Unmaried couples: how do balance stay-at-home situations?

Investing / Portfolios
1

Hi there
my partner and I deceded to not marry but do the Konkubinat instead. We both intend to mostly work full time. However, in case reality kicks in and we face a mom-stays-home situation beyond maternal leave, we wonder on smart ways of how we could share the financial burden.

Do you have ideas or experience?

Our thoughts so far:

  • 1st pillar / AHV: difficult :confused:
    • no manual payment possible
    • I could temporarily “employ” my partner to boost her AHV income. however this incurs lots of friction losses. Anyone looked at this in detail?
  • 2nd pillar / BVG
    • I could pay for some buy-ins, but due to the reduced income of hers in a stay-home situation, this is financially highly inefficient. maybe pledge for buy-ins once she is back to earning? also dodgy^^
    • if i “employed” her for above the minumum BVG salary, could I make 2nd pillar contributions part of the “employment”??
  • 3rd pillar
    • seems straight forward to take over some contributions, but again, not efficient in times of reduced salary
    • overall very limited in absolute terms, compared to a typical income reduction
  • direct payments to balance loss-of-income
    • seems like the most straight forward way to me. Any chance to tax-deduct this as “support of a dependent” ?^^

Thanks for any of your hints & tips :slight_smile:

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  1. assign her 100% of the Erziehungsgutschrift on the Gemeinsame Sorgerecht at birth. That’s like a fictitious income on AHV, for years spent “at home” with a child.
  2. Just give her some cash equivalent/fair share to what you (and your employer) are paying into your 2nd pillar. Invest outside 2nd pillar. In most circumstances, Buy-ins before 50 aren’t great (due to low returns).
  3. Yes, give cash same as 2. Buy-in 3rd when salary is higher again, invest outside if there’s no tax-saving.

That’s the way we did it.
We took care that it doesn’t look like a “gift”, as this may start gift-tax discussion.

Unfortunately no tax-deduction “support dependant” for you, AFAIK. You can agree to get all the kiddy-related deductions on your tax declaration though.

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3

As above. Also consider:

  1. Taking unpaid time off to share some of the load later. If you do equal time then it is balanced
  2. Pay daycare when partner is back at work

But easiest is probably a direct cash compensating payment.

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4

I did it for a couple of month where my partner took unpaid leave for 3 months after maternity leave and before start of daycare.
We looked at the price for a shared nanny which was 2900 chf in Geneva and give her this amount.
She use it for 3rd pillard payment and savings. Unfortunately AHV contribution and 2nd pillar are lost. She will do 2nd pillar buy back later.

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You get Erziehungsgutschrift which compensates part of the AHV.

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Good to remember that if partner returns to work, the cash you gave could then be used to backfill the 2nd pillar, so it still remains a tax-efficient option.

7

cool points, thank you!
I would be curious if any other tricks were found by readers of this threat
 :smiley:

8

Just saying: there’s a simple solution in case a child is born. It’s called marriage or “eingetragene Partnerschaft”. Upon divorce, the court only cares about proper representation of the kid(s), as long as both spouses agree on their own terms.

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