As a self-employed person - has anyone managed to claim under business expenses the work (technical) equipment bought 2nd hand? (e.g. through tutti/ricardo)
I am assuming hard to do, given there are no “receipts” or such.
You can request the seller to create a law conformant receipt and then you can of course deduct the expense.
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I’m a noob in that area 
Would that be:
- Names of 2 sides
- Goods exchanged
- Price of goods
- Date and location
- Signatures of 2 sides
Or some more “identifiers”?
I also wrote it this way as I don’t know myself 
but I found this helpful site:
Invoicing (admin.ch)
I would never bother listing small debts in my tax return but on Dec 31 I make sure I pay all open bills
I have a margin loan so during the rest of the year usually I pay my bills on the latest due date. The only exception is Dec 31. My marginal wealth tax rate is close to 1% so why not, it pays for a nice meal… 
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That is what I would do. If possible I would avoid a cash transaction, so that paper trail is automatically created (makes it more legit).
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I always make quick receipts (with the points mentioned above) when I buy stuff second-hand, and I include additionally the known defects. Very important for electronics in my view.
I also include a sentence that the sale can be revoked if defects are discovered afterwards (usually within 10 days). It sounds all very formal, I know, but never had any issues with trustworthy sellers to sign those receipts.
However, I for sure avoided many bad deals. Most scammers obviously don’t want to give their identity, would not sign, etc.
Going back to the original question, I don’t think a formal receipt is required for the tax office to accept it. A TWINT transaction, or a bank wire with the reason clearly stated in the message should be sufficient, as long as it is not too frequent… in which case it could raise suspicions.
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I can now report that the “CHF 200 «Haustür- und Gassenspenden» under donations” was NOT accepted on my tax declaration in SG. The tax office rejected it citing that all donations must be evidenced and no lump sum deduction (Pauschalabzug) is allowed.
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If you add deductions in the tax software (e.g. in ZH), do you actually upload a receipt even in the cases where they say it’s “Freiwillig”/Voluntary? So far I did, but I just wonder whether I make my life unnecessary hard and they would just “trust” about these things. Some deductions (e.g. Pillar 3a) you are forced to upload a receipt, while for others you are not.
E.g. for Health Insurance premium they also write “Freiwillige Belege hochladen”, so what happens if one doesnt upload anything and just states the amount? More work later because they ask for it?
Not sure how helpful it is since I am not located in Zürich but I do not. Primarily for convenience not having to upload too many documents.
For health insurance premium I am confused. I noticed the tax document from the health insurance providers are different. For example, two years ago I uploaded this document but it included the costs of the premium. Hence, the tax authorities told me that premium cannot be declared for medical costs. Last year I was with a different provider and the tax statement covers only the personal costs, so franchise, deductible, and anything not covered by the insurance but not the monthly premium.
I think in the past you were supposed to include it. Maybe now since ~everybody pays more than the limit and insurance is mandatory they don’t ask for it?
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It has been years I have only submitted the mandatory attachments (in my case that is salary certificate, 3a contributions and broker statement). And no tax authorities ever came back asking for more (and I have dealt with 4 so far, including ZH).
I believe tax authorities changed their approach when they moved to e-declarations as attachments were cumbersome to scan (both for the authorities if they are still sent by post and for people at home) and often they can infer anyway if what you are declaring make sense (e.g., health insurance premiums is public data, you need to get to your job and they know the address, etc.).
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Can someone tell me how to include “Gassenspenden” without receipt in ZH tax declaration?
Which category do I need to use?
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You can put it under “Freiwillige Zuwendungen”
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Does this exist in Vaud?