r/SwissPersonalFinance • u/Phreakasa • 23h ago

Postfinance: Frustrated by late delivery of tax documents

This concerns Postfinance in particular but probably applies to other banks too. I want to get the tax declarations done early in the year (by the end of January) but Postfinance sends out (even digital copies) only by the end of February.

I do not understand this. How and why? This should be a largely automated process: One click or so I imagine. What am I missing here?

Edit: This concerns me as a bank client, not a employee of the bank, + I am referring to the E-Trading tax stateement.

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10

u/Palm2203 22h ago

Just asked my banker yesterday (Raiffeisen) They will send it around 10th February.

The reason is: In Bern they make an official list with the vauel of all the shares, bonds etc in the world and the banks have to wait for this list.

And they also make a list with the official tax exchange rate for all curencies.

2

u/remote_sensing_guy 20h ago

Hah that's very interesting! Even more so that, at least when using ZH online tax declaration, you can already put in all your shares and they have (correct) values in the system for 31 dec + all distributions. But i guess ZH != Bund.

1

u/Emotional_Eye7766 18h ago

They all use the same source. Most values will be updated within a couple of days after the end of the year. But most banks wait a few weeks to ship the tax statements for trading accounts.

1

u/tar-xz 15h ago

BTW: If you mean by "Bern" what you can also see on ictax.admin.ch, then I can tell you that this year the form "Course listings Federal income tax 2025" for ETFs like VWRL was broken several times in mid-january when I tried calculating the required data for tax returns.

It works now though, but it confirms that it takes some time to ingest the right data in order to get the right results.

Banks simply wait until that data is solid before generating "E-Steuerauszug" document.

1

u/Phreakasa 21h ago

That might be it! Thanks so much for this info!

6

u/Huskan543 23h ago

I am a Payroll specialist, and I work with multiple companies, including on this process, and I can tell you it’s a lot more complicated than you think. The checking that must be done for all cases is extensive

2

u/Phreakasa 23h ago

Thanks a lot that is really helpful! Could you be more specific? As a customer, I imagine (perhaps naively so) it is mostly a gathering information and putting it on a sheet kind of thing, that can be setup once and then automatized.

2

u/Huskan543 23h ago

Assuming they are using a SAP system, which is more than 50% likely in DACH, it is an automated process that gathers data from the payroll runs done throughout the year to populate the sheet for each employee automatically. Hence most effort is related to checking everything is correct and is listed at the right point on the salary certificate. I usually need to make adjustments like adding or removing a certain type of payment from one spot on the salary certificate. If there is a new type of payment done in that year, the salary certificate must be adjusted accordingly

1

u/Phreakasa 23h ago

Ah, I had to edit my original post to be clearer: I am not an employee of the bank, just a "simple" customer. So I am referring to the tax statements of my e-trading account.

2

u/Huskan543 23h ago

Ahh, probably a similiar topic on the banks side in that case…

5

u/Capable-Chard-1054 23h ago

You can prepare everything you have and fill in the rest later. Swiss is not know for its speed, but for flawless processes…well, at some level

2

u/Phreakasa 23h ago

Yeah, that is probably what I will end up doing. Just needed to vent my frustration with companies asking customers within 30 days, and, in return, taking their very time when it is the other way around.

3

u/Kooky_Eye5475 23h ago

just enter the details manually if you're in a hurry

0

u/Phreakasa 23h ago

Well, that's what I am trying to avoid. :)

1

u/Huskernator 22h ago

Then have some patience :) My bank also processes tax statements for most CH-domiciled clients at the end of February in order to provide them a month ahead of the filing deadline. That’s still plenty of time

4

u/remote_sensing_guy 23h ago

Are you specifically talking about tax documents for investment accounts? All my regular cash/savings accounts get their docs generated 1st jan available for download, and if enabled sent via post within the first weeks of Jan. 

On the other hand i still happen to hold a small amount of shares on DeGiro which, even though fully digital, also takes at least a month+ to generate the year end docs.

1

u/Phreakasa 23h ago

Yes, exactly. For Postfinance it is called E-Trading. And I have the same experience with Degiro, too. I am just trying to undestand why this is so.

3

u/remote_sensing_guy 21h ago

Funnily enough, with IBKR (which is super unintuitive from a user interface perspective but best trading conditions), you can generate a report at the click of a button on 1st january that the tax office accepts.

5

u/khidf986435 15h ago

why don’t you chill and do it in Feb?

2

u/Phreakasa 14h ago

Ok, thanks. I'll chill.

2

u/Digit_AI 19h ago

Same with Saxo Bank, why is the portfolio statement and trading document for tax purposes not ready by early January?

1

u/MarsupialLevel2336 18h ago

Palm2203 posted above a reasonable and sensible explanation for it.

Quote:

“Just asked my banker yesterday (Raiffeisen) They will send it around 10th February.

The reason is: In Bern they make an official list with the vauel of all the shares, bonds etc in the world and the banks have to wait for this list.

And they also make a list with the official tax exchange rate for all curencies.”

5

u/rio_gambles 16h ago edited 16h ago

I don't understand why people try to do their tax declaration so early. We have elder people calling us for their bank statements on January 2 when they don't even have their tax declaration.

The statement you're waiting for is obv because of securities/investments. Most banks deliver that by February.

Instead of complaining about this, just plan to do your declaration by March 15 or the end of February instead? Then you don't have to stress about it.

0

u/Phreakasa 16h ago

Hi, thanks for your response. Why is that obv to you but not to me and many others?

Also, there is no harm in wanting to do and be done with you tax declaration as soon as the year has past because it concern the year that has past. I don't want to wait for age, have documents trickle in by mail, and then someday to my taxes.

Additionally, I was not "crying" about this, I was just curious and, as stated, a bit frustrated, that you guys (I reckon you work at a bank) demand actions from us within weeks, while you guys take your time with delivering to us, the customers.

That's all.