Voluntary purchase

If you wish to increase the benefits on retirement, you may make voluntary extra contributions. Benefits in the case of disability and death are dependent on your salary.

Before you can pay in extra contributions, you must make sure that all pension fund assets from previous Swiss employers have been transferred to the Novartis Pension Funds. For legal reasons, we also need an application form, which you have to complete (once) before your first voluntary extra contribution and to submit to the Novartis Pension Funds by letter post or as a pdf-file.

You can find the limits on voluntary extra contribution applicable on the reporting date in your personal pension insurance statement. For insurants who moved from abroad, special legal limits on voluntary extra contribution are applicable during the first 5 years of residence in Switzerland – the Novartis Pension Funds consultants shall be happy to inform you of these before your first purchase. Please note that capital withdrawals (advances for financing home ownership, cash disbursements on leaving or the lump sum on retirement) are blocked for three years after voluntary extra contributions.

Voluntary extra contributions can basically be made at any time. You can issue payment instructions via your external bank or post office account. Alternatively, you have the option of commissioning the Novartis Pension Funds to deduct the desired amount from your staff current account. After the contribution has been paid, you will receive a written confirmation.

Yes, you can, unless you are already fully bought in. However, if you have concluded a tied personal savings agreement with a life insurance company and not with a bank, you should inquire about the conditions of an early termination of your pillar 3a policy, because it may result in substantial losses on repurchase.

No. These extra contributions are part of the tied pension savings and can therefore not be repaid.

Yes. You can pay into pillars 2 and 3 at the same time independently of one another. In principle, you can claim voluntary extra contributions and pillar 3 savings contributions on tax.

The same interest rate is applied as for the interest on the other pension assets.

The Novartis Pension Funds have to clarify various legal matters before they are allowed to accept voluntary extra contributions. Therefore, before making a payment, please return the completed and signed document Form for voluntary extra contributions.

Anyone who pays in a maximum possible extra contribution is then bought into the full benefits laid down in the regulations. You may request the simulation from your Novartis Pension Funds contact person. 

There is no minimum amount that you have to pay in.

To fund early retirement at the age of 60, you have the option of paying additional voluntary extra contributions into the pension fund. These contributions increase the early retirement benefits on the appropriate actuarial scale. The regulations of Novartis Pension Fund 1 define the maximum purchase allotments.

The payment received is credited to your pension assets. The Novartis Pension Funds will send you updated pension insurance data and a certificate for the tax authorities.

Yes. It must be borne in mind that the increased insurance benefits achieved by the purchase cannot be taken in the form of a lump sum until three years have passed since payment. If a lump sum payment or an early withdrawal is claimed before the three years have elapsed, you cannot expect the purchase in question to be tax deductible.

In principle yes. The Novartis Pension Funds send you a certificate of the extra contributions you have paid in for submission to the tax authorities. However, if a lump sum payment or a withdrawal is claimed before the three years after purchase have elapsed, you cannot expect the purchase in question to be tax deductible.

If assets are available from vested benefits accounts or policies which, by way of exception, do not have to be transferred to the Novartis Pension Funds, the maximum possible voluntary extra contributions have to be reduced accordingly.

In the case of persons who were formerly self-employed, any assets from the tied pillar 3a are counted to a certain extent. The maximum possible voluntary extra contributions are reduced accordingly.

After an early withdrawal for home ownership purposes, voluntary extra contributions are only possible once this withdrawn sum has been repaid. If the repayment of the sum withdrawn early is no longer permitted for reasons of age, voluntary extra contributions may be made provided they do not, together with the early withdrawal, exceed the maximum benefits as laid down in the regulations.

If you are moving here from abroad and this is the first time you are being insured in a pension scheme in Switzerland, voluntary extra contributions in the first five years after joining the Novartis Pension Funds are limited to 20% of the insured earnings per annum.

Yes. A repurchase is possible within the limits of the vested benefits transferred.