You will get a tax deduction on investment in 3rd Pillar, your taxes come later when you get the money. Depending on your tax rate it might be worthwhile.

Thanks for the info-all very helpful in this land of money!!

My non-working spouse is 63. We are both American. I have been working here for 5 years. We have heard that she needs to apply for a pension in a timely manor. When? and Where? and For what exactly?
Thanks

Afternoon EF,

Havent been back much since departing Switzerland in Oct last year.

I've spent most of the day on the hunt for info, and although I've found it referenced quite a few times, I'm struggling to find anything that really helps on using remaining pension funds to buy a main residence within the EU (UK) after leaving.

Since leaving I have managed to withdrawn a certain amount of the fund as cash and was hoping to use the remaining amount to go towards the deposit on a new home. I know it is possible, and have been in touch with the company holding it on (BCV), but due to translation issues and a lack of understanding from me on the way it works both Swiss and UK side, we seem to have hit a standstill. BCV are unfortunately not being overly helpful, and the forms I have been sent through almost seem impossible to fill in due to the information they're asking for. It doesn't seem to account for the way the UK housing market works.

So if anyone could help point me in the right direction to where I could find more info, or recommend a 3rd party that may be able to help with the process would be great.

The amount left isn't huge, its not worth paying 100's-1000's to get it, but at the same time it would be nice to use now oppsed to waiting 30yrs to get my hands on it!

Thanks in advance

Hi

I would imagine the monies you have been able to get out are the amounts above the obligatory statutory savings amounts (from higher than statutory contribution % and/or salary above statutory ceiling and/or more generous split of employer contributions).

The withdrawal for primary home applies ouside of Switzerland (see para 2 of section 1 http://www.bsv.admin.ch/themen/vorso...x.html?lang=de), but clearly it is a quite unusual request to quite a small bank.

I think you must point them to this and insist they work out with you how you can exercise your statutory right.

Danny

__________________
www.templeman.net

PS the minimum withdrawal for this purpose is 20kchf, so if you have less the question may be moot.

Thanks for the quick response Danny,

Unfortunately my German is even worse than my French so I had to rely on trusty google for that one.

Can I ask does it say that you can use it go towards the mortgage at a later date? Just wondering if this is something I can attempt in the future, instead of trying to line it all up in time for when the house goes through.

Wayne

Just click the FR icon to get the froggy version, there is no english version though. I do believe you can do it later.

You need to find how the uk tax authorities will deal with the lump sum payment. You will probably liable to income tax in the normal way getting a credit for any withholding tax paid.

Just my 2 cents on this. I left Switzerland last year and had a fair bit of money in a retirement fund. I have just recently managed to get all this paid out into my UK mortgage account as I bought a new house. The steps I took were this: I contacted my pension provider (ASAG I think), well when I say contact, I sent them a form which my employer obtained for me. This form was to transfer the pension pot into a freizuegigkeitskonto with my bank. I obtained a form from my bank (BKB) which I filled in and sent to the pension provider, this form had details on what the pension provider should do with the money (what account to transfer to etc.). The money was then transferred into this account before I left. I contacted BKB when I got home and told them I was buying a new house and asked about transferring it. They then sent me forms to my UK address (in English - which was nice of them!). There were a few rules to this, either the money had to be paid out to the seller or to into the mortgage account. At this point I had not bought the house. I didn't go down the route of transferring it to the seller but opted to have it transferred to my mortgage account.

Once the house was in my name, I had to send the land registry deeds(with completed signatures),a letter from my bank stating the details of my mortgage account (along with the IBAN, BIC CODE and reference/account number)and the forms that BKB sent me. This form was quite simple tick a few boxes and sign. It was done within a matter of days once they had received the forms. They took a 200 fee out and some money for tax (around 500 CHF I think) and the money went straight into the mortgage account.

If anyone needs any more clarification then let me know and I will do my best to help.

BKB were brilliant I have to say, very helpful and made the process easy.

Cheers.

What is your uk tax liability on this? As your liable to uk tax when the payout is made.

Tax was taken out by the kanton and I assumed due to the bilateral tax agreement that I am not liable to pay any tax here in the UK (as essentially I have already paid it). I will check with my accountant though.

I did some research on the existing threads in the forum but I couldn't find it (which is annoying as I had a vague recollection of reading something on this).

As far as I see, it is possible to get a cash payment from the 2nd pillar when going to a EU country (e.g. the UK), as long as the person does not need to have a compulsory pension.

Indeed, I quote from the instructions for filling a specific form I found:

The form is here, basically something that instructs / allows the Swiss side to ask the UK side to confirm whether such a compulsory requirement exists
http://www.verbindungsstelle.ch/docu...mularUK-dt.pdf

I am a bit confused though, because while in the UK you can still opt out of pension scheme (which is what would match the 2nd pillar), the National Insurance I believe is compulsory, and may counts as a "compulsory pension, disability and survivors’ insurance in the United Kingdom"... Arguably the NI matches the 1st pillar to some extent.
Does anyone know? Because if the NI counts as such, it is a waste of time filling the form.

People moving to the Uk have successfully cashed in their 2nd pillar, of course it will be fully taxable in the UK .....as you have to of left ch before any payout.

So it would get 20% or 40% shaved out of it. Not very encouraging :/ As I understand to cash it out it needs to be done when leaving, which isn't necessarily the best time in terms of tax efficiency.

The other option is to leave it in a vested benefits account here (where interest rates are notoriously low). There are some with investment funds attached. Any suggestions on the better ones?

EDIT: I just did a comparison on a website and the interest rates are on the depressing side. Best was 1%, and lower on major banks like Postfinance (0.625%) and UBS (0.5%). Ugh.

Hello,

I have a question regarding withdrawing the pension funds when permanently leaving Switzerland. From what I understood as an EU citizen it is possible to do this with the extra amount above the mandatory limit for Pillar 2. My question is what happens if at some point after you "permanently" leave Switzerland you might want to return (for instance for a new job offer) ? Does withdrawing the 2nd pillar amount affect in any way the legal procedures of returning ? (I'm referring mostly to getting a new work permit, or other forms)

Thank you !

Not that Im aware. However, I suspect you will need to "replenish" your pension contributions by the withdrawn amount before you get further tax deductions on your contributions, as would be the case if you withdrew the funds to buy a house or finance a business.

That was just a Swiss withholding tax. As the money was paid to you the UK when you were tax resident in the UK you will have to pay UK tax on the amount. You will get a credit for tax paid in CH, however it's not your full liability.

Doesnt it fall under "lump sum" payments item (2), therefore just taxed in CH?

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/dtmanual/DT18167.htm

Thanks for that, looks like it does assuming nothing has changed.