As far as I know, there is a requirement from the UK customs where your CH pension fund should be "recognised", if not, you pay a huge taxe, something like 20%.
I have seen the list and they are some international companies but not that many. I haven't really understood yet how all that works to be honest.
So if someone knows....
By the way, I would compare 3rd Piliar with an ISA in the UK. It is there to encourage people saving for retirement with no tax on interests. You can deduct the amount you pay from your annual taxable salary.
Any progress on your side? Have you initiated the transfer to SwissLife yet?
I was told by Mercer in London that if the Swiss Pension Fund appears on the QROPs list then they shouldnt be any issues once the UK trustees have approved the transfer.
No, Swiss Life are saying it can't be done (or some low down person who can't be arsed to check is saying it can't be done). I am trying to get a proper answer through work, but at the moment it just being a complete PITA
You may want to try opening up a private 2nd pillar account as a work around. I am in the process of doing this with either Zurich F, SwissLife, Allianz or Baloise. Again, these names appear on the QROPs list but may not neccessarily be the same pension plan (although I have been told that it can be). Once the transfer has been made to your private 2nd plan then I believe your company pension plan will accept it (CH to CH transfer).
If anyone has any links to a pension specialist at one of the big 4 then we should utilize it and put this issue to bed once and for all?
The principle behind the 2nd pillar is to provide for your future and it is quite possible that you have job changes within your working life. If during any of these job changes the company pension rules change or in particular if you take a cut in salary, it is quite possible that your pension fund is topped out. This then means that you cannot make additional voluntary contributions and this remains so until such times, perhaps never, when you are once again able to purchase. The over contributions are not allowed through voluntary purchase only.
The classic method of over contributing is to have your own company and pay to your fund 5 years worth of contributions in trust during the life of your company. As contributions made cannot be taken out, these monies are simply added to your fund upon liquidation of the company. You then have an additional 5 years of contributions - ie a lot too much. If you had already made additional contributions to ensure your fund was topped up you will go way over the limit.
They are immediately tax deductable for the tax return for the year in which they were paid. Note you will of course need to be completing a tax return in order to take advantage of this...
No fear of that not being the case...unfortunately. I also guess that there is a not inconsiderable expense setting up and liquidating the company and doing the trust, so you probably be needing to putting 100kchf's in over the life to make it worthwhile.
The trust is done for you. With this I meant that you can make advanced BVG payments as a company. So this means you can take some of the heat out of your tax bill in the good years and prepay the pensions. The money is in trust allocated to the pension funds of the employees but not in name. So effectively if your pension contributions are 100K per year for your 10 person company then you can pay in 500K in advance, plus the current year. The pension fund then dips into this to add to the funds of the employees every month. If one leaves they take there pot but not the advanced payments made for them - this stay in the company fund. If everyone should leave then the last man standing takes the pot - rather like poker apart from if you are in the know there is no risk - well apart from death which is a risk you live with all your life...If there are two left when the company is liquidated then the pot is shared 50/50.
So as long as you have a company that is making a profit ie where you are not taking the entire income as salary(you would be stupid to do this anyway) then you can use this method to divert money away from the tax man and the social security man. Optimal really.
I think I understand, you have in mind a situation where you control the employing company's stiftung (eg being owner etc) and contributions, so probably not suitable to a normal employee. As an individual I can't choose to overpay its the company which must so do.
We looked recently at allowing certain members to chose their invesments and this was not feasible (had to be offered to all employees which creates all sorts of duty of care issues etc).
I have been trying to move my pension from Germany, I paid in 64 months, but the German Pension agency are telling me , that this can only be done with payments of 60 months or less, bit unlucky looks like, anyone else had any problem with the transfer of pensions from Germany ?
My German pension is in something called a "Rentenanspruch*
You do not need to control the employing company fund at all. As long as you are a company you can use this entitlement to take money off the table to be reintroduced later free of tax(by non-payment of BVG contributions) and it is not subject to the same restrictions as building reserves. Ultimately only big companies will control their company funds, the majority have a managed fund. However, this is a case of what you are legally able to do and this is for the benefit really of the company itself and its directors.
However, this is definitely not something an employee can choose. They can only choose to make additional voluntary contributions assuming they have purchase capacity in their fund.
If you have a company pension scheme then there is a basic rule of thumb that this needs to be the same for all employees which is 75% true. There are legal ways round this by creating an additional fund for management. As these funds are more personal and not subject to the obligatory structures you can more or less do what you want and certainly can have more exotic investments.