Hello Mustachians
I am not getting the concept of wealth tax. If I am an expat with B permit, and I keep putting my monthly savings in a simple bank account (yeah, I know I should go for ETFs…) do I have to declare it and pay taxes for it when it reaches a certain amount?
I am not doing a tax declaration because I am taxed at source. I am not getting interest on that money on the bank account as far as I know.
Please help! I am kinda lost :-/
Yes, if it reaches the threshold amount for wealth tax
Thanks paul. Where should I find such thresholds?
It is detailled on the website of your canton.
It may vary between canton but should be above 86 kchf by adult.
The tax software will calculate everything for you anyway so no need to worry about it.
Thanks @FunnyDjo . But what is the logic behind this? It doesn’t make any sense. If the money comes from my salary and I don’t earn interest with it and I already paid taxes for it (every month I get the deductions from my salary), why should I pay for saving?
It sounds like negative interest
You could read this thread with real-life example:
Anything you save and own above this threshold will be taxed between 0,16-0,3 %.
It’s probably a complex matter. I’d say it’s an incentive to have capital working, that’s teamed up with tax-free capital gains.
Capital can generate income. That income is taxed so gaining income through making the capital work could be seen as discouraging investing capital to generate income. By taxing both idle and working capital, idle capital is sure to generate a loss, while it should not be too difficult to generate positive after-tax returns on working capital (as stated by @FunnyDjo, the level of wealth tax is pretty low).
As stated by @ProvidentRetriever, it also allows tax free capital gains to still be taxed in some way.
I’d look at the tax system not as a system designed to be fair and help us gain riches but as a system made to make our economy more productive, more imaginative and more resilient.
Also, there is a threshhold on income in CH which triggers the need of making a full tax declaration, as well as income earned on the side which is much lower (e.g. you have a rental abroad or a side gig)
Yeah, makes sense in a way… but keep in mind knowing how to put capital at work COSTS MONEY also. Because time is money and risk is money also. They are not going to refund you if you loose money investing. Ridiculous.
So guys, suppose I hit the threshold this year. I understand I will have to declare it next year (2023) because the tax declaration for 2022 is done on 2023. Right?
Eh. * shrugs * This is all my personal opinion and in no way mandatorily true but I find the swiss system to be pretty smartly designed to make us more competitive than other systems and well positioned on a worldwide basis. It has its flaws but it’s been working pretty well so far.
Yeah, definitely the swiss model seems better than others. My feeling is that they try to be very fair and don’t treat taxpayers as criminals by default. No complaints about it. It is just that this case feels like double-taxation or negative interest and I just don’t get it. Meh.
Thanks mate 
Having Wealth tax push also people to prepare their retirement plan.
You can also maxout your 3rd pillar or buy back 2nd pillar as the savings in it are not subject to this tax.
So you mean my bank will never tell the tax authorities my amount of cash in the bank? So they will not know, so no need to do tax declaration.
haha well… why people declare things then? If there is no way for the Swiss authorities to access your financial information… ?
In my case it is not also the wealth taxes but the amount of time spent and also probably money spent on a tax advisor (I don’t speak the language of my canton and the info is not in english)
Don’t forget that most foreign countries (at least the ones you’d actually keep a substantial part of your wealth in) do report to the Swiss tax authorities.
But CHRad refers to money held in swiss bank accounts I think. I have a tiny amount of wealth in my country of origin parked in cash also in a bank account. I would say negligible for swiss standards. That would not be a problem.
I found my canton threshold and for 2022 I think I will reach it. Damn 
But let me get this straight mate. What is the purpose of hiding the cash in the swiss bank (besides legal punishments if they find out which is not a minor thing) ? I will provide an example to understand it better :
What is the purpose? I don’t see it.
I understand this makes sense if you use very low amounts, so you have dividends of ETFs worth a few K´s per year… fine. This will not be noticed. But wealth tax over the threshold? It will be noticed for sure. Threshold are around 60-90Ks. That is a lot. Please let me know your thoughts cause I don’t get it
Because we live in society and follow the rules. Why do people respect the speed limit when there’s no cop?
Honestly declaring things isn’t a big bother, the tax amounts are low esp. at the beginning. So I follow the rules because I like being in a society where we can trust each other by default (and we don’t need to spend tons of money on enforcement from police/tax office).
Note that you anyway will need to declare your main bank account, and they pretty obviously would notice a large mismatch between income and wealth, so if you want to do tax evasion it would only work at a small scale. Then why bother?