Global mobile researcher and retirement pension

by Francois Gaascht
1 min read Jul 25, 2016

Dear All,

I am a European researcher and I will soon start a postdoc in the US (Minnesota).
I have a question regarding retirement pension for researchers abroad and global mobility.
As long as you work in Europe as European citizen, the process is quite simple. You collect all your payslips and your retirement pension is calculated and paid by your European host country.

My question is, what is the situation when you work outside Europe?
What is the situation for foreigners in the US? If you are currently a researcher in US or have worked there, can you please describe your situation and if you have an additional private retirement plan?

Comments and remarks from other alumni from other parts of the world are also welcome. Do some of you have a complementary retirement plan that can be used all around the world when you have an international job like researcher? For example,  you work in Luxembourg, than France, move to US than Australia,…

Thank you in advance for your further responses and for your help.

Sincerely,

FG

2 Comments

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Brian Cahill
Aug 01, 2016

Dear Francois,

The situation is more simple for mobility between European countries. Nevertheless, the main difficulty is the lack of harmonisation on rules regarding taxation, once you reach retirement age. Maybe this will be solved by the time we get to retirement age. At the moment, Germany (one example) is quite resistant to pension pot mobility and taxes pension payouts from Gemrna pensions in Germany no matter what country you currently live in.

As regards the US:

  • If you pay into a pension plan outdide the US, it is not clear if there is any income-tax relief for such payments?
  • Pensions acquired in the US cannot be transferred out of the US.
  • European pension assets may need to be reported as foreign financial assets in your tax declaration.

Here is a link to an article from the Wall Street Journal: http://blogs.wsj.com/expat/2015/01/08/ask-an-expert-how-to-handle-the-foreign-pension-limbo/

I would also welcome feedback from those who have spent a Global Fellowship in the US to find out what, if anything, they did.

Warm regards,

Brian

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Francois Gaascht
Aug 04, 2016

Dear Brian,

Thank you for your response. Indeed the situation is much more simple for mobile workers in Europe.

There is a new retirement - pension plan for mobile researchers in Europe called RESAVER (http://ec.europa.eu/euraxess/index.cfm/rights/resaver).

Unfortunately for me and fortunately for some people, this plan is only for researchers in Europe and not for European researchers out of Europe at the present time and only available in some countries and host institutions. This system is not for individual but is linked to your country and/or your host organisation and they hope that other organisations and countries will gradually join the RESAVER plan in the future.

Best Regards,

FG