Excuse the laziness or if I missed it: if one eg doesn’t pay into 3a in 2025 but pays double in 2026 do they get double the tax saving when 2026 taxes are done? If that’s the case then it’s a fantastic change for tax optimisation.
And some good ol’ market timing 
Yes
Otherwise there wouldn’t be many benefits from doing it. 
Exactly.
From now on, I consider to postpone 3a contributions from years with
to “regular” years…
Exactly the same plan here. Edit: it does bring the requirement of being somewhat more active, though. Eg in my current job we don’t find out if we will get a bonus for 2024 until March 2025, so with this change it seems to me to make sense to almost always postpone 3a contributions by a year to see how it’ll play out (excluding big planned expenses which could be deductible, but you know them beforehand).
Yes
However tax optimisation is only one aspect
People need to also account for opportunity cost loss as the first year tax savings wouldn’t be invested for an year
Why wouldn’t they? They would just be invested in other places (e.g. renovation of house). I assume one wouldn’t store the 7k from year 1 on a 0% savings account to be paid into pillar 3a in year 2, but rather take part of the planned 3b investments in year 2 that goes then into 3a.
If you are not investing because the money is simply not there (renovations etc) then it’s a different thing. But I wouldn’t call it tax optimisation. It’s simply a procedure to not lose the tax benefit of 3a due to lower liquidity
And regarding the case that you invest in 3b in 2025 and invest 2X in 3a in 2026. That’s not entirely accurate. Because if you don’t invest in 2025, your taxable income will be higher and you will pay higher tax. That money will not be invested. You will only get that money back in 2026
P.S -: I already bought the 3a for 2026. One less thing to optimise there is already a lot to be obsessed with ( lowest TER, highest interest rates, best 3a provider, best asset allocation)
If you know that your marginal tax rate will be higher in year x+1, then it does make sense to postpone the 3a allocation.
Thereby you save more taxes in year x+1 than you would have saved in year x.
Imagine this:
You have 50k to spare in year x. You need to renovate for 40k. Now you could still pay in 3a but the tax savings will be less than in year x+1 because you already lowered your marginal tax rate with renovations (or pillar 2 buy ins etc).
I don’t have plans to do it myself right now, just stating that it definitely can be beneficial.
True, but it’s an opportunity cost more than anything which is hard to quantify because we don’t know how the market will go.
@finpension seems to have something to say on the topic (just received an email).
I see the 3rd pillar as a safer investment than the 2nd, as less regulated (not subject to conversion rate, only capital option, etc.), so I would tend to disagree with them.
Also to be noted they have an incentive to convince you to pay as early as possible into your 3rd pillar.
Additionally, the bureaucratic effort for 3a providers is significant.
As this is coming from a 3a provider: With this statement they are indirectly hinting to postpone 3a contributions for pure tax optimization
If I understood correctly this started only on 2025? I can’t pay retroactively for 2015 ?
Correct. And the tax deduction applies to the year you make the actual payment, not the year you backfill. So a payment made in 2026 for a gap in 2025 applies to the 2026 tax declaration.
Also you most likely have to have been a resident that year. A newcomer in 2026 cannot pay back for 2025.
Not sure how it applies for Swiss that move abroad for just one year though.
I’m not sure about the status of residence. But one needs to have an income subject to AHV contributions in the year of filling the 3a gap (from 2025 and forward).
There is a nice “how to” from VIAC: How do retroactive purchases into pillar 3a work and what do I have to bear in mind? – VIAC
Thanks for sharing! It’s a pity that they put so many restrictions that the process is only going to be accessible to a very small population…
IMO all are pretty reasonable.
Indeed, this year only for someone that didn’t manage to fill in to the max for 2025 (*),
but going forward there would be more and more people eligible.
(* e.g. self-employed after the fact of getting the true net income for the year - based on which that year’s allowable amount is set)
I beg you pardon:
All these limitations are there to pacify the political left, who just want people using as little pillar 3 as possible.
This has nothing to do with left or right. Everything has limits somewhere. We could also abolish the limits for 3a, but then we’d just have a tax hole. That probably isn’t in your best interest either.