Voluntary AHV........ AVS Contributions

Finance, Taxes, Banking, Insurance and Retirement
1
I have Swiss Nationality and resident in Switzerland.

I am single.

I am 55 years old.

I understand that to get the full Swiss state pension one has to make 40 years of contributions and state pension age is 66 years old. If you pay less than 40 years, you get the proportion of the state pension

I have been resident in Switzerland for 11 years and paid my AHV/AVS....... contributions on a very low salary (about 26,000 chf per annum) for all those years.

I have decided to leave Switzerland for at least two years (maybe for ever) and go to live in Asia.

Can one make annual voluntary AHV/AVS contributions while I am away from Switzerland to make qualifying years?

If one can, anyone know what the amount is?

2
Yes. You can make payments while away or you can even make up payments you missed. Of course they get more expensive as one gets older.

You'll have to check with AVS for the amount.

3
I think as a general rule, you can pay into the fund up to five years after you missed payments. So you cannot make good any payments you didn't make, in or before, the year 2010. Your local Gemeinde/Commune can help you.

https://www.google.ch/#q=ahv+schweiz or https://www.google.ch/#q=avs+suisse

4
For information on voluntary contributions to the AHV/IV, see this link (and sub-links):

http://www.zas.admin.ch/org/00723/00...x.html?lang=en

5
Your AHV will be calculated from your gross income, not the net, and it used to be 10% of the gross, independent of allowed deductions in the host country. It is not an qualified deduction on the tax forms, and you will be responsible for the entire amount, no longer having a percetage paid by your (Swiss) employer. Depending on your Asian income, the AHV payment will be a lot more difficult to pay.

6
I shall have virtually no income in asia and will live on my savings.

I was under the impression that you could go away and pay a fixed amount as a qualifying year.

I was hoping someone on here would know what that fixed amount was.

I have no private pension, pillar 2 or 3 so am thinking that I will be dependent entirely on the Swiss state pension to live on when I reach 66 years old.

7
To answer your questions, see p.21, question 4 and response at this link:

https://www.ahv-iv.ch/p/10.02.e

Depending on your assets and any pension income, you would pay in between CHF 814 and 22'850 per year.

8
As far as I understand, the voluntary contributions can only be made by Swiss nationals? Can foreigners (specifically non-EU) also cover their AHV contribution gap?

Non-EU, lived and worked in CH for 1 year (2011), went to EU country where he worked and paid into that country's social scheme (2013-15), came back to CH in 2015. Can he cover the AHV gap?

It could be advantageous to do so to reduce tax burden.

9
Just make sure you can reduce your tax burden by paying in to Pillar 1? I know it works for pillars 2 and 3A, just not whether this works for 1 as well