By using our website you have entered into a binding agreement to accept our terms of use. Please read these terms carefully. They affect your legal rights and limit our liability. If you do not agree to be bound by every one of these terms, please exit our site immediately.

MODIFICATIONS

We may modify these Terms at any time without notice to you. The latest Terms will be posted on our Website. By using the website after we have posted modifications, you agree to be bound by the modifications. If you do not accept the Terms as modified, do not continue to use the Website.

LIMITED LICENSE

We grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license, without any right to sublicense, to use our Website strictly in accordance with the Terms. You may use the Website solely for personal, non-commercial purposes, and not for republication, distribution, assignment, sublicense, sale, preparation of derivative works, or any other use. Commercial use of any content on the Website is absolutely forbidden. You may not print out or use an electronic version of any part of our Website. You agree not to copy materials, content or any other information on the Website, reverse engineer or break into (hack) the Website, or use materials, products or services in violation of any state or federal law.

LAWFUL USE

You agree to comply with all applicable domestic and international laws, statutes, ordinances and regulations regarding your use of our Website. In addition, you agree not to manipulate or otherwise display the Website by using framing or similar navigational technology. You agree not to access the Website by any means other than through the standard industry-accepted interfaces. You will not use the Website for any purpose that is unlawful or prohibited by these Terms. You may not use the Website in any manner which could damage, disable, interrupt, over burden, or impair the Website or WLIM’s network or servers, or interfere with any other party’s use and enjoyment of the Website. You may not attempt to gain unauthorized access to the Website, other accounts, computer systems or networks connected to the Website, through hacking, password mining or any other means. You may not obtain or attempt to obtain any materials or information through any means not intentionally made available through the Website. In addition, you shall not register, subscribe, attempt to register, attempt to subscribe, unsubscribe, or attempt to unsubscribe, any party for the Website if you are not expressly authorized by such party to do so.

OUR RELATIONSHIP TO YOU

You and we are independent contractors. This Agreement in no way creates any agency, partnership, joint venture, employee-employer or franchisor-franchisee relationship between us.

OUR INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

All content on the Website, including but not limited to designs, data and databases, text, graphics, images, photographs, illustrations, audio and video material, artwork, proprietary information, client-side code (e.g. HTML, JavaScript, etc.), server-side code (e.g. active server pages, VBScript, databases, etc.), information and statistics concerning the use of the Website, and all copyrightable elements of the Website, and their selection and arrangement (collectively, “Content”) are the property of WLIM. Our Content is protected by U.S. copyright law, international treaties and other intellectual property rights. Except as otherwise stated herein, Content may not be copied, transmitted, displayed, performed, distributed (for compensation or otherwise), licensed, altered, framed, stored for subsequent use or otherwise used in whole or in part in any manner without our prior written consent, except to the extent permitted by the Copyright Act of 1976 (17 U.S.C. §107), as amended, and then, only with notices of our proprietary rights. You may, however, download the information in the Website and print out hard copies for your own personal, noncommercial use, so long as you do not remove any copyright or other notice as may be contained in the information as downloaded.

INTENDED AUDIENCE

This Website is intended for adults aged 18 years or older. Any registration by, use of or access to our Website by anyone under age 18, is unauthorized, unlicensed and in violation of these Terms of Use. By using our Website you represent and warrant that you are 18 or older and that you agree to and to abide by all of the terms and conditions of this Agreement.

[WLIM has sole right and discretion to determine whether to accept a Client, and may reject a Client with or without explanation.

If you become a Client, you will receive a password that will allow you to access to a secure section of our Website. You agree to maintain the confidentiality of your password and are fully responsible for all liability and damages resulting from your failure to maintain that confidentiality and all activities that occur through the use of your password.

You agree to immediately notify us of any unauthorized use of your password or any other breach of security. You agree that our Website cannot and will not be liable for any loss or damage arising from your failure to comply with password security as discussed herein.]

FINANCIAL, LEGAL AND OTHER ADVICE DISCLAIMER

Your use of the Website creates no professional relationship of any kind between you and WLIM. Nothing contained in our Website shall constitute financial, investment, legal and/or other professional advice to or for you. You hereby agree that you shall not make any financial, investment, legal and/or other decision based in whole or in part on anything contained in our Website.

USE OF INFORMATION

We reserve the right, and you authorize us, to use and assign of all of your information regarding your use of our Website in any manner consistent with our Privacy Policy.

All remarks, suggestions, ideas, graphics, or other information communicated by you to us (collectively, “Submission”) is considered assigned to us and is as such considered our property. We will not be required to treat any Submission as confidential, and will not be liable for any ideas (including without limitation, product, service or advertising ideas) and will not incur any liability as a result of any similarities that may appear in our future products, services or operations.

Without limitation, we will have exclusive ownership of all present and future existing rights to the Submission of every kind and nature everywhere. We will be entitled to use the Submission for any commercial or other purpose whatsoever, without compensation to you or any other person sending the Submission. You acknowledge that you are responsible for whatever material you submit, and you, not us, have full responsibility for the message, including its legality, reliability, appropriateness, originality, and copyright.

We may assign these Terms and our rights hereunder, in whole or in part, to a third party, in our sole discretion, in connection with a merger, acquisition, reorganization or sale of substantially all of our assets, or otherwise. You may not assign, sublicense, or delegate any of your rights hereunder.

PRIVACY POLICY

Our Privacy Policy is considered part of this Agreement. You should review this Privacy Policy by clicking on this link.

Non US Swiss Residents - Cash In Your US Retirement Account

Read the text from the article below. To read the PDF, click here.

If you are a Swiss resident, a non-US Person (Not a US Citizen or Permanent Green Card Holder) and you have a retirement account (e.g. Traditional IRA, SEP-IRA, 401k, 403b), in the United States, now may be the right time to cash in your US based retirement plan; even or especially if you are no where near age 65.

If you are like many investors trying to save for retirement, your account balances are significantly lower than when the equity markets peaked about 2 years ago and you may lament the fact you have been holding dollars that are depreciating against the Swiss Franc faster than banking stocks dropped during the last quarter of 2008.

Thanks to the current double taxation treaty between the US and Switzerland, a Swiss resident does not have to pay any US taxes or penalties for the early withdrawal of a US based retirement account. Article 18 of the treaty (available at this link: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-trty/swiss.pdf) states the following:

Article 18 Pensions and Annuities

  1. Subject to the provisions of Article 19 (Government Service and Social Security), pensions and other similar remuneration beneficially derived by a resident of a Contracting State in consideration of past employment shall be taxable only in the State.

  2. Subject to the provisions of Article 19 (Government Service and Social Security), annuities derived and beneficially owned by a resident of a Contracting State shall be taxable only in that State. The term <<annuities>> as used in this paragraph means a stated sum paid periodically at stated times during a specified number of years, or for life under an obligation to make the payments in return for adequate and full consideration (other than services rendered).

The reason it may make sense to cash in these retirement accounts now is that upon withdrawal, the funds are taxable as income in Switzerland. With the lower account values and weak dollar, your Swiss income tax will be lower. Once the money is out of the retirement account, you can consider investing in equities, where you have no capital gains tax in Switzerland; the bigger the gain, the more Swiss tax you are saving by cashing out of the retirement account early. By transferring the funds back to Europe and out of the US equities, you may also be able to protect your funds from US Estate taxation; which is governed by the Switzerland-US Inheritance tax treaty of 1951. As always, before making any decisions based on this information, it is recommended that you seek the advice of a competent tax advisor as each person’s situation may be different.

*CFP (Switzerland and USA) White Lighthouse Investment Management

... ...