The Swiss tax shall treat everyone equally and this tax shall be the equaliser between home owners (who pay interest and maintenance but no rent) and renters. I kid you not. Keywords: steuerliche Gleichstellung, Mieter, Eigentümer.
Eigenmietwert is actually very fair - the only problem is that it is hard to explain/understand and so is difficult to justify politically as a ‘tax on income I didn’t even earn’.
The UK rebate from the EU suffered in a similar way.
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How is it fair to burden homeowners with an extra tax when it is contrary to the Constitution?
The promotion of home ownership by private individuals is one of the goals of the state and is even included in the Federal Constitution with Article 108 on the promotion of home ownership.
" The Confederation shall encourage the construction of housing, the acquisition of the ownership of apartments and houses for the personal use of private individuals"
Eigenmietwert is not in the Constitution.
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I don’t care whether it is fair or not. I only care whether I can look forward to paying more tax or less tax compared to today.
Because it’s coupled with very generous deductions for maintenance works. This incentives the homeowners to invest in their home and is a direct contributor to the high level of quality of the housing in Switzerland
The new regulations I understand reduce the amount of tax deductions for maintenance works which would be a BIG mistake imho.
Of course, the ideal for homeowners would be to get rid of imputed value and keep the maintenance deductions, but that would be very unfair for renters, as explained above.
I’m really against these changes as you can guess…
For that to be a problem one would need to organise maintenance works every year that is higher than the imputed rental, for me, that would be an impossible target.
Well the imputed value is not usually more than the 1% that typically gets budgeted for maintenance in loan affordability calculations… If one is not able to spend that annually one risks losing in the potential resale value of the home…
The advantage for homeowner is that while you are “forced” to spend that “imputed” money to get even you do end up with a well maintained property and make some good comfort for yourself…
In my case the impured value is nearer 3%
In the canton of Zurich, the imputed rental value is calculated at 3.5 percent (single-family homes) or 4.25 percent (condominiums) of the taxable value. The taxable value is 70 percent of the market value
Houzy Magazine | Imputed rental value in Switzerland: calculation, factors, deductions.
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Wow. This is nuts.
Yeah, that is quite a lot TBH… In Vaud it’s based on surface area, roughly 160-170 chuffs/m2, that you can reduce with coefficients based on age etc, works out somewhere between 1-1.5% of “real” market value… 3% is more than double, true that’s quite a lot to make up in maintenance/renovations
However not being able to deduct works from taxable income would make it very difficult to justify those already inflated Swiss tradesmen prices…
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If the tax goes, there will be less of an incentive to “upgrade” your own home. Tradesmen might find themselves with less work ie doing only necessary repairs and upgrades in the owner-occupier market.
Why? The tax element to this is largely an irrelevance. Why would you spend CHF 100 just to save CHF 30-odd in tax? Bear in mind only maintenance can be deducted and not improvements/upgrades (except sometimes solar panels) and maintenance usually has to be done anyway.
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is anyway small, landlords will always be able to put the cost of maintenance against tax.
Because the money you paid stays in the house - you have a nicer better home. You spend 100 francs on something nice in your home, and get 30 back from the taxman. Many things that are considered “maintenance” are in fact improvements from the homeowners view, particularly when going for higher value more modern replacement (e.g. flooring, new appliances etc)
The system is more important for large buildings with many tenants. The large building owners are incenivised to find ways to spend on their building to reduce their tax burden, which benefits the tenants ultimately and offsets somehow the high rents
Now it’s true that out of those 100 francs in fact the biggest part goes into the pocket of the tradesmen through the inflated prices, but then everyone has to live of something…
With every other investment you are taxed on the benefit in kind, such as interest or dividends, so fair that you are taxed on the rent saved by buying a property. UK has council tax (previously rates) & neighbouring countries seem to have annual property taxes, I pay €6750 for a 162m2 apartment in France.
Higher interest rates would solve the problem 
Owners get tax relief on mortgage interest yet renters pay tax on the money they use to pat their rent.
Let property gets this anyway as an operational expense so it makes no difference to let property. The only change here would be for owner occupiers.
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Finally some good news. The tax from imputed income corresponds to your marginal tax rate which is a lot if you earn a bit over average. I was stuck with this. Paying inflated property price in tax favorable region didn’t make sense, paying higher tax + imputed income tax (based on higher marginal tax) also didn’t make sense. Without this tax a much larger radius exists where you can break even living on your own paying only local income taxes vs paying Zug income taxes + rent.
PS. Zug was always my baseline for comparing cost of living
As does the deductible for interest.
Exactly, those proposing abolishing imputing rent made it clear that the ability to offset income with repairs or mortgage interest will be abolished also. This is not good, as this financial incentive for the landlord is part of the reason that rental properties are kept well maintained. Without it, there is risk of very low quality accommodation (at not very low prices) just as in the UK or USA cities.