As far as I understand US-CH tax agreement, there is just no US tax on interest/coupon payments. No first hand experience though.
Can confirm, e.g. BND has much lower withholding than 15%.
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Which taxes you pay on coupons? I don´t understand then the deduction you get by holding US treasuries. Someone with first hand experience on the topic to have a chat?
There’s no withholding tax due to the double tax treaty. However, the coupons still count as income, which is taxed at your income tax rate.
Where do you buy US treasuries? A friend of mine wants to get them (being a US citizen as well, living in the EU).
Can they get them at IB? Or can they directly get them via some US address?
Yes.
Probably yes. S/he should know better 
.
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She has no financial clue (or risk appetite, for that matter) - but I can’t really help with bonds, this was never my playground. I’m naively thinking the current 5% US10Y yield could be bought somewhere as a security…
This is great, thanks. Will need to see if you need a US address/bank account for this.
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In that case, you’d better consider shorter durations until the Fed seems to manage to tame inflation…
I would either learn about what I’m planning to invest in, or stay away from securities (including bonds). Nominal bonds do loose value when interest rates rise and that will probably be displayed on her account even though you get the face value paid back when they reach maturity.
Forex fluctutations are another aspect that could hit her unexpectedly if she spends her money in another currency than USD.
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If you buy the actual treasury (and not ETFs) and keep it up to the maturity date, there is virtually no risk in a bond. You get interest as stated and your capital back at the end of the term.
I haven’t had the time or courage yet to buy any US treasuries myself, but given the current yields, they still seem pretty attractive to me compared to Swiss treasuries.
Of course, there’s always inflation to consider with bonds, but Swiss inflation is a lot lower than US inflation, while the USD has maintained its strength vis-a-vis the CHF.
Surely I wouldn’t go for intermediate to long-term treasuries due to currency risk, but some short-term treasuries, why not?
Or, if US-inflation is a concern to you because you have lots of US liabilities, why not buy IBonds (if US citizen) or TIPS?
Overall though, I have become increasingly sceptical of the use of bonds for me. I don’t really like the fact that the government can deliberately choose to inflate away their debt, print money, devalue their currency, or rise rates whenever they see fit.
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Care to explain why that would be relevant, esp. foreign inflation.
FX risk (and expected interest rate parity) seem relevant, but I don’t really see why inflation matters here.
Or you think central banks will raise rate further to tame it (but then not sure why it hurts).
Inflation, if taken into account should be substracted equally from all asset class (equity, real estate, etc.). And in general foreign inflation doesn’t impact a swiss investor (except as much as it impact the overall economy, an hyperinflation cycle in the us would be fairly damaging, probably impacting all asset classes tho)
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Yes, totally agree, I’ve tried to make that point above, guess I haven’t expressed myself too clearly 
From a purely legal/fiscal perspective, are there any problems for a Swiss citizen and resident to buy foreign bonds? You don’t need to be a US citizen in order to buy US bonds, do you?
As far as I know: No. I assume you’re referring to individual treasuries. You can go to https://www.treasurydirect.gov/ and get yourself some Christmas presents 
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You can´t buy them directly in TreasuryDirect if you are not US resident but you can buy them with your broker. As a tip, you can download all the auctions and take the CUSIP to facilitate the search in IBKR or the broker that you use to buy them.
Maybe a little off-topic: Would you rather buy Swiss government bonds or CHF-hedged US treasuries?
Or does it matter at all?
Long term should be equivalent, but higher taxes on the US ones (since it has higher yield).
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