i guess the swiss population is used to the concept of using low taxes to attract tax payers here.

Although I'm against this initiative, let's be honest, this wouldn't affect the vast majority of immigrants either here or looking to move here. The kind of immigrant who would be heavily impacted by this initiative would likely have a sweetheart tax deal with one of the cantons that offers them anyway.

not everything is about immigrants.

i think the status quo benefits everybody to some extent. obviously some benefit more than others. i don't see why it needs to be changed.

i wouldn't care too much if it just applied to dividends. i'm not sure whether they intend to make capital gains taxable too. after all, increasing the capital gains tax base by 50% does nothing if the tax rate is zero.

the 50% uplift to interest I would support if it applies to interest deductions (e.g. my mortgage)

I agree and was pointing that out to poster I quoted.

It doesn’t appear to be targeting capital gains. Hence why I don’t think they understand how investing and the Swiss tax system work.

also, it seems focussed on the stock market, though i guess bonds are in scope and maybe even rental income would fall into this, even though it doesn't seem like they consider this.

It mentions interest income, which I had assumed meant bond coupons. Nothing about rental income, but as it is "unearned income", one would have to question why it wouldn't be included.

That Initiative should indeed have been accepted.

Which one?

The Erbschaftsinitiative, the proposition to tax (suggested rate 20%) estates that exceed some tax-free threshold (1-2 mln IIRC). It would have been better to scale the tax-free amount to the number of children though.

Rich people (or companies) don't really pay taxes.

They usually find a way to offload those to consumers.

Rich people will always be rich - unless you go the way of actually confiscating their wealth, or taxing it extremely high.

It would even be somewhat acceptable, if the money was actually invested for future use - but every time something like this happens, it's either distributed as cash to poorer people (think post-WW2 Argentina) or spent on a war - think pre-WW2 Germany and the Jews...

Which is why all these kinds of initiatives have some kind of antisemitic vibe to them, at least for me (and I'm not even Jewish). It's the old "the greedy jew with all his money is strangling us workers"-meme that became ever so popular in the late 20s of the last century - just in a different disguise this time.

And are no mistake that yes, this world and its economic system is totally, completely, absolutely and at every level geared towards making the rich even richer every single day, mostly at the expense of the people not quite that rich.

The only good thing is that most poorer people have no idea just how much the odds are stacked against them or we'd have more initiatives like the one mentioned (and even have some of them accepted...).

AFAIK, the US had a very high nominal tax rate after the war - but investing the money into your own business allowed you to write off those expensive from your taxes.

As a result, a lot of money was invested into new machinery etc. allowing the to build and sell competitive products around the world (with the help of the US dollar it was able to print).
Taking money out of your business was expensive, investing was rather cheap.

IIRC, Reagan changed that and lowered taxes for that....

These days, it's not that simple anymore, I fear because the world (and the financial world) has become much more complicated...

Back to the original title

Recently there were news of new mortgage and remortgage application numbers falling in the US.

Not sure if/what implications it has for CH.

Maybe people waiting to buy did more buying recently.

Not sure if we already discussed to shortage of building materials. It also affects the supply.

all sellers says that

....and all buyers moan, should have bought before it doubled in price

maybe its also the whole lockdown and restriction thing that means people are saving more money and in some cases using this to repay mortgages? or maybe not househunting in the first place for fear of the virus?

3 years ago it was a new terrassenhause and now it was second-hand... Just realized that the owner lowed the price to 900,000 CHF

I wonder what was the motivation of people who got RE since march 2020. Covid? Fear of inflation? Extra income/savings? maybe we should do a poll

60.5M CHF for a 2000m2 villa near Geneva.

Before covid, 50M+ sales were happening once every 3 years.

Only in 2021, there have been 4-5 50M+ transactions in GE

To the original poster I can confirm there is a bubble or rising market.

We have just been offered 50K over our asking price in Geneva for our apartment. As it came through an agent they are taking 45K so in total 95K from what we offered privately.

Not going to say no to that, not for the money but because when it gets finalised it brings to an end a 10 year divorce....

I have pointed out before when the housing bubble raises its head here:

I arrived here in 1989 when there was a severe shortage of housing to rent or buy in the greater Zurich area. The Swiss population was then 6.5 million today the population is 8.7 million.

(ref: worldometers)

That's 33% more people. There are families counted in this of course, but it has put massive pressure on an already very tight market.

Compared to the UK, the Swiss property market is tame - 20% deposit and capital gains tax has helped moderate the market.

The bubble may burst when the population stops increasing and demand drop or interest rates rise. I have just started an 8 year mortage at 0.8%...

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