I think the pension assets division is only applicable to the amount that was built during the wedding not before. Isn’t it ?
Not necessarily.
Example:
“Erfolgte der Einkauf während der Eheschliessung, wurde er aber aus dem Eigengut (bspw. Erbe oder Schenkung) der Person finanziert, dann ist der Einkauf von der Teilung nicht betroffen.”
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Ah yeah forgot that part 
You could even get more creative: you have it growing at 7%, then outside you borrow at, what, 3% and then invest that. You get ‘free’ money for investment.
So say you had 100k, ordinarily, you’d have say 60k to invest after tax, but because you put it into your pension, you have 100k earning you 7k per year tax free.
You borrow 60k at 3% and invest that in the stock market. You invest the original amount you would have and get 40k of pension investment for free as well as over 5k of annual ‘positive carry’ on the financing.
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This is a noborainer for so long as Cortana is at this employer and the PF continues to perform. For me the biggest risk is getting a job at an employer with a lower return on funds. It is a huge concentration risk in his employer.
In this scenario consider becoming self-employed. I know someone who became a coach, they prepared a business plan and were able to release the money from PF after showing 2 invoices as evidence
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I was planning to fill my 2nd pillar gap in steps within the next 3-4 years, before:
- leaving my current employment,
- transferring the whole pot to finpension(s) and
- invest it there & let it grow until close to retirement age
Now, it appears that my plans will slightly change (as it often happens with long term decisions and life 
) and I might switch to part time employment sometime next year (not final but the likelihood is there)
This would negatively impact my 2nd pillar gap, so now I’m thinking to hurry up and fill it completely in two bigger chunks (one payment by the end of this year and another one sometime next year, before the possible transition to % work) before it shrinks
Now: do you see any reason why this would not be allowed and might have retroactive consequences (e.g. that someone claims I have over-contributed and assigns me some kind of “punishment” ?). It would be great if responses (in one direction or another) are supported with references 
I think this depends on fund regulations. However what I know from my previous investigation is following. There is a concept that stops people from being over-insured in pension plans
- There is a max that you could have in your pension fund and this number is based on present salary and age . This is for regular retirement. You cannot go above this number
- Then there is a provision for early retirement. This assumes that you would retire early. However pension funds always caution you that if you say you will retire early but you don’t retire early, then they have mechanisms to curb your contributions.
As you might not switch employer but stay with your current employer. This would mean that you would definitely have a situation where they can prevent you from being over insured. I guess the tolerance I was told was around 5%.
So perhaps check your fund regulations to understand how much tolerance you have to be “above” the max allowed & what are the consequences.
The “punishment” that might happen is that you would not be able to contribute max allowed in future years until things balance out.
Don’t have reference because this was simply based on my question to my own fund.
If you fill in 2 years instead of 4, then you just need to see if you have enough taxable income to offset. If you reduce it to zero or close to zero, it is slightly tax inefficient as the marginal tax you save is small, but you still have to pay an exit tax on retirement (assuming you withdraw as a lump sum).
However, you might consider it worthwhile even for this tax penalty if you get to shelter the portfolio over the long term in the VB account.
Also, I guess the pension fund from your new employer might not take the full amount of transfer. Not sure what happens here, maybe they take up to the amount set by your salary and the remainder stays in the VB account?
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@Abs_max thank you for your insights. I have checked in my pension fund regulation and what I have found in the voluntary purchase chapter is following (translated from German with deepl):
2 An insured person who does not have the maximum benefits can purchase additional insurance benefits at any time. The purchase can also be made by the employer instead of the insured person. The maximum possible purchase corresponds to the sum of the possible savings credits up to contribution age, plus a supplement per contribution year from contribution age 25, less the level of the retirement assets. The basis for calculating the purchase is the current insured salary (see example 5 in the appendix). The tax deductibility of the purchase must be clarified by the insured person.
3 If an insured person has fully purchased the missing insurance benefits in accordance with para. 2, they can also buy into early retirement. The possible purchase is calculated according to example 6 in the appendix.
From the time at which the retirement benefits on early retirement, taking into account the purchase into early retirement, would be higher than those at normal retirement age without the purchase into early retirement, no further savings contributions may be made by the employer or the insured person. The portion of the buy-ins for early retirement that results in a higher retirement pension than 105 % of the retirement pension insured at normal retirement age without buy-ins for early retirement is forfeited to the pension fund.
I think that section 3 would not apply to my situation as I do not plan to retire early (which here means requesting the payment of a pension before 65) but would stop working at a certain point and transfer the pot to a VB account.
Beside this, I didn’t find other references (maybe because such scenarios do not apply to the average people ?). I would like to find out without starting a formal inquiry to my PK, but not sure if there are other ways… 
We are talking about approx. 80k → 40k each year; My taxable will definitely remain above zero
yeah, I think it might still be interesting for me. To give more context, I’m currently 48 → if I transfer the pot to the VB foundation within 1-2 years I will still have ca. 15 years to let it grow there
The “plan” (again, subject to life happenings ) would be that this is my last salary job → once I resign I would move to consulting (I think under a sole proprietorship setup) and I’m not planning to further contribute to pillar 2 beyond what I’ll have already done
I think in your case rule #2 applies and most likely they will reduce your contributions over the years to bring you back to balance in case you go above 105% of the allowed number for %employment. That’s just speculation though because maybe they are less strict if you don’t retire at that company because in that case they don’t have to give you legal conversion rate
If you think about it, rule #3 is not very different vs rule #2 because in both cases person is ending up with higher value than allowed.
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That sounds good then:
- Fill up pension as much as you can over next 2 years
- Quit and transfer pension to Finpension and let it compound tax free until retirement
- Become self-employed part time. You can contribute 20% of salary into 3a (up to 35k per year).
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I don’t see an issues. If your part-time salary buy-in potential gets too low for your plans, better use the full potential now while you have it. This will also give you a higher tax benefit. Nothing wrong about it.
You could even buy-in in January and then move to part-time in February.
The retire-early buy-in is another, separate pot you could use only once your regular one is maxed out. Also in part-time employment.
You just would need to be careful to not pay in too much, or work too long. Otherwise, you could actually lose part of it (that’s the 105% reference).
If you leave before 58-60, anyway, that not a risk. You can transfer this pot just as the other to your VB account. I assume, but don’t know for sure that they’ll handle it just like any other transfer.
That would be more or less the plan, indeed 
OK, if the pots are separate this shouldn’t be an issue, then. I still don’t understand exactly what the “maxed out” value is, how can I calculate it and whether it applies only to the mandatory portion or also to the extra-mandatory portion. Do you have by chance any reference / example which I could use to try to run a simulation ?
Really depends your fund’s reglement. You should find some table by age, typically in the appendix. It could state, for example that max buy-in at age 48 is 500% of insured salary. Could be 400% or 700%, as well.
This figure, minus your existing balance gives your personal max buy-in. Some other things, like balances elsewhere or earlier withdrawals are also taken into account, if applicable.
Simplified, with 100 salary and 200 balance, that’d be 500 – 200 = 300 available. At 50% salary, it’d be only 50k.
The current value for me is printed on the annual statement. Otherwise, just call or write them to confirm your current value, and if interested the separate one for early retirement, which is based on another table. My spouse’s fund also has an online calculator. It should be a pretty standard request for them.
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Thanks. Yes there is one calculation example but it is related to the standard plan, my company plan appears to be slightly different, so I cannot use the figures to simulate. I asked HR to share the company plan details, once I get it I’ll try to figure out.
This should allow me to back-calculate the max buy-in amount which is stated on my yearly certificate and see how that would change if transitioning to % employment. Regarding consequences (if any) arising from exceeding the theoretical maximum, I think I’ll have to check with the pension fund (hopefully there is none, as you say, and considering there is no explicit reference in the pension fund rules…)
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I got this response from the pension fund (emphasis / bold is their own):
According to Art. 16 Para. 2 of the Insurance Regulations, an insured person who does not have the maximum benefits can purchase additional benefits at any time. The maximum possible purchase corresponds to the sum of the possible savings credits up to the contribution age plus a supplement per contribution year from the age of 25, less the balance of the retirement assets. The basis for calculating the purchase is the current insured salary. This means that if you reduce your level of employment or salary, your purchase amount will be less from this point onwards or it may no longer be possible to make a purchase.
From this response, I understand that future reductions of working % will have the impact of not allowing me to make further purchases (obviously…) but no other “penalties” beside this should apply…
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Ask directly the pension fund by email or call them, it will be more efficient. I have seen so many HR having no clue about pillar 2.