700 for the bike he needs or doesn’t need to commute to the bus stop. The only non-obvious deductions (and not being asked for in the wizard) in my declaration are 0.3% of my deposit value Kosten für die Verwaltung von Wertschriften des Privatvermögens
https://www.steueramt.zh.ch/internet/finanzdirektion/ksta/de/steuerbuch/zuercher-steuerbuch-definition/zstb-30-1.html

AND
CHF 200 «Haustür- und Gassenspenden» under donations

But even these two have been discussed in this forum

3 Likes

For those of you working from a coworking space, have you been able to deduct some of this cost from your income? I’ve been told that 2 options exist:

  • deduct yearly coworking charges from income
  • deduct the rent corresponding to one room of your house
1 Like

They accept also the cost of the Halbtax? I should try this year.

No. There is a lot of literature about tax deductions, but nobody mentions the halbtax. But they will probably not figure out the first year you do this. Maybe not even the fifth year.

For 2018 I deduced the rent and expenses (including cleaning) for the room I use as home office.
I did not get the money yet, but I confirmed with the tax office before submission that the deduction is ok.

1 Like

Curious - does buying new furniture count as “refurbishment”, if the apartment is rented, not owned? :slight_smile:

No, only minimum necessary abonnement costs are deductable i.e. 2nd class abo. This is why they ask for your work address - they are able to calculate zones themselves. You can claim more, but if you claim way out of ordinary amounts they will adjust it down or ask for receipts and justifications.

You cannot deduct costs for bicycle at the same time, unless you can provide a good argument that you need it to reach your train (something like: closest bus stop to your home is >1km away or so that why you cycle to train).

If you try to deduct both without such justification, what’s going to happen is they will accept the lower of the two deduction, i.e. just 700 CHF for the bicycle.

Here’s a nice summary table of many important deductions with nuances for different cantons: https://www.schmitt-treuhand.ch/resources/SchmittTreuhand_Steuertipps1.pdf

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I think they accepted it when I tried to deduct both, but need to double check

They do accept
Everybody deducts both

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A friend of mine tried to deduct both and got the lower of the two deductions accepted, but YMMV.

I guess it depends but it should be easy to have them approve both, if you actually do it, since the federal court ruled on the matter. https://www.bucher-tax.ch/2018/07/18/if-you-commute-to-work-by-bicycle-and-public-transport-you-can-accumulate-professional-expenditure-deductions/
(that’s the first link I found in English but you should find the story in local news easily)

Does anyone know if it is possible to deduct more than 1 room when doing home office ? For example when you fully work from home as an employee ? For instance if you organize meetings and lunches for externals at home ? Thanks !

At least in Basel-Stadt, according to the guideline, one can deduct 50% of the cost of banking packages. From what I’ve read here quite a few have UBS Family for example.

4 Likes

Just to get some clarification (my german is really bad): the 0.3% deduction can be applied only on the cost of your assets that are managed by someone else, or on the total amount of money that you are investing and managing yourself? :thinking:

The text on the website is complicated to understand even for a native speaker :smile:

I found an easier to understand explanation on the VZ Website

Vermögensverwaltungskosten

In der Steuererklärung abzugsfähig sind neben den Kosten für das Steuerverzeichnis in der Regel auch Depotgebühren, Schrankfach- und Safegebühren sowie Inkassospesen für Coupons. Nicht abzugsfähig sind hingegen die Gebühren für den Kauf oder Verkauf von Wertpapieren (Courtage, Stempelgebühr usw.) sowie Honorare für eine Finanz-, Anlage- und Steuerberatung. In einigen Kantonen darf man pauschal 0,5 bis 3 Promille des Wertschriftenvermögens als Vermögensverwaltungskosten abziehen.

Hence it should be possible to deduct 3‰ of the value of your shares and bonds at Swissquote/IBRK or whatever. In my experience this has worked just fine so far. But my deduction is very small (haha).

You can not deduct anything for cash accounts.

Hope this helps. Happy to hear from other users if I am missing something.

5 Likes

In Vaud, you can deduct 0.15% of everything including cash

Yes, I should have mentioned that my post has a ZH home-bias :upside_down_face: