Tax optimisation for ETF investing

Called them this morning, very friendly, recommended me to just make a comment and they’ll deduct it manually :smiley:

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Same thing happens to me every year. I wrote it under comments and attached some forms, it worked.

How did that work out? Did you get any why?

Also after digging for information, I think I have reliable chain of proof for 0% L2TW on UCITS in Luxemburg:

That was fucking annoying to dig out. Searching in English was all shadowed by US witholding taxes and how much better Ireland is.

Ultimately could not try it. I have most of my assets with a German broker. They produce an annual statement of withholding tax, including also tax paid at the fund level (potentially this can be claimed in German taxes but I don’t know). They stopped however to produce this for customers not tax liable in Germany (I am registered as not tax liable in Germany with them as this avoids having to pay various German WHT). Without a proof, obviously cannot include this in the tax declaration…

A bit late but might help others located in Basel-Stadt. Totally agree that this is frustrating and had the same experience. Once placing the Valoren nr (from ICTax) or ISIN correctly (no spaces as required in the software) the option “Rubrik” which has
A: with Withholding tax (mit Verrechnungssteuer)
B: w/o withholding tax (ohne Verrechnungssteuer)
C: DA-1/R-US
switches immediately to B and does not allow you to select A or C.
A workaround I found was to place the Valoren Nr or ISIN at the beginning correctly, filling everything out, e.g., when and how many shares were bought over the year. Then at the end placing a space in the Valoren Nr or ISIN which then enables you to select the Section Rubrik again and it still recognizes the initial stock information as well as you can adjust the other values. On top of that, I agree, I would place A comment at the end of the pop up window under “Art/Schuldner/Bank”.

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Hi to all,

I read through the post and trying to learn some stuff. I just got started with a humble amount on IB, bought mainly US ETF S&P500 and VOO.

Anyone out there willing to share some tips on how to handle the tax declaration?
I’m trying to understand the basics. How does it work with the profit one would make? Does it only count when one sells a stock and gets cash dividends?

Or anyone could recommend Steuerberater? I’m based in Zürich.

Apologies for my basic questions, I’m a bit clueless. Any help appreciated! Thanks!

Use this guide to create a statement from IB for tax declaration → Interactive Brokers, which reports needed for tax declaration? - #2 by San_Francisco

In Switzerland you are only taxed on income such as dividends and coupon, capital gains are not taxed at all.

Don’t get a Steuerberater, they are expensive and also only cook with water. Learn to do it yourself once, abd then it gets easier and easier in the coming years. It’s not rocket science.

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Since I can’t edit that post: As @jay noted in that thread, taxable income from accumulating Funds is not included in that report - this is the main thing missing but to keep in mind there, IMO. But U.S. domiciled ETFs are usually if not always distributing.

Thanks for the prompt reply @Burningstone . I’ll take a look at the link.

Good tip about the Steuerberater, I cross that out.

I understood the capital gain concept. Still don’t get what is a dividend, if one sells a stock after a while because it can get a good return, the profit in cash is considered dividend?

A dividend is cash paid out to you by the fund/stock, for funds mostly quarterly, for individual stocks mostly annually.

If you sell a position that’s not a dividend, that’s capital gain/loss.

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This is very good source of information. I appreciate that you covered various domiciles.
What is your opinion for Swiss domicile index funds.

If the TER is reasonable , lets say 0.20-0.25%, would a CH domicile world ETF be interesting? I understand that there is a reclaimable 35% witholding tax to be kept in mind , but it seems there is no L1TW tax loss because index funds can claim tax credit on behalf of investors just like individuals can.

No, that’s not correct, there’s no L1WT (to be specific the fund can fully reclaim these taxes) for dividends of swiss securities held by the fund (which is a neglectable amount in a typical global ETF), however there is L1WT for all other securities from other countries and ireland has clearly better DTAs than Switzerland.

From a tax perspective I see nothing that speaks for a CH domiciled global fund compared to IE or US funds, as such a large part of the world are US securities, for which both of these domiciles have bettet tax treatment.

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I see. When I asked UBS about a specific fund which is only investing in MSCI USA, I was told that UBS can claim back all the witholding tax in US on behalf of investors. Hence making withholding tax a non-issue.

Index fund in question was UBS passive MSCI US Index fund. Valor 35655041

seems this might not be the case as per your comment.

Swiss domicile is only good for funds on Swiss stocks. They are very tax-efficent! Otherwise don’t bother.

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Lol, this should be illegal to claim such nonsense. In addition the fund has a 1% subscription spread, that’s just ridiculous…

Hmm can’t it be true for some mutual funds? (That withholding can potentially be recovered)

Well. It was claimed by UBS themselves….

But I am happy that I did double check on this tax re-claimability part. I was sure that pension funds don’t have this issue but I was not sure what is the case for non-pension funds.

That’s why I asked the UBS contact.
Thanks for your time and quick feedback

Regarding 1%, I thought the following meant 0.01%. Does it actually mean 1% ?
“Dilution Levy in Favour of the Fund in/out 0.01 / 0.01”

Or you are referring to Issuing commission maximum 1% ?
I believe this number is subjected to where you buy the fund. It’s a maximum and not minimum.

That’s what UBS is saying.
I believe the principle is that since index fund always have controlled set of investors , they can theoretically prove that their Swiss resident investors are eligible for DTAA and hence a tax credit.

Iirc it works this way in some other EU countries (eg NL), would probably need to figure out which part of the dual taxation agreement specifies it.

At a glance I only saw mentions about pension funds in the swiss-us one.

Edit: should probably be obvious if that’s a well known index. A 15 or 30% extra withholding would be noticable if you can get the fund report.