I guess implicitly you do as assets from year 2 are compared with assets from year 1.
Yes though, CH has a wealth tax, not a capital gains tax.
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Thank you.
You wrote that if your assets have increased significantly in a year, the tax authorities will ask where this increase in wealth comes from.
Do you have to answer these questions from the tax authorities?
Or can you simply refuse to answer them?
What happens if you refuse to answer?
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I am not a tax law expert but itnis reasonable to assume they will start digging deeper and deeper.
I recall having to explain a big jump in assets and it was not a big deal - i created a simple brisge explaining equity vesting, bonus payout being invested at market lowpoint with big increase afterwards, etc and they accepted it without further documentation
Be thorough and transparent in your tax return plus good documentation, and my experience is very positive. Iâve made deductions where i no longer had the invoicr yet simply showed the payment from bank plus a written explanation from me what for and they accepted it. Very much trust based.
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You are under a duty to collaborate. If they are not convinced that part of your income is tax exempt, then the basic rule applies: All income is taxed.
Secondly, non collaboration can give reason to open a criminal case and get evidence from companies directly.
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@kurt2 I dont know for other cantons, but in ZĂŒrich you can use the online demo to test how the tax filling work. Direct link: https://zhp.services.zh.ch/app/ZHprivateTax2025/#/demo/home
you declare:
- all bank accounts and their value
- all securitys, their value and trades*
- othe assets like house, gold, van gogh etc.
is subject to tax:
- total wealth
- income (from work and dividends)
not subjet to tax:
- capital gains
Your questions are very basic. It might help if you watch a few YouTube tutorials on the topic. There are lots of âhow to file taxesâ or âhow swiss tax system worksâ videos on YouTube/Blogs.
* Thatâs the standard practice. Some people donât do that and simply include the brokerâs statement. This is usually accepted, but it can also lead to questions. But thatâs usually not a problem. You then just deliver whatâs requested.
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Why would it (for private individuals), given that capital gains arenât taxable anyway?
Fair point - but I think the obligatory exercise of the tax office writing me a letter to justify my wealth accumulation, despite the numbers always being in the report I send them is not a good use of my or their time 
What penalty do you face if you donât answer the tax officeâs questions?
The tax office canât simply tax all your profits from shares just because you havenât answered their questions.
Criminal proceedings arenât such a big deal either. The tax office can always obtain the evidence from the companies themselves. Whatâs so bad about that?
-
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Then you should find out. Real life is not a sim.
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Hi Kurt,
You might find an answer here:
The tax office is not your nanny. You are required to give the necessary informations.
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Quite mildly compared to most other countries.
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Does anyone have a link to the tax return form where you need to provide details of your trades, assets and capital gains from securities?
For example, the form for the canton of Schwyz.
Itâs starting to feel like youâre using this forum as google / chatgptâŠ
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The tool in Zurich, ZHPrivateTax, automatically computes your dividends. It needs to know what days you bought and sold the stock to know how much dividends you earned, since it needs to know how much of the stock you held on any of the divident payout days.
If you fill in your tax letter again next year, you can import your previous one. If you change the amount of shares, the program will complain with an error that you have to put in trades or other reasons why the amount of stocks changed compared to last year.
Not sure how it works in other cantons, but as you can see in Zurich the default expectation is that you list the trades.
Most people donât do this manually on a form but instead use a software provided from the Kanton. But for the form google âkanton name wertschrifterverzeichnis steuern pdfâ.
I donât think so because I assume OP doesnât have a history of losses. Itâs the reverse example (someone who wants to be treated as pro whoâs denied)
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Iâd like to move to Switzerland, but Iâm not yet familiar with the country.
Does anyone happen to know the following:
The amount of contributions you have to pay into the pension scheme (AHV, 1st pillar) depends on the value of your assets.
How does the pension insurance scheme find out how much Iâm worth?
Does the tax office report the value of my assets to the pension insurance scheme?
I have to declare the value of my assets on my tax return. Is this information automatically passed on to the pension insurance scheme, so that my pension contributions are calculated based on this data from the tax office?
In german:
Ich möchte in die Schweiz ziehen, aber kenne mich in der Schweiz noch nicht aus.
Weià zufÀllig jemand folgendes:
Die höhe der BeitrÀge, die man zur Rentenversicherung (AHV, 1.SÀule) bezahlen muss, hÀngen ja von der Höhe des Vermögens ab.
Woher erfÀhrt die Rentenversicherung, wie hoch mein Vermögen ist?
Meldet das Finanzamt die Höhe meines Vermögens an die Rentenversicherung?
In der SteuererklĂ€rung muss ich ja die Höhe meines Vermögens angeben. Werden diese Daten automatisch an die Rentenversicherung ĂŒbermittelt, so dass aus diesen Daten vom Finanzamt die Höhe meiner BeitrĂ€ge an die Rentenversicherung berechnet wird?
Typically you pay AHV based on your earnings, but in some cases you pay based on assets.
I believe they use the value per your tax return as the basis for AHV payments.
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In Switzerland you have to strip naked before the tax office. You have to report your complete (taxable) wealth, every bank account, your car, valuable collector items, any offshore accounts & properties etc. Basically everything except your home inventory.
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