After 6 months of trying to integrate with Swiss life and culture my wife and I have decided to leave Switzerland. We have sold our house and have rented a new property in old blighty. We have booked flights to go across and buy a car etc.

I am shocked to see that the government comes from all angles and it will cost us dearly to move away (taxes, AHV as an anobag, Bills etc.) For some bills, like heating, we will have to pay for 6 months to 1 year of 2012 even though we are not in the country.

Anyhow, sorry for rambling ... I am just annoyed that we have such a financial disaster just because it is the way things are done.

When I first started working as an anobag I was told that I do not have to pay for the first 3 months AHV but now the AHV are demanding money for my full 9 months of work rather than the 6 I expected.

Do you know where this misunderstanding could have come from and do you have any tips & tricks regarding bills etc. for people that are moving back to the UK?

Was the person (or body) that told you you "do not have to pay the first 3 months of AHV" the same person (or body) that are now looking for the full whack?

If not, I suspect that might be the problem.

For the rest, most contracts normally tell you the notice period or minimum payment period, whether you are in the country or not.

6 months in not nearly long enough to settle, let alone integrate - anywhere, and especially not Switzerland. And you bought a house?!?

Hehe ... that shows how frustrated I am, I have been here for 6 years.

Well, now the situation is worse than when I posted. ANobAGs are contractors that cannot choose what they do or who they work for. They are responsible for their own AHV, which means that they should pay 9.7%. I worked for 9 months at CHF 10,000 per month.

Because we were told that for the first 3 months we would not need to pay AHV and that we would not need to pay anything else we expected to pay 9.7% x 60,000 = CHF 5820.00. We have just received an email from the SVA that says that we need to pay all 9 months plus arbeitslosenversicherung (2.2%) & kinderzulagen (1.4%).

So SVA (8,730) + arbeitslosenversicherung (1,980) + kinderzulagen (1,260) = CHF 11,970

A bit of a shock when you have no money to pay it and you are in the process of leaving the country. We expected to also be hit by taxes but that figure is almost double what it should be.

But who told you this?

The point is, if it was the SVA themselves and they sent you that info on an email, now would be the time to trumpet it in front of them and say "How about it, guys?".

If it was some expat bloke down the pub / friend of a friend / self-proclaimed expert on EF, it looks like you were wrongly informed and you'll just have to suck it up.

We went to see an accountant, who spoke to a person from the SVA Aargau and then relayed the message back to us.
Not nice, that all the sudden the bill will be double the amount of what we had calculated with ...