Lakshya raj khatri
Eugenio Pescimoro
PROLOY TARAN DAS
Mobility allowance and...
6 Comments
Hi Guillermo,
I am a Marie Curie IEF fellow working with CNRS in France and I have all mobility and familly allowances both taxed as salary. I put all my efforts to know why this is like this, since I know from other fellows in France (working with different institutions), that none of the allowances are included as salary.
I presented this issue to my European Comission agent and he said that unfortunatelly (for me) EC "recommend" not to tax, however is the institution who finally decides.
To summarize, taxation does not depend on the country but on the institution.
Good luck,
Monica.
I partly agree with Monica. EC doesn't want to join this issue. The tax or not, actually depends on the HR, who caculate the tax for you. I heard that even in same instituttion, for sure big one, different people get different tax or not result. In UK, some of them use reimburesment instead of direct payment to avoid tax. My personal advice: Check other' method, search for useful regulation/law and give these info to your HR, if your university has tax service, ask them for help.
Hi Chengyun,
I think the most important point is if the Commission is legally "competent" to interfere in the internal tax administration issues of a member state. My understanding is that the Commission has very little power on this issue.
Regards,
Brian
I partly agree with Monica. EC doesn't want to join this issue. The tax or not, actually depends on the HR, who caculate the tax for you. I heard that even in same instituttion, for sure big one, different people get different tax or not result. In UK, some of them use reimburesment instead of direct payment to avoid tax. My personal advice: Check other' method, search for useful regulation/law and give these info to your HR, if your university has tax service, ask them for help.
Hi Guillermo,
Ed Green made a poll on this issue: https://www.mariecuriealumni.eu/polls/mobility-allowance-poll Only one German Chapter member replied to say that the allowance was not taxed. She happened to be a chapter member of German nationality with a fellowship in France. I presumed that France was an attractive host country for Marie Curie Fellows.
I was at a meeting on Monday-Tuesday with Euraxess Germany for Euraxess Service Centres: the people who liaise with Personnel. A tax lawyer made a presentation on this issue. Personnel must ask the tax office in Germany how to implement this issue. The tax office was described as "an octopus with many tentacles" that maximizes taxation. If the taxpayer wants to challenge the decision, this is his responsibility and not the business of Personnel. Personnel is legally obliged to implement the decision of tax office. Problem - the tax office can be wrong. It is the option of the taxpayer to challenge the decision legally and point out where the tax office is wrong. We would like one solution that works for all fellows regardless of personal history - this is not likely. Double taxation agreements are complex and very diverse. If personnel engages with this issue, they can work with the tax office to implement better solutions. We have some administrations in Germany who work like this and many who don't. The tax office has an all-or-nothing policy: if a postdoc scholarship pays less than say 2000€ a month, they can choose not to tax the income at all. Marie Curie fellows are paid much more than the unwritten limit and are generally treated exactly like German citizens. Some German citizens are very focussed on defending themselves against the tax office but many are also frustrated by similar issues.
I have run into the argument that MC Fellows are too well paid many times in Germany. Why do you complain? My reply is that as a male engineer I would not take a job with 50% payment for 100% working hours. Why would I accept to be paid half that my direct colleagues are paid? The postdoc Fellowship is approximately the normal postdoc salary for engineers with 4 years research experience. Many of our Individual Fellows have a higher level of experience. In Germany, the research topics with higher female participation typically have lower wages than research topics with higher male participation. The pay gap between the wages paid to the two sexes is a part of the research landscape. The DFG acted to increase the salaries of PhD students who typically were paid 50% to 65% - http://www.dfg.de/formulare/55_02/55_02_de.pdf. The lowest paid topics are in the Humanities, Social Sciences and the Life Sciences. The Commission decided to pay all fellows in the same country the same salary - equal pay for equal work. Gender equality is a very important part of the Marie Curie Actions.
Regards,
Brian
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I know, living allowance is taxable (you should also check if there is a bilateral tax convention between your country and France), family allowance is taxable, however mobility allowance is under a different category, therefore not.