'How to fill your tax declaration in Vaud Canton with VaudTax' guide, step 3

In the last blogpost, we filled the three following parts of our Swiss tax declaration (for the Canton of Vaud), namely: Wealth, Real Estate, and Debts.

Let’s dive into the last parts: Status of Securities, Deductions, Informations, and Summary.

Step 8: Status of securities

For the sake of our example, we will claim that I have one bank account, some Novartis shares (i.e. the fake company I work at), some good old ETFs, no bonds (as the filling is the same as for shares, so this will help to limit the number of screenshots). I will also talk about the US withholding tax with its famous R-US 164 and DA-1 US forms.

Select all what apply to your situation

Selection of securities and other capital investments

I don’t select funds in this screen as mine are US-based, so they need to be treated with the DA-1 form (third checkbox ticked in blue).

Adding bank accounts and bank books to VaudTax

Our BCV account where we keep our emergency fund, and cash for our regular expenses

You can find your fortune and yield (as of 31.12.2016) on your bank statements.

Summary of bank accounts and bank books

I own shares from the Swiss company I work at. I will input them, faking that I work for Novartis

Selecting stocks and shares

Add my Novartis shares to VaudTax

Numbers of this screenshot mean:

• 1/ Link to the ESTV website where you can find all shares infos (see screenshot “ESTV-share” below), as well as historical currency exchange rates
• 2/ Privately or commercially owned shares
• 3/ Value number (see point 3 in the “ESTV-share” screenshot below)
• 4/ Company name (see point 1 in the “ESTV-share” screenshot below)
• 5/ Is your share having withholding tax or not (see point 7 and 8 in the “ESTV-share” screenshot below to know how to find it out)
• 6/ Numbers of shares you owned as of the first day of last year
• 7 and 8/ If your security is paying you dividends more than once a year, then you need to tick the checkbox (7) and you’ll have to enter as many lines as you got dividends paid (I provide an example later in this article). In case it pays only once a year, you can let the checkbox (7) unticked and enter the day and month of when your dividends are paid in the section identified by a 8. It will calculate automatically your values on the next screens.

ESTV website is a gold mine of information provided by the Swiss Confederation. Search your share and select it in the list to go to the next screenshot

See the paragraph below this image to understand each number. I will reference this screenshot as the 'ESTV-share' screenshot

The numbers on the screenshots above correspond to:

• 1/ Official name of the company who issue the share
• 2/ Currency of the share
• 3/ Value number (i.e. identification number)
• 4/ Date(s) when dividend(s) are paid
• 5/ Currency of the dividend(s)
• 6/ Fiscal value of one share as of the 31.12.2016
• 7/ Yield value in case of withholding tax (if 0, then it means you don’t have withholding tax on this security)
• 8/ Yield value in case of no withholding tax (if 0, then it means you have withholding tax on this security — like this screenshot)

You can add the shares you bought/sold during the year on this screen

Specify if it was an increase or decrease, the type ('Buy' or 'Sell'), the transaction date, and the number of shares you acquired or sold

Increase in the number of stocks entered in VaudTax

Summary of shares and stocks

An explanation about the numbers on the screenshot:

• 1/ You can get the fiscal value from the “ESTV-share” screenshot above (point 6)
• 2/ In case the fiscal value is in a foreign currency, you need to enter the conversion rate between CHF and the foreign currency. You can use the tool that ESTV provides on the right sidebar of this page
• 3/ Yield per action: take the value from point 7 or 8 in the “ESTV-share” screenshot above

Add as many shares as you acquired during the past year

Form for flat-rate tax credit (DA-1) in VaudTax

With US-based securities, you have 30% withholding taxes on dividends. You can reclaim 15% (for sure) with the R-US 164 form. Then you can (potentially) get back an additional 15% with the DA-1 form (I will explain the detailed rules in a separate article).

If you are with Interactive Brokers (based in UK in my case), you can only use the DA-1 form. In case your broker is in Switzerland (like Cornèrtrader), you can also fill in the R-US 164 form. I got this confirmation by the tax department of the Canton of Vaud.

Pro tip: instead of paying an accountant for tax questions, first try to reach out to your Canton’s tax department.

VaudTax 'Flat-rate tax deduction (DA-1)' section

Entering the form 'Flat-rate tax deduction (DA-1)' in VaudTax

Choice of asset type for flat-rate tax credit (DA-1)

I contacted again the Canton of Vaud’s tax department to know how to fill the form with my ETF (i.e. a fund). The fact that one can’t select “Funds” is a bug of the VaudTax software. They advised me to fill my ETF as an action, and carefullly indicate its value number so that they process it manually when they receive my declaration.

Declarations of shares subject to flat-rate tax deduction (DA-1)

Declaration of my famous VT ETF (Vanguard Total World Stock ETF)

Entering the increase in the number of VT ETFs over the past fiscal year

As they explain in VaudTax, you have to add several lines in case you get dividends paid more than once a year. The important thing is that for each of these lines, you must not include the fiscal value as we will declare that as a last line.
This means I don’t enter any increase/decrease for the first four entries of my dividends.

Summary of input for shares subject to flat-rate tax deduction (DA-1)

Explanation of the numbers in the above screenshot:

• 1/ Add the dividends you got paid, in CHF. In case you can’t manage to find this info on your broker’s website, you can find all dividends infos on the Vanguard website (or on the below screenshots). As I had 20 securities as of 02.03 (i.e. before the first dividend was paid on the 15.03), it gives us for the first dividend: 20 x $0.222 = $4.44. Use the ESTV website to get the proper currency rate (here I assumed CHF 1 = $1). Also, don’t take into account both numbers “10” of securities as they aren’t used in any of the calculation.
• 2/ The rate you can claim back with this DA-1 form for a US ETF is 15% (as explained if you click on the official list link).

Dividends paid by the VT ETF

Repeat the steps above as many times as you got dividends during the year (without any fiscal value for each)

Important: I did my computation with the number of shares I had when the dividends were paid (in my case it was always 20 as I bought 10 on the 02.03 — i.e. before the first dividend payment).

Let's declare the fiscal value of my VT ETF

Declaring the tax value of my VT ETF

Add the 10 ETF securities I purchased

Entry of my 10 new ETFs completed

Here we add only the fiscal value, without any dividends

You can find the fiscal value of the VT ETF (as of the 31.12.2016) on the Vanguard website (see screenshots below). I assumed a CHF 1 = $1 currency exchange rate here.

Search for the price history of my VT ETF on the Vanguard website

Search for the price history of my VT ETF at the end of the previous fiscal year (on the Vanguard website)

All dividends first, then fiscal value on the last line

Compare your own values (effective costs) with the flat rate computed. Choose the solution that save you taxes the most

Honest Swiss citizens get their money back from Swiss withholding tax when they declare their Swiss securities properly

Summary of flat-rate tax credit form (DA-1)

Summary of the securities declared

Summary of the deductions on the securities declared

Step 9: Deductions

VaudTax 'Deductions' section

Choose what applies to your situation

Here you can declare your third pillar investments up to CHF 6'768 maximum in 2017 (as well as your second pillar buy-back)

Add as many medical invoices you got during the year

Adding a medical bill

Medical invoice successfully added to VaudTax

Deduct your rent and child care

Summary of all deductions

Step 10: Informations

VaudTax 'Additional information' section

I will show you how to provide second and third pillar withdrawal infos in the real estate taxes' dedicated article

Step 11: Summary

VaudTax 'Summary' section

VaudTax 'Summary of income and wealth' section

VaudTax 'Summary of deductions' section

VaudTax 'Summary of special deductions' section

VaudTax 'Summary of cantonal, municipal and direct federal tax calculations' section

Explanation of the numbers in the screenshot above:

• 1/ How much taxes you paid in advance in 2016
• 2/ Swiss withholding tax to be deducted or reimbursed
• 3/ DA-1 form value to be deducted or reimbursed
• 4/ Tax amount left to be paid (or reimbursed depending on your situation)

You can change your 2017 advance payments here, if the difference was too huge between what was due and paid

Send. You are done!

Conclusion

I hope that this tax declaration step-by-step guide was helpful.

If you lack some information on one of the screenshots, let me know via the comments below and we’ll fix it. In case there is any misexplanation, or any tip I missed, please let me know as well.

As said, I will cover the homeowner tax situation in a separate article. Stay tuned.

Happy taxes everyone!

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