How to make voluntary purchases:

Step 1: Complete form
Before making the first payment, you have to complete a form in which you have to declare any possible additional savings capital sums.

Step 2: Paying in
Your bank money order/paying-in slip should include your name, your OASI number as well as the note "Additional voluntary payment".

Our Pension Fund's banking particulars:
IBAN: CH41 0900 0000 1444 7208 1, Caisse de pension Hewlett-Packard Plus

Why?

You can increase your future benefits by making voluntary additional payments into the Pension Fund. Voluntary additional payments to the Pension Fund are made to fill any gaps in pension provision or to finance early retirement.

  • Up to 12 voluntary payments per calendar year are possible
  • No minimum amount for voluntary contributions
  • Voluntary contributions can be fiscally deducted from your taxable income
  • Your benefit statement shows the maximum amount for voluntary purchases
  • You will receive a confirmation for tax purposes after your payment is processed
  • Advance withdrawals for home ownership must be paid back first.
  • Any separate pension capital sums you own will be added to your existing savings capital and reduce the maximum of possible additional payments.
  • Persons joining from abroad without former affiliation with a Swiss pension fund, can only make additional payments of a maximum of 20% of the insured salary in each of the first five years.
  • Please mind a 3 year period between voluntary purchases and withdrawals and see the Paragraph "Voluntary contributions and tax restrictions".


Voluntary purchases and tax restrictions

Voluntary contributions can in general be fiscally deducted from our taxable income.

Tax calculator Canton of Geneva

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Please note the following restrictions:

If you withdraw any capital from the pension fund (either at retirement or to finance residential property) after having made an additional voluntary payment in the last three years, the tax authorities most likely will interpret all payments in the last three years as an attempt at tax evasion. The consequence of this could be that the authorities will disallow any tax deductions made on these contributions. Additional payments and the purchase of residential property should therefore form part of long-term planning.

PLEASE NOTE: From 1 January 2016 the pension fund pays a maximum old-age pension of 4 * maximum AVS-pension + pension 2 in form of an annuity. If you savings are higher than the capital needed to finance the maximum old-age pension, the exceeding capital is paid out as a lump sum payment at retirement.

For persons who move to Switzerland from abroad and have never been covered by a Swiss social insurance scheme before, there is a limit of 20% of your insured annual salary. This limit applies for the first 5 years, starting at the date when you first joined a Swiss pension fund.

Financing early retirement

Anyone planning to take early retirement with a full old-age pension has to accumulate a higher savings capital since, in this case, the pension must be paid out over a longer period of time (or, in other words: because the conversion rate is lower).

In addition, consideration may be given to financing an OASI bridging pension since normal OASI pension payments do not begin until the age of 64 (women) or 65 (men) respectively.

The HP Pension Scheme allows you to accumulate a correspondingly higher savings capital; furthermore, it allows you to pre-finance an OASI bridging pension (see tables in the Appendix of the benefits rules).

The line in your benefit statement with the heading "Maximum additional payment, subject to the reservation of fiscal provisions applying to the retirement age of 58, including 7 years' OASI bridging pension" shows you the gap in pension provision which opens if you want to retire at the age of 58 with a full pension and an OASI bridging pension.

IMPORTANT NOTE: your pension at the age of 65, including all additional payments, may not exceed 105% of the pension which you would receive at the age of 65 with a full contribution period.

In plain English: If you make additional payments to provide for early retirement and then nevertheless work longer, you will possibly have to accept a loss of capital.

Filling gaps in pension provision

A gap in pension provision is not necessarily a shortcoming; it does not have to be filled by all means. It designates the difference between your anticipated savings capital at the age of 65 (assuming a constant salary) and the maximum savings capital allowed by the Regulations (in accordance with Table 1 of the 2011 HP Pension Scheme Regulations). In other words: The gap in pension provision is the difference from optimal pension provision.

Gaps in pension provision can arise due to:

  • an insufficient savings capital. This may have resulted from missing contribution years or poorer benefits of a previous pension fund in comparison with the 2011 HP pension scheme's benefits.
  • salary fluctuations. On retirement, the pension that can be subsequently financed from own funds is based on your salary at that time. If your salary was increased in the past, there is now a gap against the maximum benefit.

You will find your present gap in pension provision in your benefit statement, in the line "Maximum additional payment, subject to the reservation of fiscal provisions applying to the ordinary retirement age of 65".