I have lived in Zug for the last 6.5 years and have 2 daughters in England. 1 is over 25 and not in educaiton, but the other has been in educaiton since I left. She is due to finish University this year. What I have just realised - and I know it is a bit late... is that I could have claimed Kinderzulage here in Switzerland. I did not get child benefit from the UK. My employer never asked or told me about this. Does anyone know if I can do anything to reclaim all that I was owed. It would come to over CHf 20,000! Or have I just done myself out of all that Money!!

I don't know what the answer is, but either way, I would have serious words with my employer about it - especially if they are a big company with a professional HR department. They have messed up royally that being the case (which I am guessing is).

Oh I will.... I want to get my fact right first though. I was a bit dumb about it all and should have known, but ...... At least I can try now. Thanks

There have been a number of threads dealing with this -- use the search function or perhaps start here

Family Allowance & Child Benefit

I have reclaimed. Just contact your HR. It's very simple.

It will be backdated, not sure if you will get the whole 6.5 years or if it's limited to 5 years but you will get a nice lump sum payment.
Be aware though that it is taxable income so you will have to declare it and that may or may not have an impact on your tax for the year in which you receive it.

Thanks Runningdeer. I searched Kinderzulagen but not Family allowance!

The Swiss might ask for a statement from your last country that you are no longer receiving allowance from the last country.

There is no 'might' about it. Without this statement you will receive nothing. It took us almost two years to get the correct statement from Belgium but once they had it the payments were backdated and we got a nice lump sum.

Just out of interest how should you declare it? It didn't appear to be on my end of year income statement from my employer, so there wouldn't be anything to back up the amount declared.

You can claim the allowance in retrospect, but only for five years as of the time you hand in the respective forms.

You can only do so here, though, if you can provide proof you haven't claimed any child allowance in any other country. Otherwise you'll get nothing.

If it's paid via your salary it will be on your annual statement somewhere, if you are paid directly (as we are) you will receive and annual statement from the child allowance agency which is to be attached to your tax declaration.
When we were paid a lump sum in one go for two years worth of payments we received a separate statement from the child allowance agency for that sum.

There is a place on the tax declaration form where you have to declare any child allowance you have received. ( or there is in Neuchâtel in any case)

Just refreshing this thread with the question - where on the 'Lohnausweis' Form should the 'Kinderzulagen' appear ?

Kinderzulagen are part of wages and belong in box 1. The amount can also be presented in box 15:

"Können Kinderzulagen im Lohnausweis ausgewiesen werden?
Familienzulagen wie Kinderzulagen gehören zum Lohn und sind daher in Ziffer 1
einzubeziehen. Bei Bedarf kann ihre Höhe zusätzlich unter Ziffer 15 angegeben werden."

http://www.steuerkonferenz.ch/downlo...ur_siteweb.pdf

For this reason I am thinking of pushing requesting it until next year, when I will earn less than this year (my child is born in January).