Hacker News Reader

Switzerland has a wealth tax. That is a tax on unrealized gains fyi.

> Switzerland has a wealth tax.

If the wealth tax rate is close to zero, who the hell cares?

The wealth tax in e.g. Kanton Zürich is 0.025% (not the cheapest Kanton).

If you are able to grow your capital at - say - inflation corrected 4%, which shouldn't be overly hard, and you pay no taxes whatsoever on cap gains while paying 0.025% on the total accumulated wealth.

I'll let you do the math as to how good you have it there.

The highest marginal wealth tax rate in Zurich is 0.47% and 0.9% in Geneva starting at 2-3mn CHF. It's not irrelevant at all

If you now earn 4% on your capital and pay 0.9% wealth taxes that is like a 25% tax rate on your unrealized gains. Inflation is close to zero anyway and interest rates are negative.

Obviously I prefer that system because we can compound essentially tax free to a couple of 100k before having to think about taxes.

No, because they are not exactly correlated with your gains. For what it's worth, you could have an unrealized deficit but still owe taxes. That's why it's a wealth tax and not unrealized gains tax.

Real estate is included in that wealth, of course. And it has a different tax treatment than "usual" stock market gains.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com