Tag Archives: Politics

Last week, State Councillor Peter Hegglin (PDC/CVP) withdrew his motion demanding Switzerland’s retirement age automatically rise with life expectancy. © Famveldman | Dreamstime.com He argues that Switzerland urgently needs to find a way to ensure the financial health of its pension system and raising the retirement age is the main way to do this. Across most of the OECD retirement ages have already been raised to 67. In Switzerland it is 65 for men and 64 for women, despite their longer life...

Swiss pensioners who wish to rent or buy property in Portugal are exempt from income tax for a decade (Keystone) - Click to enlarge A proposal to tax at source the old-age pensions of Swiss retirees living abroad has been made in parliament. The aim is to prevent differential treatment of pensioners based on where they live. On Wednesday, Christian Democrat senator Peter Hegglin tabled an...

There has been a lot of talk about the economic impact of the recent tax reform. All of it, including the analyses that include lots of fancy math, amounts to nothing more than speculation, usually informed by little more than the political bias of the analyst. I am guilty of that too to some degree but I don’t let my personal political views dictate how I view the economy for purposes of investing. I am, to put it...

There is no change to the risk budget this month. For the moderate risk investor the allocation to bonds is 50%, risk assets 45% and cash 5%. We have had continued volatility since the last update but the market action so far is pretty mundane. The initial selloff halted at the 200 day moving average and the rebound carried to just over the 50 day moving average. That is about “as expected” as you can get for a stock...

The price and the VAT on a receipt in Zurich (Keystone) - Click to enlarge More than 84% of voters have renewed the government’s right to tax its citizens and companies for another 15 years. This is a unique feature of Switzerland’s political system of direct democracy and federalism. External Content Live results of March 04 2018 ballot: Licence fee for public broadcasters and Federal taxes 2021 Live...

Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.08% to 1.1549 CHF. EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, March 05(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates The US dollar is narrowly mixed. The Japanese yen remains firm. The dollar appears stuck in a narrow range. Near JPY105.20 the seems to be some short-covering pressure in front of JPY105. On the top side, the greenback is encountering offers...

On 4 March 2018, voters in Vaud will vote on a plan to provide basic universal dental care funded by a tax on salaries. - Click to enlarge The initiative entitled: Reimbursement of dental care, Pour le remboursement des soins dentaires in French, claims that 10% of the population avoid the dentist because of the cost. They also claim links between poor dental health and cancer, diabetes and premature births. Their...

On 4 March 2018, voters in Vaud will vote on a plan to provide basic universal dental care funded by a tax on salaries. The initiative entitled: Reimbursement of dental care, Pour le remboursement des soins dentaires in French, claims that 10% of the population avoid the dentist because of the cost. They also claim links between poor dental health and cancer, diabetes and premature births. Their plan envisages the creation of a network of polyclinics that would provide basic dental care, but...

On 4 March 2018, voters in Vaud will vote on a plan to provide basic universal dental care funded by a tax on salaries. The initiative entitled: Reimbursement of dental care, Pour le remboursement des soins dentaires in French, claims that 10% of the population avoid the dentist because of the cost. They also claim links between poor dental health and cancer, diabetes and premature births. Their plan envisages the creation of a network of polyclinics that would provide basic dental care, but...

Schneider-Ammann (right) is holding talks with various business leaders on the sidelines of this year’s WEF meeting in Davos. Among them was Nestlé Vice President Marco Settembri Swiss Economics Minister Johann Schneider-Ammann has downplayed concerns that Swiss-based American firms might relocate to the United States in the wake of tax reform. Speaking in Davos ahead of a visit by US President Donald Trump,...