El Andalous - Admin

El Andalous - View from Rooftop

It’s difficult trying to lead the perfect life because life always wants to ensure that it’s not possible.

I’ve been here for over nine months now and I’m still haunted by administrative tasks from Switzerland. I blame the tax office.

Earlier this year, I paid up my Swiss taxes according to the demand I’d received. This was painful, but I was expecting it and had planned accordingly. Everything could be done by bank transfer, so all very easy. I even got an acknowledgment of receipt. So far, so good.

But then, out of the blue, I received a letter from the federal tax office informing me that I needed to pay them an extra 12k CHF (around 8k GBP). Were they having a laugh? “Oh, she’s paid her first bill, let’s see if she’ll pay another one too.” I was shocked. Fortunately, I had the money, but that wasn’t due to any good planning on my part. It had been earmarked for something else entirely.

Weirdly, maybe a few weeks after receiving the request for payment, the tax office sent me another letter with all the calculations, requesting that I sign it in duplicate to confirm that I agreed with their estimates. You’d think they’d give the calculations for signature before asking me to pay, but no. You pay first and then sign later that you agree. Bizarre.

To be honest, I don’t have much of an idea as to how they calculate it, so I looked at it and saw that they’d included my statement to take into account that I shouldn’t be double-taxed, and decided it was probably OK. I looked at my previous tax bill and saw that it was for the district tax only, and this was the federal tax, so I don’t think they were having me on after all. Consequently, I signed it.

Then I needed to get my rental deposit back. You know, that one where I paid that extortionate amount for the cleaning of my rental flat in Switzerland in the hope that I would retain most of my deposit. Rajashree had warned me that it takes up to a year for your deposit to be returned (you get the interest, so it’s not a con). I confess that I didn’t really believe her, but nine months on and I still hadn’t received it.

I went to email them to complain, but decided I should check my Swiss bank account first, just in case. Indeed, there was no sign of any amount deposited in my bank (shame!), but I did have a letter from the bank sitting there from January asking me to inform them of my change of address.

I had avoided doing this, because once they know you are living abroad, they start charging you 30 CHF a month for keeping the account, plus charges for each transaction. Given that they are doing absolutely no extra work, I object, so I had just kept quiet about having moved. Oops. I’ve been waiting for my deposit back before closing my account. Anyway, I decided to ignore the letter for now. It will no doubt come back to bite me at some point.

As it turned out, the rental agency replied to say they’d just sent me documentation that very week for the return of my deposit. I requested they email it to me since I was now in Egypt and they duly did as requested. They managed to find excuses to rob me of 1000 CHF, but I should get the other 5k CHF back now that I’ve signed the forms. That’s almost half of my tax bill, so it helps.

Another administration difficulty arose with changing my address on my Swissquote share dealing account. They wanted me to provide proof of address. I sent them my electricity bill, but I got a phone call saying that I also needed to fill out and sign a form and provide not just proof of address but proof of residency. Also, they hadn’t received my electricity bill (this is where I start worrying about whether my signed Swiss tax documents will arrive).

I tried to explain that proving residency would be difficult as I don’t have a work permit here (since I’m not employed, I hasten to add!). However, the guy was insistent that the Egyptian govt (we didn’t have one at the time) would be able to issue something. However, the problem is that I have a tourist visa and not a resident visa. I cannot get a residency visa unless I marry an Egyptian and I think getting married would be going a bit too far just to be able to register a change of address on my trading account!

Anyway, I let it hang for a while as I really didn’t know what to do (as you can see, a bit of a theme is developing here on my coping techniques). They then wrote to me with the form requesting an electricity bill, so I have now signed that and sent it all off. Hopefully they saw the light and that will be it.

I hope that once I close my bank account in August (assuming the deposit wings its way into my bank account before then), my Swiss admin nightmares will be gone. I’m sure there will be other types of admin nightmares, though. A life without admin seems to be impossible.