Hi All,

I'm currently filling out my 2010 Steurerklärung (hurriedly, as my Gemeinde lady says she's giving me not much more than a week to get it sorted).

This is the first time I have to fill it in when I have stocks. By the look of it, I have to put in all the share transactions I've made individually on the Wertschriften- und Guthabenverzeichnis form. Is this correct?

I can handle this as I don't have 100's of them, but if you're a bit of a trader, you could be there all night. Do any of the online brokers offer any shortcuts to this, standard reports or anything? Can you 'net' them somehow?

I'd be interested in anyone's experience, before filling out this form with a load of duff date that's not required

Cheers,
Phil

Yes, I believe you are supposed to show all buys and sells. However, I have been filing since 2001 and never have done so. I was asked for clarification of my 2010 filing, but I told them I didn't have transaction records covering that time period so could only show the overall positions at year end. They accepted that.

i just bunged numbers on the form and the tax office dealt with it.

when i had to give my tax return in to the bank, they told me i filled it in wrong

If you have a depot bank, they should give you a Vermoegensverzeichnis to include with your tax statement.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Hmm, sounds like I'm not the only one who's thinking that they're asking for a bit too much information for them to actually be able to use.

When they suggest we should give so much detail, there's bound to be people who fill it out wrong. Example: What happens if you buy a stock, and then buy some more later? You can put them down separately, but what happens to the dividend? I don't think the broker gives you a separate dividend payment per buy, so that doesn't fit the form too well.

Some more fundamentals:
- If you get paid dividends, I expect they want some tax. But what about if you make losses? Can you claim the tax back?
- If you buy some stocks, and sell later at a profit, do you pay tax on the profit like capital gains tax in the UK, or is that all taken care of by the 'wealth tax'.
- If you buy some GBP and then it goes up in value, then you buy back some CHF, do you owe money on the profit? What if it goes down in value and you buy it back, can you offset the loss?
- What if you buy the GBP, but DON'T buy the CHF back, do you still have to pay tax on the profit, even if it's is GBP? Or, again, is all this taken care of by the 'wealth tax'.

There's a million different scenarios you could come up with here.

I guess I'll go with the UK-style profit declaration - show the interest paid on bank accounts and dividends on shares, then wait for any questions.

You pay tax on dividends. You don't pay tax on value the stocks gained or lost. So unless a negative dividend was payed, this question isn't relevant.

No capital gains tax (at least not in my canton)

It's the value of your stocks, bank accounts etc on 31st December that counts, and the exchange rate of that date is used to determine a CHF value. Any fluctuations in betweem are irrelvelant

You don't pay tax on gains you make through fluctuation in value of stocks or currencies. You just pay wealth tax on the declared value for 31st December, using the CHF excange rate of that day, plus income tax on dividends and interests payed.

what amogles said...

Thanks again for the useful replies...seems like I'm on the right lines.

I just Google translated all the text in 2010 Blue Guidance Book (Wegleitung.pdf) which was total waste of time, it gives no real details at all.

Now I have to wade through all the SwissQuote documentation they've provided to get the numbers, then try to workout how to use the info on Saxobank to provide the same. Why can't the Swiss government oblige brokers to provide a standard one-pager document with all the info that's needed?

Correct me if I am wrong, but, you need to be careful with this as this does not always hold true. In Zurich, as far as i know, if you reach a certain number of trades (this number is at the discretion of the tax authorities), you can be considered a "professional trader" and as such subject to tax on the gains. Provided you make gains of course.

You have two broker accounts, that may push them to view you as a professional trader.

lol, yes 'cos the swiss don't understand consumer choice and the preference not to be governed by a single monopolistic supplier....

I think if they looked at the accounts, "Professional" probably isn't what they'd conclude

I believe that if you use the electronic version of the tax form, this somehow connects to a database and can fill in some default values for you if you type the ISIN number correctly.

sorry for stating the obvious here but if you're not 100% sure ask the contact person from the Steueramt and if that doesn't answer your question I think a one off one hour's advice from a tax advisor should solve this.

True, Lol.

But seriously though. From what I know, there are no specific criteria (i.e. number of trades, number of broker accounts, etc.) which push you into the Professional trader bracket. It pretty much can come down to the person who looks at your tax form and decides you are (as can also be the case with quite a few other interesting aspects of the Swiss tax system).

For future reference, I would really recommend using a tax consultant. You just send them all the documents and they will fill everything in and also extend your deadlines if needed. And surprisingly, they are pretty cheap. CHF 100-200. Let me know if you need a name.

I guess a lot of people have two accounts.

I do. One is the for my company stock options. The bank was chosen by my employer and that's just the way it is. I can't really use that to trade though as the only option I have is to sell all or part of my shares.

And then I have an account with my own bank which I use for all my other trading.

The reason why I said two accounts can increase their suspicion, is that often Traders will have multiple accounts in order to spread the volume of trades.

Oh and when i say "Professional Trader", it is a very loose term. Professional does not have to mean that you are in fact a professional. Just a heads-up.

I've been through that before...when I moved here, the tax inspector I was recommended thought he could get most of my moving and other UK expenses and repaid via the tax form, "it would only cost a few hundred more and could net me 1-2 thousand in saved tax". It did, and I didn't. Total consultant cost was about 1600CHF.

The next year, the tax office sent me a reply to my tax declaration, which went to the tax adviser as he put down he was my adviser, then he tried to charge me about 250CHF for opening the letter, checking it against the detail of my situation and declaring that there was nothing more for me to pay!

Since then, I've done it myself.

I would like to get it checked by a tax accountant, especially as I got married last year and I know it changes things, but I'm out of time right now (not usually the case, but this year I've had special unrelated circumstances), so it goes in as it is.

A tax consultant name would be appreciated, though!

The 2010 Private Tax software appears to do this, but it questions whether you're entering stocks, funds or several other types.

Most of the things I want to put in are ETFs, but there's no "ETF" button. If I try putting in the FTSE 100 iShares Valoren number, it can't find it. You can get much more common than that. Is it classed as a stock of a fund?

<sticks_one's_neck_out> Regardless, it seems easier to put the figures in manually and let the tax people decide if they can be bothered to ask you for more information, if they're probably not going to make much extra money from you. </sticks_one's_neck_out>