Hacker News Reader

Comment by bluelu | Hacker News Reader

That's not true. In some cantons, the very rich get extra deals, called Lump-sum tax, independently of their revenues. E.g. the Ikea founder only paid around 165000$ in total taxes in 2014 on a fortune of 46.5 billion US $ and all his revenues which he had.

Source: https://www.20min.ch/story/so-wenig-steuern-zahlte-der-ikea-...)

View on HN

The lump sum tax is only possible for non-citizens, who do not have direct W2 income from Switzerland. Local governments (if the state allows it) can use it as a shortcut to estimate the tax amount. Nevertheless wealthy Swiss citizen don’t leave Switzerland either. Probably also because there is no capital gains tax which offsets the wealth tax easily.

> there is no capital gains tax

As long as capital gains are less than half of your income.

That's not accurate. Only if you qualify as a professional investor, you'll have to pay capital gains tax.

And that’s one of the conditions that you have to fulfill to be sure the tax administration won’t classify you as professional investor.

https://www.taxadvisors.ch/media/6666/TaxBulletin_02_12_engl...

That’s often reported but factually incorrect he did not own 100% of Ikea. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stichting_INGKA_Foundation. That charity was valued at 36 Billion in 2006 and controls most IKEA stores and assets.

The family owned https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interogo_Foundation which was valued at 15B in 2011 which controls IP and collects 3% of revenue from each store.

We all know that's a tax dodge though, right? https://www.economist.com/business/2006/05/11/flat-pack-acco...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com