Over 1,200 people were surveyed about pillar 3a for the first time in the new representative 2017 UBS Retirement Monitor survey, which was created in cooperation with gfs-zurich. The results show that many people in Switzerland know what a pillar 3a account is, but only 56 percent have one. Financial expectations of the Swiss pension system are also very high. For example, 53 percent of respondents expect that their income after retirement will cover more than 70 percent of their last employment income. Yet the effective benchmark is between 60 and 70 percent.

Only 35 percent of the survey participants know that you do not have to declare your pillar 3a pension savings as assets on your tax return. Pillar 3a savings are exempt from wealth tax until they are paid out. However, 83 percent know that pillar 3a contributions can be deducted from taxable income. If you work after the statutory retirement age, you can continue to pay into pillar 3a and deduct the amount from your taxable income. Half of those surveyed answered the question about this correctly.

There is also a lack of knowledge about the early withdrawal option from pillar 3a accounts. The question of whether you can withdraw pillar 3a pension assets for specific purposes before retirement was incorrectly answered by 32 percent of those surveyed. A total of 17 percent wrongly believed that it is possible to make early withdrawals for their children’s education.