Essentially you bought a long term insurance plan, your money went in commission. Never invest in any insurance product.

If you can chose to set up a 3rd pillar from either an insurance company or bank, what does it mean? That with the insurance u waste ur money (unless u have an accident, or buy a house, or die) and with the bank u hold on to it without any insurance service?

And also, 11k out of 18k of commission? Is that even legal?

You probably signed a long term contract with all the commission up front, thats why you should never invest with insurance savings plans. You signed the contract.......

Unfortunately what they say is true. The initial years amount goes for commision. It makes sense only if you pay until 10+ years, then money goes to your 3rd pillar ( that too because of compoung interest).

Maybe an option would be to still pay them 3b for 10 years ( or 15) and get the money out after that without tax. Maybe someone can shed light into it. But I am not sure if it makes sense to pay for another 6 more years when you do not plan to come back.

If you had legal insurance (assurance juridique) it would be worth call to ask them to send a letter to your provider. Unfortunately most legal insurances do not cover securities and investments litigation...

Otherwise an official complaint letter may help get you back some of your premiums.

Going forwards, best to use 3a accounts with a flexible investment policy that you control (or a financial advisor) to try to benefit from rare market corrections as this we saw this past march. These are usually not offered by banks or insurance companies though... Same with your vested benefits account btw.

3b only provides limited tax benefits in a couple of cantons (GE and FR). Stay away from mixed investments and insurance solutions. The wrappers used are very expensive for clients as you have seen.

For pure life insurance, Switzerland is very pricey, there are international solutions from the major companies that are less than local providers.

Can you name a few ? Thanks.

Hi, I`ve been googling and heard conflicting information about my pension options.
I`ve been here for two years, working like a madman. Now, with a project finished, I decided to take a half-year break, quit, do some German courses, work on my health and decide what to do next. My former employee sent me a Withdrawal letter, asking what to do about my pension funds. From what I understand, I now have to open a vested benefit account, where the money will wait until I get a new employer.
My question is: I was told that during the next 6 months I should pay around 100 CHF monthly into this fund, because otherwise I will face penalties later on. Is this true?
Thanks

I am tax resident in K. Zürich.

I am considering making voluntary payments into my Pillar 2.




Several years ago, I borrowed some money from my Pillar 2 to buy my apartment, where I still live. I have not yet repaid this.



I understand that I must repay this amount before I can purchase additional "retirement assets". I know you usually have to pay it in chunks of at least CHF 10,000.


I also understand that the maximum annual contribution to a Pillar 2 is 20% of "pensionable salary".



I assume that I could inone year, repay all of the "withdrawal for home ownership" AND up to 20% of the "pensionable salary".



Let's say I repaid 10K this year, how would it be treated for tax purposes?


Would it reduce my Nettolohn?


I see line 10.2 on my Lohnausweis,


"Beiträge für den Einkauf - Cotisations pour le rachat - Contributi per il riscatto"



but my German, French and Italian Tax Jargon are not up to snuff, so I don't know if that refers to a repayment or borrowing the cash in the first place?


Does anyone know how I could simulate this in "Private Tax"? Even if Private Tax was in English I wouldn't understand how to do it.

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I think that is correct. The pension money is not really your money yet, and you can't be trusted to invest/ spend it wisely if get your hands on it, unless you leave the country.

You should contact the company that will run your vested interest account and ask them.

I got my answer.

The money I used to pay a deposit on my apartment only gets me the tax relief equal to the tax I paid on it when I withdrew it in the first place. I think I paid only 3.5% at the time.

My understanding is that there is no ceiling for the voluntary payments into my Pillar 2. I have contributed up to 80% of my annual salary without any issue.

I really enjoyed pension fund system here. All of Pillar 2 amount (minus reasonable tax), which I collected for almost 5 working years in Switzerland, have been transferred to my bank account in my home country.

Of course it is not a case for citizens of EU, US, Australia and some other countries.

Hello All and thanks for the contributions made by several members of englishforum.

i have few questions of which i could not find an answer in the several contributions.

i am 57 and i wish to retire in few month and in Switzerland you can only retire from age 58.

i have resources to live on my own and wait for my monthly retirement installments after 65.

these are my questions:

1. can i still retire at 57 ?
2- can i still continue to pay my monthly pension installment till 65 after quitting my job?
3- what is the best solution if i wish to stop working and be able to continue to pay my monthly pension installment (from my own resources)

i wonder if someone was in my position and wish to share his ideas and solutions.

thanks a lot

You can retire anytime you want, you just have to figure out how to finance it, I retired at 55.

As I understand it the significance of 58 years age cut off is in terms of what happens when you leave your employer. In the past when you terminated your employment your pension pot was transferred to a foundation of your choice or the state one, where it sat until such time as you joined a new employer or reached your 60th birthday and during that time you received as
small interest payment or if you knew that it would remain there for some time you could move it to a limited selection of funds. In recent times there is a new option if you reach the age of 58 - your pension pot can remain in the former employers pension fund and continue to grow (or decline), I could be wrong on this, but I don't think you can continue to make contributions to it.

To the best of my knowledge there is no option where you can move your pension pot to some kind of pension fund after retirement, continue to make contributions to it and gain tax relief from doing so, but I could be wrong. I expect that there are financial products out there which would allow you to make monthly savings to it and would eventually be converted to an annuity, but not in the same way as you would do to a traditional pension. And it did not interest me in any case at the time.

One thing you need to be aware of is your obligation to continue to pay social taxes and the way it is calculated if you no longer have an income. It is calculated on asset valuation if you were the sole income earner and depending on how your set up financially that could prove to be expensive. This is something you'll need to investigate to ensure you don't end up paying too much and that you also qualify for a full state pension later.

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