That sounds like a very odd experience indeed. Seems atypical and I would expect other members to agree. My recommendation is to stick with them, give them what they ask for and then I’m fairly confident future transactions will be no hassle. There’s simply no other broker that compares.

I get asked 1x per year to confirm that I am still employed and what my knowledge of investing is. They have never asked for a salary statement nor do they ask anything for phone calls

A huge amount depends on your level of transactions, if you deposit 2k a month for 4 years they won't ask any questions, try 24k once a year of 48k every 2 years & you will get flagged to be asked for more info.

Provided that there’s any interest out there
https://markets.businessinsider.com/...vestors-2021-9

Long term reader, first-time poster j/k

I am interested in migrating over to IB, and the starting position is one where my kids have individual brokerage accounts managed by both parents (Mrs and I), and the Mrs and I have a joint brokerage.

I came across this beautiful thing, called "Friends and Family" account, only to find out it is restricted to the US, as kids are minors...

Anyone CH-based figured out a way to manage the family brokerage without this costing an arm and a leg, or requiring change of citizenship?

Wait for the kids to turn 18 for separate accounts. If you are in CH you can easily manage the kids money in your account as there is no CGT. As they have no income it is your money after all.

I spent 45min on hold, ultimately gave up, and hung up. But then Mark from the Swiss support line called me back (dude, if you are reading this, you are EPIC).

Mark was not only brilliant in understanding the setup + needs but also recommending a simple and straight-forward solution, echo to @wantone's idea

For posterity: Open 1 account (single user or joint), then sub-accounts (in title holder's name) and carry on until kids are of age to open an account and simply transfer...

The one thing that remains unanswered - current brokerage is in the kids' name, whereas IB will be parents': cringing at the mindless conversations that are about to follow with the incumbent riding a steady stream of fees.

Hey guys (and girls), asked this in new thread but there were zero answers. Thought people familiar with IB services would know this below for sure?

So, the question is buying originally listed stock vs ADR.

For example, Unilever
a) listed in its home location, UK, with ticker ULVR
b) listed in the Netherlands with ticker UNA
c) listed in the US, as ADR with ticker UL


1/ What do you buy in such scenario, as a Swiss based investor? I guess the "original" location is the thing to buy, if you are OK with that location currency risk etc?

2/ What are tax implications for Swiss based investor, for buying each of these listings? Will taxation be different if he buys ULVR in London vs buying stock listed in Amseterdam or New York offered ADR?

3/ Also - IB used to provide approximate fee before each trade, but now I do not see that. Anyone happens to know what are typical additional fees (other than IB's own fees), for example in UK (any special stamp tax, amount? I have read somewhere that when buying UK stock, big stamp tax is added to IB fee as well ?)


Many thanks in advance

My take on this although I am not qualified to answer your questions is that it depends...on your familiarity with trading stocks in London, Amsterdam or NY (understanding of transaction costs and tax implications) and also on what cash balances you hold and which currencies you are comfortable to follow.

Next you need to see in what currencies the particular company has revenues. For example if most of the revenue is in EUR it is wise to buy it in Amsterdam. If most of the revenue is in USD it is better to buy it in NY.

I have NY as the 1st option because it is a deep market, fees are really low and I follow the USD fx rates with multiple currencies. But then again like I said it depends on the stock. Sometimes it is wiser to buy elsewhere.

with choice of stock, i look typically at liquidity and currency. obviously i want maximum liquidity. then i have pools of currency in USD, CHF and GBP so prefer these ones. then you also have to consider risks. for example, some chinese stocks have de-listing risks, so you might want to consider buying on the HK exchange instead of the US ones.

Note that the currency risk has nothing to do with what currency you used to buy the stock, it's based on the stock itself. Roughly you can approximate it to the currency of the country the company is located at, but this can be also an incorrect way of seeing it (it's more of, where does the company do business, which currencies they depend on, etc.).

I don't think so, for the taxes it only matters how much the stock is worth and how much dividends you got.

When choosing the exchange, among other things, you should consider:
- how much fees you will pay for the purchase (and selling)
- how the withholding of dividends will work (this is a good reading)
- the volume of the exchange, higher volume should lead to lower spread and better price
- fees to convert cash into the necessary currency, if needed

Hi wantone, yeah, but that is the point. I do not fully understand tax implications. I am trying to understand what tax (on dividends, mainly), will I pay in case I will hold UK listed stock vs holding the same busienss but listed as ADR in the Unites states.

Generically, there are no implications for the taxes you need to pay: you need to pay your marginal income tax rate on the dividends you receive.
What can change is who will withhold some or your dividends (and how much) before they land in your bank account, and what you can do to get them back.

You can start with this one as a good overview and then research your specific cases more in detail: https://www.mypersonalfinance.ch/tax...etf-portfolio/

yeah, I know this blog, excellent job, but he focuses mostly on ETFs, not individual stocks. Now, with individual stocks it will be a little bit different. Look

UK stock, held directly there, bought in the UK, as per tax info https://www.estv.admin.ch/estv/fr/ho...ml#-1433316681 . For UK, this is what I see for individual stocks and subsequent dividend: “Les dividendes provenant d’une société sise au Royaume-Uni ne sont pas soumis à l’impôt à la source d’après le droit britannique.” – dividends coming from UK based company are not subject to witholding tax as per UK law. So my understanding is that if I buy UK-based company stock, I will NOT be charged with any witholding tax, 100 % of the dividend will flow into my brokerage account, then in tax declaration for the year, for Swiss authorities, I declare it, but do not need to to add that stock to my DA-1 form (and cannot) be reimbursed for any tax (as none was paid).

But what if I buy such UK-based company stock via US ADR? This is the same business, just ADR, listed in US, in dollars, etc. Will the withholding tax of 15 % be applied by US government, then it can be reimbursed by Swiss government to me, after declaring it in DA-1?

I guess it is boring, but I need to crack this...

ADRs pass on withholding taxes of the stock's origin country (e.g. 15% for UN, 0% for UL). There's no american tax, just some small ADR fees - not reimbursable via DA-1 ofc but they're fairly minor compared to 15% w/h tax

I suggest to buy a tiny amount of stock on each exchange and when the dividend comes see how much they withhold and how you can get it back.

Some ADRs in NY withhold nothing. Some others 15%, it depends on the origin country of the corporation. However, if you go to the investors page of each company's website they explain well the tax withholding situation.

Newbie question about which IB account to setup for a resident in Switzerland, but with access to US/CAD cash.
I would like to purchase USD/possibly CAD stocks and was wondering if I should be setting up an IB US or UK account.
And for capital gains, are there any to be declared if for example a US account was setup and US stocks purchased/sold (not day trading, long term holds years+)

I think you can just open an account and they will figure out which IB exactly to put you under based on your country. For Switzerland I think it's IB UK.
Not sure what do you mean by "US/CAD cash" but you have access to forex so you can convert cash.
With IBUK you can also purchase on US exchanges

For capital gains: it does not matter the country of your broker or the country of the securities. There is a lot of information inside and outside of the forum on capital gains and who is classified as a professional investor - look around for more details, but in a nutshell: if you are doing buy & hold, you very likely won't have to declare them nor pay taxes

I'm slowly prepping all docs to support my tax declaration for 2021. What IBKR documents do you share with your tax advisor and when do they become available?

Based on what I see here, they are made available pretty late:
https://www.interactivebrokers.com/e...1554&p=explain

I'm taxed at source and will need to do an extra request which is time consuming. Is there anything on IBKR that would be available on Jan 1st that could be used instead?

I believe that those are specific reports for US. For Swiss taxes it will be enough to get normal IB statements where the necessary information can be seen. If you play with the reports, you'll be able to get them quickly (and I think you could do it right in early january).

The exact documents depend on how your or tax advisor approach the tax filling, in theory you should list all the trades, but many get away with just listing totals and attaching extra docs for reference.
In principle, the following should be available:
- stocks you held on 31 December 2020
- individual trades you did through 2021
- dividends you received through 2021 (not necessary if ictax knows about your stock and you listed individual trades, but better to include explicitely)
- stocks (although can be derived from above ones) + cash you held on 31 December 2021