This month SIX Securities Services is launching Advanced Tax Services – Reclaim, a service to obtain refunds for duplicate tax payments on interest and dividends from foreign investments and which also assumes the entire reclaim process of banks. In this way private investors in Switzerland benefit from a higher return.
Every year Swiss investors – usually unknowingly – incur significant losses because of the double taxation of interest and dividends from foreign companies. Although there are ways to reclaim the withholding tax retained abroad (comparable to the Swiss withholding tax), this process is non- transparent and country-specific, and involves a considerable administrative effort.
Since October 2017 SIX offers to banks Advanced Tax Services – Reclaim, a service which manages for them the entire tax-reclaim process – from the submission of individual, market-specific forms, the reconciliations with the relevant tax authority, through to the actual refund of the taxes paid.
Valerio Roncone, Head of Markets & Clients, SIX Securities Services: "Double taxation leads to a significantly lower return for investors. Taxes play a very important role when investing, particularly in times of low interest rates. We are encouraged by the positive feedback we have received since the product launch. It shows there is a demand for the service in the market, and that we are able to provide a substantially added value for our customers and investors."