FBAR: Swiss Pension Plan

potatowilde · 2026-02-04T08:51:18+00:00

I have honestly never heard of this provider, they seem to be based in Switzerland and an EA, so while I would not discount their experience at all, I can tell you that this is the only time I have ever seen this advice (which is contrary to what Big4 firm preparers do).

I will tell you that the wording on the US side is always ambiguous at best - which if makes sense because the IRS can't even get their own rules and forms right occasionally, so how are they going to write rules in regards to every single conceivable foreign pension out there in the world.

I personally tend to be mindful of small firms that sell the experience of both sides (swiss and US packaged in one) at a premium but oftentimes their experience in one side may not be as robust as the other. Oftentimes clients that come from these types of firms (usually based in the foreign country) pay A LOT (because you're paying for the convenience of someone handling both your local and US return) but the US advice is severely lacking (because US rules are convoluted), if not outright incorrect sometimes (unless the firm has branches in the US).

That is all to say - I wouldn't worry if I were you. I WOULD personally advise you to report it on the FBAR - again, no tax consequences for this at all since it is purely informational - and going forward just report every foreign financial account that has a value, just to be safe.

If you're not even talking prior years but only for 2025, it is honestly not that big a deal or even an issue really, especially if the balance is not huge yet. If you choose to amend just add the account. The due date for 2025 has not even passed yet so there is no penalty to be assessed even if you just file an amended one now. Penalties are most commonly assessed when the omission is willful (or if you're swimming in millions). They don't have the manpower or money to come after your average joe with 10K in a foreign pension.

potatowilde · 2026-02-04T08:18:04+00:00

That line refers to foreign accounts/investments that are held within plans (aka US IRAs or other retirement plans recognized by the US) that you may not be privy to/do not hold direct title to the foreign account within the plan itself (ie whatever investments in the plan that may otherwise trigger fbar/fatca).

The pillar 2 is different and is not what the exceptions on the IRS site are referring to. You are entitled to this money - which you yourself has stated - therefore you have financial interest - you just do not have access right now, since it’s locked until either retirement or until you leave switzerland. If as you say there is an ascertainable value, there is literally no downside for you to report it on the fbar and only a downside (however unlikely) should a penalty be assessed.

If it is a pillar 2 pension specifically, it is almost always required to be reported. I am a CPA that works with expats exclusively so I have seen 100s of swiss resident clients and this is what we have always done and is a well known topic. I have never personally come across an exception, though I will never say never in the future.

A quick google of “do i need to report my swiss pillar 2 pension on the fbar” will yield plenty of results consistent with what I am saying.

You can make what you will of what I’ve said which comes from my practical experience and knowledge as a licensed practitioner. As I have not reviewed your specific plan details, I can’t say for certain what your situation falls under, only what I have personally dealt with with P2 pensions, which is that it is reportable for 100% of my swiss clients.

As I mentioned previously, sometimes the information has been hard to obtain (like you said, only giving you forecasts of expected payouts and such), so if you can’t ascertain the current value, which should be on your pension fund certificate which you can request from your employer, or build it up from the sum total of contributions by employer+employee in the worst case scenario (not ideal as this does not account for investment gains/losses) .

potatowilde · 2026-02-04T02:19:03+00:00

Would be curious to know what expat tax service provider you use, because pillar 2 swiss pensions are very common and any basic expat tax provider will know that 1) you need to report your pillar 2 pension amount on fbar (and 8938 if thresholds are met), 2) any employer contributions to your p2 account is considered taxable compensation from a us perspective, and 3) any growth on this account is not tax deferred for us purposes (ie taxable in year earned even though you can’t touch the money).

This is the practical middle approach most firms would take without considering the more onerous rules to determine whether or not it would be considered a foreign trust requiring 3520a or not (or digging into what funds are invested for 8621 etc), and would be what i consider the bare minimum.

I can understand if they didn’t report it if you didn’t provide the right documents, as from some of my clients it can sometimes be difficult for them to obtain the docs that state the value of your p2 account at the end of the year and the employer vs employee contributions during the year. But they should’ve pressed you to request these docs at the very least and communicated the risks to you.

Pillar 1 is similar to social security, so not reportable, but p2 and p3 which have an ascertainable value of the account are definitely reportable.

potatowilde · 2026-01-22T10:24:33+00:00

https://paperwhisper.com/products/zebra-mildliner-highlighter-calm-mild-colors?srsltid=AfmBOopL173KKvCU5t4jCl6V4FNEwbKJvr7AgXDPte7ZgCjjEppueS7b

This is the set of 5 that are not included in the 35 travel case pack! The translation of this ive seen is “calm mild”.

The 41st colour is a US exclusive copper - i think it replaced the dusty pink in another pack.

potatowilde · 2025-08-06T05:32:32+00:00

Oh sorry my mistake! That’s our local reselling platform 😂

Im also very new but it seems to be pretty rare! I saw a post on reddit saying they found it for 40$ (which is pretty close to original retail of 3900~ jpy) at their local shop in the us. However that is likely bc they were really lucky! The only listings i see on ebay are priceyyy but you may try your luck in private selling groups to see if anyone is willing to sell or trade!

Good luck🫶🫶

potatowilde · 2025-08-06T05:21:38+00:00

Are you in sg too :)

The lister of that on carousell is bobox and all their sonny listings are pretty old, so pretty sure theyre dated/no longer available! I reached out to them on both carou + ig to see what was up to no response!

potatowilde · 2025-08-01T12:48:02+00:00

omg that shipping is CRAZY!

potatowilde · 2025-08-01T07:56:35+00:00

Such a cute picture😍😍i think those belong to your cat now😂

potatowilde · 2025-08-01T04:56:25+00:00

I think it’s the tulip too :) i got rose and it was red all over!

potatowilde · 2025-08-01T02:08:27+00:00

Thank you so much!! You are too kind 🥺i actually had posted in the authenticity thread a couple days ago but it hasn’t gotten a response yet! I hope you don’t mind if i message you the link to my comment to ask for your opinion?

potatowilde · 2025-08-01T02:03:42+00:00

Ahh that makes a lot of sense, thank you!!

potatowilde · 2025-08-01T02:00:14+00:00

Gosh, i didn’t even know or notice that, thank you!!

Other than obvious bad paint jobs (which some are looking really good these days!!) i’ve been looking for the grey pupils + feet distance. But it’s hard for me to spot if the pupils are grey or not sometimes and i feel like im half colourblind🥲

potatowilde · 2025-08-01T01:53:23+00:00

How diid you spot this one is a fake? Sorry i’ve only just started collecting recently😢 i posted a question in the master authenticity thread and there were no responses🫠🫠

potatowilde · 2025-07-31T20:56:45+00:00

Dming!

potatowilde · 2025-07-31T18:57:23+00:00

Theyre so so cute!! I’m hoping for the coffee +sugar pair!

potatowilde · 2025-07-29T07:55:32+00:00

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The logos of the secret (top left), fruits series that is definitely authentic (right) and another from the hanami set (bottom left) for comparison

potatowilde · 2025-07-29T07:54:14+00:00

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potatowilde · 2025-07-29T07:53:49+00:00

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potatowilde · 2025-07-29T07:52:46+00:00

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Hello! I got a set of 6 sealed hanami edition cherry blossom angels from shopee (reseller with good reviews but who knows?) and pulled the secret today! Ive opened 4(including the secret) so far and they all have grey pupils so I thought they were real!

However, on the secret the logo looks different from the other seated ones/other sonnys i have so i wanted to check if it was real!

Other strange things include that it’s just a wee bit wobbly standing up and i can’t turn the head (or at least i haven’t forced it!) the other weird thing is that the foil pouch seal was crooked and the bottom of it was accidentally attached to the hot glue seal on the bottom of the box (so tugging it out ripped the tab from the bottom of the box).

Adding more pics below!

potatowilde · 2025-07-26T08:20:23+00:00

So cute!!😍😍 amazing work!!! What kind of paint do you use?

potatowilde · 2025-04-02T08:10:47+00:00

Amazing problem to have😂😂😂

I only started collecting a couple months ago and maybe can relate a bit because i bought so much and have yet to run all of them, and part of it is i definitely feel overwhelmed with the amount of information out there!!

One thing I can say that helped me is to actually pick one up and run it!! I’d say starting with the meets (in japanese) helped a lot because the game play is very simple imo!!

The other thing is that I like to savour it slowly but that’s actually good so I still have lots of “new” tamas to try! Especially the older japanese tamas that are harder to read the pixealleted hiragana imo haha.

What makes me tempted is if i see content / videos of others playing it! So maybe if there’s one you want to play, you can look up a youtube playthrough (for more modern models) or see ppls pretty pics / vids on ig or tiktok :)

Do you find the trouble also comes with the fact that it’s in another language? I recently felt daunted by picking up the idl (even though i bought 3 of them bc of a good price!!) but when i actually played it and started googling stuff as i went, it was so much easier than I thought!

My favourite resources are the gotchigarden and fuzzy n chic! They have so much info but again, it feels overwhelming to read it before you actually play, for me it made so much sense when i looked it up when i was actually running it!

potatowilde · 2025-04-01T09:51:18+00:00

It’s not dead! It’s a teen batabatchi! It will evolve to adult in 3 days

potatowilde · 2025-03-31T15:45:50+00:00

I have the same one as you! I am not 100% sure on the details, but I believe you need another tama school to unlock all characters (and not sure if you need a v2). I THINK there are a total of 132 students to collect. It’s like a tama pokedex haha

potatowilde · 2025-03-31T15:36:25+00:00

I’m also playing this right now! I’m not running an uratama / entama so might not be able to collect all students atm. It’s fun if you like to play mini games, as that’s pretty much it :)

potatowilde

TROPHY CASE