invest company pension plans in ETFs?

Hello everyone,

Since I started my apprenticeship in 2008, I have been making private provisions for my retirement. I pay €100 a month into a direct insurance policy (Allianz) and €148 into another direct insurance policy through salary conversion (DEVK).

Now I'm toying with the idea of ​​cashing out the capital and investing it in one or more accumulating ETFs, as my initial experience has shown me that the expected return is higher there.

I'm aware that waiving contributions makes more financial sense than terminating the contract. I can see this from the fact that the surrender value is significantly lower than the guaranteed capital benefit (with and without surplus participation).

However, I still have a few questions:

1.) As far as I know, the surrender value is taxable. Is it true that I don't have to pay tax on the amount if I have the contract for more than 12 years?

2.) If I have to pay taxes on the contract, I obviously have to declare it on my tax return, right? If I don't, am I committing tax evasion, right?

3.) What do you think of this idea? In principle, if I earn returns from the ETFs later, I'd have to pay taxes on them, right? (I think that happens automatically, right?)

Many thanks to everyone who takes the trouble to try to shed light on this 🙂

Best regards,

Marcel