Tax rules for investors: what changed
Last updated: July 4, 2026
Tax is the one cost a long-term investor can neither negotiate nor diversify away, and it is the area where the seven jurisdictions covered here have moved most.
Three patterns run through them. First, crypto assets were brought inside the ordinary tax net almost everywhere between 2022 and 2026: Austria folded them into the 27.5 per cent KESt and abolished the one-year speculation period, Germany's finance ministry clarified treatment in 2022, Italy created a dedicated regime in 2023 and then scrapped its threshold and raised the rate in 2025, and DAC8 reporting duties follow from 2026.
Second, allowances and rates moved in both directions and rarely stayed put. Germany doubled the saver's allowance in 2023 and abolished the derivatives loss-offset cap in 2024; Austria raised the KESt rate in 2016; Canada proposed a higher capital gains inclusion rate in 2024 and cancelled it in 2025. That cancellation is the most instructive entry in this section: investors who restructured to pre-empt the change bore real costs for a rule that never took effect.
Third, the structural reforms matter more than the rate changes. Germany's Investmentsteuerreform of 2018 moved taxation to the fund level and introduced the Vorabpauschale, which became payable again in 2024 once interest rates rose. Italy's PIR accounts and Switzerland's pillar 3a buy-ins change what a tax-efficient portfolio looks like far more than a percentage point on a rate does.
Changes in this section
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36 entries
- Trump Accounts open for contributionsUnited States
- One Big Beautiful Bill Act enactedUnited States
- Retroactive pillar 3a buy-ins allowedSwitzerland
- SECURE 2.0 Act signed into lawUnited States
- SECURE Act signed into lawUnited States
- Tax Cuts and Jobs Act enactedUnited States
Rules change; the arithmetic does not. Put your own contributions, rate and horizon into the calculator and see what a change is worth over twenty years.
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The 27.5% KESt, crypto pulled inside the ordinary tax net, MiFID II — and a holding-period exemption promised by two governments and enacted by neither.
The FHSA, rising TFSA room and Home Buyers' Plan limits, the CPP enhancement, the DSC ban — and a capital gains hike announced, then cancelled.
MiFID II and PRIIPs, the payment-for-order-flow ban, ELTIF 2.0 and PEPP, and the Savings and Investments Union now being built on top of them.
The 2018 fund tax reform and the Vorabpauschale, a doubled saver's allowance, the ETF savings-plan boom, and two retirement reforms arriving in 2027.
PIR accounts and BTP Valore, a crypto tax regime rewritten twice in three years, and the auto-enrolment that now moves severance pay into pension funds.
Retroactive pillar 3a buy-ins, AHV 21, the end of negative interest rates, the abolished imputed rental value, and the reforms voters turned down.
The SECURE Acts, commissions falling to zero, spot Bitcoin ETFs, the TCJA and its 2025 sequel, and the fiduciary rules that courts struck down twice.
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The vehicles people actually retire on: SECURE 2.0, pillar 3a buy-ins, the CPP enhancement, TFR auto-enrolment and Germany's new retirement depots.
MiFID II, PRIIPs, FIDLEG, the payment-for-order-flow ban and the fiduciary rules that failed in court — how the selling of products was rewritten.
ETF savings plans, spot Bitcoin ETFs, PIR and FHSA accounts, BTP Valore and ELTIF 2.0: what savers can buy, and at what cost, keeps widening.
The end of negative interest rates, the inflation squeeze, T+1 settlement and zero-commission trading — shifts that changed long-term arithmetic.
Where standard advice was revised: trading costs at zero, banned sales charges, standardised fund disclosure, and what negative real rates did to cash.
Limit changes large enough to alter a savings plan: Germany's doubled saver's allowance, retroactive pillar 3a buy-ins, TFSA, FHSA and catch-up rules.