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| The best way I can see at the moment and depending on the amount of your BVG, is to move it out of Kanton Zurich where the withdrawal of BVG tax is higher (it's taxed at retirement or if withdrawn early i.e. going to live in NON EU countries).
I will use a pension company that offers other solutions beside the vested benefit account. I will be able to invest my BVG into a fund or be able to have my own individual portfolio of shares, bonds etc. The benefits of the latter is that any dividends or interest paid will not be taxed the 35% withholding tax and I should hopefully get a much better return. I can also move bonds, shares into the BVG from my external portfolio as long as the same amount is exited at the same time. A bit complex but tax wise interesting and hopefully a better return than the interest offered on the Vested Benefits account.
I can also split my BVG into 2 separate blocked BVG accounts. 1 can be blocked till 60 and the other 65.
I still have many questions regarding the set-up and of course fees are involved but half that of UBS Private Banking.
If anybody has any experience regarding the flexible BVGs, I would be interested to hear from them. | |
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I am not quite sure what you are getting at here, other than a way to convert bonds into cash legitimately. You also need to be careful what you are saying about the restrictions on BVG accounts.
In practice a Freizugigkeitskonto is simply an investment account in which you can place cash from the funds of your pension scheme when you are either not working, have changed jobs or are leaving the country. Many banks and insurance companies offer this type of account and additionally pay a fixed interest of 1.5% either now or at the next quarter end. This might not seem an attractive growth rate so it is possible again with practically every company offering these accounts to switch to a Freizugigkeits depot account. With this type of account it is possible to invest in a range of BVG type funds which offer a (usually) better rate of return. As an example long term bonds over 25 years offering 4% are not unusual and this provides a "win" of 2.5% over the standard offerings.
Note here that for the OP it is necessary to ascertain what the motivations are and what can be done with the money in the BVG account. Is this all mandatory BVG or is there additional monies in there? All money that is not mandatory can be cashed in on leaving Switzerland, and this is actually more tax efficient than leaving it in for the reason that monies paid out of the BVG in the form of pension are subject to tax at the normal rate whereas capital payments are taxed at 40% of the normal rate...