Wealth tax - Does it include cash in a bank account?

I am just pissed I will have to double-pay taxes plus the fee for a treuhand plus the big waste of time. Quite infuriating. The rest of the taxes I am totally ok for paying them in Switzerland. They do things fair and well mostly. This thread was never intended on how not to pay taxes.

That’s what I thought. Anyway if you are taxed at source and exempt of doing a tax declaration (less than 120k chf salary, etc…) you don’t have to declare a main account because you don’t do tax declaration.

Unless you’re not saving anything, you eventually would have to declare. Filing taxes is pretty straightforward in most cantons (enter a few things in a website, done) esp as you seem to have simple holdings.

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So if I hit the wealth tax threshold on 2022 I must do the tax declaration on 2023 right?

That’s correct, yes.

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If you’re referring to US WHT, this might mean that you’re not just evading Swiss taxes but also committing US tax fraud: With W-8BEN you declare to the IRS that these dividends are taxed in Switzerland as otherwise you’d have to pay 30% US WHT. They might or might not find out but you’d better not be planning any holidays in the US in the future.

Overall, just don’t do it. While it might work out for small amounts, the evaded tax amount is likely also not worth it. And for large amounts, the lifetime risk of dirty money is high, at least if you ever want to use it. I would also not be surprised if automated reporting will further increase in the future.

No, it’s absolutely not common practice to have an undeclared bank account. Stop suggesting illegal activities. This should not become a forum for how to evade taxes.

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Lol.

Paying 15-30k in income taxes is totally fine but xxx CHF for wealth taxes is theft?

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So you think it’s ok to be a criminal if you save money that way? Where do you draw the line? What is “no big deal” and what’s not?

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At least in my social circle what’s somewhat common is to omit declaring accounts with less than 1-2k balance, that’s also what many accountants will do. But then it’s an inconsequential amount of taxes.

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In the pursuit of not having what I do being traced back to me, I would avoid speaking about it publicly on an open board. :wink:

Not declaring all your assets in your tax declaration is illegal, period. Stop trying to justify or promote your behavior. Last warning before suspension.

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It’s obviously not… It would be a lot more than 10chf of taxes…

The best way to save on wealth tax is to move to a canton with low wealth tax and high wealth exemptions. Deliberately not declaring your wealth is against the law, and wealth tax is very low in most cantons. I’d look into legal ways to minimize taxes.

As a person who is taxed at source, you only need to worry about wealth tax if your taxable wealth exceeds the threshhold (80k for a single or 160k for a couple in the canton of Zurich), in which case you need to fill out tax returns. Until then, it’s covered by your withholding tax. Btw, pillar 2 and 3 assets do not count towards taxable wealth, so making voluntary contributions to the pillar 3a and your pension fund is an option for reducing taxable wealth.

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Especially, when the wealth tax is very, very low.
Even if you are single and live in 8001 with CHF 1m assets, the taxation is 0.2094% - risking something for that? Hell no.

You should aim for the income taxes, not welath tax, @CHRad :wink:

But this is just an addition, since it does not really contribute something to OP’s question.

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I know a few swiss people that do not declare everything as well. Specially deals made in cash. Probably they do other things with the tax declaration.

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As much as I understand the logic you state, I do not agree with it. The money is ALREADY in productive use. Or you think the bank has 100% of my cash in liquid stored in a safe box? They earn money with our money.

And yes @Cortana it is theft. Because it is a double tax. All that money already paid taxes. The fact that they do it and it is legal it doesn’t mean it is fair. This is exactly the same as if my son inherits the house when I die. Every single cent of the money I paid for the house was legal, I paid the taxes when I bought it, I paid the taxes while having it. Why does he have to pay again? It might be how the law is, it doesn’t mean it is fair.

But… hey! This is more of a philosophical discussion haha. Want to say that thank you everyone for your comments, really appreciate them. Made me learn a lot in just 2 days.

@Cortana, @Julianek it is not a crime, for god’s sake. I am even unsure if “illegal” is the term to use. Thanks to CHRad comments, I spent a few hours yesterday reading about this. And what I found was that in Switzerland what he proposes and adapted to my case, not only IT IS NOT tax fraud, it is not even tax evasion (which is an administrative offense, so not a crime). Simply not doing a tax declaration is another category that is punished with a max of 1000 CHF. Which in my case, it is probably cheaper than : paying the wealth tax (double tax) and the time spent on : finding a treuhand, paying him, collecting all the data, phones/emails with the tax bureau, etc. And even I risk the tax declaration is negative so I end up paying more taxes. It is absolutely stupid, really.

I really struggle to understand why people is so pissed off for paying multiple taxes, at the end of the day if you pay 10 times 1% or 1 time 10% it’s the same…and having multiple taxes gives the government some flexibility to incetivize or deter different activities.
Sure we could remove wealth tax or inheritance tax but we’d need to increase income tax instead. Please don’t.

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This is how the system works. A company buys goods and is paying MwSt, then it’s paying taxes on its earnings, you’ll pay income taxes for the salary you get from this company, later you’ll pay taxes on the dividends you’re getting from the money you earned and invested in stocks, then wealth taxes once you amass enough assets. So you see we don’t get taxed twice but multiple times down the way.

You could abolish MwSt, income taxes, taxes on earnings, wealth taxes etc. and just double or tripple earning taxes for companies. They would pay you less and increase their prices. You would live “tax free” in Switzerland but your purchase power will be identical to the current system.

Simple isn’t always better.

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hehe… again, it is a philosophical question sort of. But I like it :slight_smile:

All the chain of taxes you mentioned have a sense. If you make money, you pay money. If you have money sitting in a bank account not generating any profit… and that money is coming from your salary that also paid taxes… that is a double tax my friend. You can paint it any way you want.

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Would you rather get taxed on capital gains like the rest of the world? I wouldn’t and that’s why I like the system in Switzerland.

The current system is favoring investing your money and putting it to use for the society and economy. People that leave it on the savings account get punished.

If we abolish wealth tax and establish capital gain taxes we would end up in a worse situation. People without investments wouldn’t pay any taxes and people with investments would get taxed heavily once they sell something for a profit.

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