Criteria No.1 is for me absolutely insane… why should I hold on to a stock for 6 months when there is a good chance I will need to sell and re-invest before then depending on market performance?
I think I would rather Switzerland simply add my stocks/shares earnings to my income tax as part of the yearlz process than arbitrarily decide that I am a business and charge me CGT plus self-employment AHV contributions.
Very annoying.
I also think that this ambiguity is very unlucky. Howerver, I do not know a first hand account when a private investor was classified as professional.
Hello,
I’m trying to figure how taxes on mutual funds work in Switzerland.
As far as I understand, on ictax.admin.ch they publish for every security the amount that is taxed as income at the income tax rate.
I just don’t know how to read the page. Take for example this security (a EUR-denominated mutual fund):
https://www.ictax.admin.ch/extern/it.html#/security/LU0792910134/20161231
If I kept 1 share of the fund throughout the year, the taxable amount would be 4.006 CHF. Is that correct?
Taking this other fund as an example, would the taxable amount be zero?
https://www.ictax.admin.ch/extern/it.html#/security/LU0256624742/20161231
Thanks!
Yes, you are correct.But you need to take the data for 2017 and not 2016
However, I don’t understand why the fund LU0256624742 displays no taxable amount, even if dividends are accumulated it should be counted
If anyone else is in Neuchatel, they have a handy calculator that just requires income and “fortune” - it will determine cantonal, commune and federal tax: http://www.ne.ch/autorites/DFS/SCCO/impot-pp/Pages/calculette_pp.aspx
I changed cantons this year (from Vaud to Geneva)
Am I right to assume that I only need to fill out one form to get my taxes back?
Well they don’t seem to have any dividends - it’s full of 0% bonds, forex contracts, and derivatives instead of real stock. Though, yearly report mentions one 16.14% position in 3.75% Sweden Government Bond - this should be taxed, I guess you should be happy the swiss didn’t catch it
I have a question regarding the dividend taxation but i haven’t found a clear answer anywhere in the internet yet.
Assumptions:
Lets assume that I’am EU citizen and Swiss resident (Canton Zug, B permit, Quellensteuer) and I hold US stocks via IB and have filed the W8-BEN (15% WHT). Now i receive CHF 1000 worth of dividends from US companies and IB deducts the witholding tax of 15% for Uncle Sam and I receive CHF 850 to my IB account. At the end of the year I file DA-1 to tell the swiss goverment that i received CHF 1000 dividends and have paid CHF 150 as witholding tax. Tax authorities will then calculate how much do i owe them for that CHF 1000 dividends based on my (marginal) income tax rate. I understand that if my tax rate was 20% swiss tax authoritities would send me a bill of CHF 50 for the missing 5%. However, as canton Zug has so low taxes my income tax rate will be below 15% (let’s assume 10%)
Question:
(1) Will i get that 15% WHT paid to Uncle Sam credited in full or (2) only up to the amount I would owe to the swiss tax authorities?
(1) tax liability to swiss tax authorities on dividend 10% = CHF 100 and missing CHF 50 deducted from my other income taxes; effective tax rate on dividends 10%
(2) tax liability to swiss tax authorities on dividend 10% = CHF 100 and missing CHF 50 gone forever; effective tax rate on dividends 15%
I would highly appreciate if someone knows the answer for this ot can link me to a right source.
You declare the dividend as your income. You say: hey, Zug Tax Office, I had a gross dividend income of 1000 and I paid 150 to uncle Sam. to which Tax Office says: OK, we won’t tax you on that 1000.
So the total tax on that dividend was the 150 paid to USA, even though the Swiss Tax Office would charge you only 100.
Thanks for your reply! So given that 15% is the final tax on dividends it is not too bad compared that in Finland the final tax rate is approx 30% 
So given that 15% is the final tax on dividends
it is not, you get 15% back and then pay full swiss tax on them, most likely more than 15% marginal unless you’re poor
Well currently living in canton Zug and being on Quellensteuer my total tax rate is about 4,5% (i don’t know what is my marginal tax rate but most likely below 15%) so I think that i can be considered poor in swiss standards 
In that case swiss tax authorities would actually send me money in the amount of the difference between my marginal tax rate and the 15% paid to uncle sam (hypotetically speaking if i had no other income and taxes to pay)?
Well currently living in canton Zug and being on Quellensteuer my total tax rate is about 4,5%
Then you only pay 15% withholding on dividends at source indeed
out 4,5% (i don’t know what is my marginal tax rate but most likely below 15%) so I think that i can be considered poor in swiss standards
It is
Hi @nugget ,
first of all, thanks so much for this post. I just moved to CH and try to find the best brokers, investments etc.
You talked about capital refund and gave two examples.
I clicked on both links and the last column in the table say “zu versteuernder Ertrag / taxable revenue”. I expected it to be 0 CHF because I thought you do not pay taxas on capital refunds.
How do I identify ETFs (or shares) which use capital refunds instead of dividends?
I would like to invest in different Vanguard ETFs and now I am not sure which pay normal dividends and thus, which taxes I will need to pay.
Why did you say “VS.” when you gave those 2 examples? Are they different from a tax perspective?
Vanguard all World ETF vs. UBS SPI ETF
Thanks in advance
frey
Are you talking about capital gains distributions? For passive ETFs it’s a rather rare and neglible thing, because it usually only occurs due to a large rebalancing event. For shares I think only swiss companies that have done the necessary accounting paperwork (“Ausschüttung von Kapitaleinlagereserven”) qualify for it to be tax free. You can load up ictax database on your machine and scan yourself for such shares
No ETF uses “refunds” instead of “dividends”. Dividends have to be paid out as dividends, and taxed as dividends.
Other payments happen for other reasons, but that’s generally because the ETF isn’t well-run (capital gains - but those are tax free in Switzerland, as long as you can find relevant fund documentation), or interest.
What Panda says here is of course correct.
Companies may return reserve capital, e.g. from the agio of newly emitted shares. In contrast to dividends (e.g. paid out from revenue), these returns are not taxed as income. Neither Verrechnungssteuer. My funds often pay them out separately.
See this article, also about the apparent end of this possibility (the link is correct, the extract shown below is not):
Does anyone of you know a good tax advisor near around Zurich city, who is familiar with this topic, and can give reliable advise on it? Topic: tax optimisation
I mean:
Income below 120k
Investing in US ETF VTI & some single stock positions with dividends?
Thanks,
Mr.P
Without really going out of your mind, there is probably not much you can do other than the standard deductions of work-related costs, house maintenance (if you own a house), 3a deductions and so on. Just be careful when you fill out the tax declaration. Don’t give away some free deduction, just because you are lazy (I did that for years).
If you are close (<8 years but not closer than 3 years) to your retirement age, you could consider paying extra into your pension fund. For longer time spans, the yield of the pension fund is just too low, then you better invest that money in VT and pay income taxes. For less than 3 years, the tax administration will slap the taxes right back on when you cash out.