We are in the process of moving house. We sold our existing house, making a modest profit over what we paid for it 8 years ago, and bought a new house for quite a lot more than we got for the old one. Both houses are in Vaud and are/will be our primary residence.

My question is about capital gains tax: we are liable to pay it on the profit we made on the old house, but I believe we have the option to defer payment and somehow attach the amount to the new house. However, the liability will not go away and someone will have to pay it in the future, eg, if/when we pass the house on to our kids. We have been advised that it's better to just pay it now, as you never know what will happen to tax law and tax rates in the future and we could be landing our kids with a huge bill one day. However, I don't think the liability is index linked and I can't imagine the tax rate changing all that much, so it seems to me that inflation will eventually eat most of it if we don't pay now.

Does anyone have some experience or advice on this?

Thanks a lot.