Thinking about moving to Switzerland and live from passive income

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In which Swiss canton is the likelihood of being classified as a professional securities trader the lowest?

Is it the canton of Zurich?
Which cantons rank second and third?

What has been your experience in the canton of Nidwalden? How high is the likelihood there?

In the canton of Schwyz, the likelihood of being classified as a professional securities trader is much higher. Is that correct?

So you’d have to move to Zurich if you want to trade a lot.

In german:

In welchem Kanton in der Schweiz ist die Wahrscheinlichkeit am niedrigsten als professioneller Wertpapierhändler eingestuft zu werden?

Ist das der Kanton Zürich?
Welcher Kanton ist auf Platz Nr.2 und auf Platz Nr.3 ?

Wie sind eure Erfahrungen in dem Kanton Nidwalden? Wie hoch ist dort die Wahrscheinlichkeit?

In dem Kanton Schwyz ist die Wahrscheinlichkeit viel größer als professionelle Wertpapierhändler eingestuft zu werden. Stimmt das?

Man müsste daher nach Zürich ziehen, wenn man viel traden will?

Professional investor/trader status
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Since most traders lose money, chances anyways is low. Normally you pay taxes if you make money not when you lose money.

I don’t think there is any study about which cantons are more strict.

rule of thumb is Professional traders are already aware that they are professional traders. Everyone else just think about it and in most cases don’t fall in that bucket

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I thought, “everyone is a genius in a bull market”? So since most times it’s a bull market, I figured every trader is a genius most of the time…

Well anyway, on topic:
As stated, probabilities are probably extremely low for a private investor anywhere and not a reason to choose a place to live.
Unless one really is a professional trader, in which case probabilities might be pretty high everywhere, and in which case you’d better choose according to expected tax rates.

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Thanks.
But that doesn’t really help me.

Several people have mentioned in this thread that it’s easier to be classified as a professional securities trader in the canton of Schwyz.
That’s why I’m afraid of moving to the canton of Schwyz.

I still live in Germany and want to move to Switzerland. I don’t know yet which canton I’ll move to. I’m looking for a canton where you aren’t classified as a professional securities trader so quickly. I’ve heard that in Zurich, you aren’t classified as a professional securities trader so quickly.

I trade futures frequently with Interactive Brokers.
But I do not trade options.

If, for example, one was classified as a non-professional securities trader for the year 2024, can the authority retroactively change this classification for the year 2024?

Example:
A year later, the authority realizes it made a mistake in classifying you as a non-professional securities trader. Can the authority still change the classification for the year 2024?

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In German:

Danke.
Das hilft mir aber nicht weiter.

Hier in diesem Thread haben mehrere Leute geschrieben, dass man im Kanton Schwyz schneller als professioneller Wertpapierhändler eingestuft wird.
Ich habe daher Angst davor, in den Kanton Schwyz zu ziehen.

Ich wohne noch in Deutschland und möchte in die Schweiz ziehen. Ich weiß noch nicht in welchen Kanton. Ich suche einen Kanton, wo man nicht so schnell als professioneller Wertpapierhändler eingestuft wird. Ich habe gehört, dass man in Zürich nicht so schnell als professioneller Wertpapierhändler eingestuft wird.

Ich handel viel mit Futures bei Interactive Brokers.
Aber ich handel nicht mit Optionen.

Wenn man z.B. für das Jahr 2024 als nicht professioneller Wertpapierhändler eingestuft wurde, kann die Behörde diese Einstufung nachträglich wieder für das Jahr 2024 rückwirkend ändern?

Beispiel:
Die Behörde merkt ein Jahr später, dass sie einen Fehler gemacht hat bei der Einstufung als nicht professioneller Wertpapierhändler. Kann die Behörde die Einstufung für das Jahr 2024 dann noch ändern?

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Do you plan on being employed? Are your realized trading gains much higher than your employment income?

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Just ask them before you move with an official request for a preliminary ruling (Merkblatt Vorabentscheide). You can just talk to them before to get an idea how they see your situation and the official request gives you guaranteed security afterwards. It really depends on your whole financial situation and trading futures makes it more complicated. In contrast to German tax authorities the ones in at least Zug and Schwyz are both easy and fast to communicate with (and will very seldom classify someone as a professional trader because it’s simpler for you and them). Zurich is a little bit stricted in my experience but still worlds away from Germany.

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Where did you find such quotes? Looking for ‘Schwyz’ I did not find any matches in this thread.

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I don’t plan on working. Instead, I receive rental income from Germany.

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Thank you.
I’m currently still living in Germany.
In the future, I would like to move to Switzerland.

If I ask the canton of Schwyz from Germany with an official request for a preliminary ruling, will they give me an answer for free?

I thought that as long as I still live in Germany, I wouldn’t receive a free, binding statement from the Canton of Schwyz.
Will the Canton of Schwyz provide me with a statement indicating whether it will classify me as a professional securities trader in the future, even though I don’t yet live in Switzerland?

What do you mean with “…still worlds away from Germany”?

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In my experience it’s free (if you don’t pay for lawyers to draft it for you) and in Switzerland just write an email and they are quite responsive (the request needs to be by traditional mail but everything else you can just call or write an email).

Your problem will be that you want to live of rental income in Germany. It’s likely far easier to convince them if you have Swiss based income. In your case it makes it a very bad deal for Schwyz.

I once asked them the same questions I asked Swiss tax authorities. I got fast and clear answers from the Swiss side and each year if I have small tax issues it’s always very easy to clear them up by phone/email. The German tax authority never even responded even though I contacted them multiple times and it would have been lucrative for Germany. It just feels like Swiss authorities see you as a customer and the German authorities see you as extra work.

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Is the taxation of stock trading very good in Germany? :wink:

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Thank you very much.

You wrote that in Zurich, one is not classified as a professional securities trader.

Do you mean the entire canton of Zurich, or just the city of Zurich?

I have enough rental income to live on.
However, my income from securities trading is much higher than my other income (rental income). I thought that would mean I’d be classified as a professional securities trader?

I trade a lot of futures with Interactive Brokers, but I don’t trade only futures.

Since I still live in Germany, I need to know whether I’ll be classified as a professional securities trader in Switzerland.
Because if I’m classified as a professional securities trader in Switzerland, then I’d rather stay in Germany.

If I move to the canton of Zurich, I won’t be classified as a professional securities trader. Is that correct?

I’d prefer to move to the canton of Schwyz.

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Are you and your questions for real? You want to make your move tax conditional? Sounds strange but okay, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt:

I understand that some people try to manage everything and anything themselves (I’m the same), but in my opinion, you will not get the answer with the certainty that you’re looking for in a forum or with research alone.
You need a professional who is an expert in the field, who may ask you to lay out your whole situation out for them, and even this expert may propose to ask the tax office in question.

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@Moustachienne you are so right as usual, here is the place of VT and Chill and the only time you’re allowed to ask about professional investor status on this forum is when you tested yourself on a single stock that went to the moon achieving 1000 USD +900% capital gain in a week so we can just answer “NO YOU WON’T BE CLASSIFIED”. Even if you traded on margin. With confidence.

now back to kurt2

“Hi I live from my investments, I have no other job, I do rentals but most of my gains are from securities trading breaking most of the rules that classify as private investor, can you also confirm the answer is NO ?”

I can answer “no”. Depends on the question. Also I don’t take blame.

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Maybe it’s a language issue.

Not sure about your expectation from this forum. We can all offer our best non-professional guesses with corresponding degree of certainty. If you want to have more certainty, you should ask and pay for a professional.

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@JEPG you either seriously misread my post(s) or you confounded with someone else’s post.

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Sorry to butt in, but I think I get JPEG’s sense of humour. I don’t feel there was any disrespect or misunderstanding, just poking some fun at the forum’s conservatism and the OP’s posts, while agreeing with you and succinctly telling them “we don’t know the answer to your (the OP’s) question” all at the same time.

Wondering if we have a sophisticated trolling attempt :slight_smile:

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I was giving a honest compliment.

Then, I added my two cents.

@Mirager I have a public, thanks to you. Road to success!

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Yes, I’m serious about my questions.
I want to move from Germany to Switzerland because you don’t have to pay taxes on securities gains in Switzerland.

Asking an expert doesn’t help much either. They don’t know whether I’ll be classified as a professional securities trader in Switzerland.

I’ve already asked my tax advisor. He doesn’t know either.

I’m still looking for the canton where it’s least likely that I’ll be classified as a professional securities trader.
I suspect it’s Zurich. But Zurich isn’t ideal because it has a very high wealth tax.

That’s why I’m looking for another canton where you’re not so easily classified as a professional securities trader. Maybe someone knows of such a canton.

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A I love the way you name me with some dyslexia. Happens to me actually, I struggle to remember that’s JEP-G as in djep djee, and not jay-peg as an image compression format.