Taxation Should NOT Be...

1 min read Nov 26, 2014
Taxation Should NOT Be Allowed on Mobility Allowance; How taxation is applied in Spain and Portugal? Hello to everyone; I have opened this post to analyze a controversial issue. Taxation in general and more specifically, in Mobility allowance. There is a post like this in "Salary, Taxes, Pension, Benefits and Reimbursements" group. Some participants commented with important people from EC the subjection of mobility allowance to taxation. Now, we know that a part of European Commission disagrees with this unjust reduction of salary. We want to write a letter to EC to demand a solution; All the MC fellows should have free tax in mobility allowance taking into account that mobility is compulsory and a milestone from calls. For this reason, we want to have information about how taxation is applied in institutions from different countries. In our case, how taxation is applied in institutions from Spain and Portugal?. I suggest we could complete this information Fellowship > Country > Institution > % taxation (IRS or IRPF) +SS > Is this applied to MA? Yes/No/only one part > Gross MA/month > Net MA/month In my case IEF2013 > Portugal > iBET > 33%+11% > Yes > 595 euros > 333,2 euros I encourage you to participate. Together we can fight for our rights.

15 Comments

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Nadine Vermorel

Thank you for creating this poll, Pedro. Aiming to gain transparency and collecting information about national taxation's systems might be useful for future MCA fellows.

Indeed, it is strange that mobility allowances are taxed, when they were meant not to be.

Here are my data: EID2013> Spain> University of Valencia> total taxation: 44%>Yes> 684E>383E

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MOHAMMAD MERAJ ALAM

Thank you for this poll

ITN2013>Portugal>University of Porto>Total taxation:33%+11%>Yes>595euros>333euros

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Shikhar Aggarwal

Dear All

The taxation topic is hot debate for few years now and the Commision is already aware of it. Last week, I attended European Commsion Euraxess meeting (The International Dimension of Research and Mobility Programmes), Zaragoza, Spain where I was invited for the panel discussion.

It was made very clear by Commsion that the Commsion give salary according to their guidelines in which they say mobility is tax free. It is to streamline all european countries (eastern or western) with correction factor. Once, the money reach the university, national rules will apply and EC salary rule cant be considered except that the contract should be work permit. EC guidelines is only for universities to release equal money to each university according to correction factor.

According to national laws, the money that is given to researcher as salary is gross amount and has to be on the pay slip, therefore, its taxable.

 

 

 

 

 

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Isabel Casas

Dear Shikhar,

Do you know any document where I can find where the EC says that the mobility allowance should not be taxed. I looked around in the guidelines of the call, but I did not find such information.

Thanks a lot.

Isabel

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Antonia Hadjimichael

I just feel like I should mention and give major props to the University of Girona which has been very accommodating with the Marie Curie fellows and we had never had any issues with the mobility allowance and taxation. They pay it to us separately from the salary and we are all getting the full amount.

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Hi Antonia;

Thank you very much to mention your situation. To know some institutions that pay full amount of mobility is very important. Your comment is the first mention to an institution from Spain without taxation in mobility. Do you know if have Cataluña a special law for mobility? Other members from this chapter from Cataluña... Is the mobility allowance taxed in your institution?.

Thank you in advance for your info.   

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Antonia Hadjimichael

Hi, 

If I am not mistaken (we never really asked since we didn't have any problems), the University of Girona had made a separate employee category for Marie Curie researchers to accommodate the differences in payments, project budgets etc.

Personally, I receive my salary at the end of each month and at the beginning of each month I also receive a separate transfer of 695,80€ for my mobility allowance, which AFAIK is the 700€ with the adjustment factor of Spain.  

I can ask for further info on this if you're interested. 

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Nadine Vermorel

Hi Antonia,

Thank you very much for commenting on this, it is good news to know some Universities manage to respect the EC guidelines regarding the mobility allowances :D

It would be indeed interesting to know exactly what system they adopted, so other Spanish institutions can implement the same system (I guess the people from the "Oficina de Relacions Exteriors" of the University of Girona are the ones who managed to implement it??).

Cheers,

Nadine

 

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Antonia Hadjimichael

Hi,

To be honest, I don't know. I have already contacted our project coordinators at the University and I'm waiting for them to reply to ask for further info on how it was implemented.  

I'll get back to you soon,

Antonia

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Antonia Hadjimichael

Hi all, 

I have asked how is the university doing this and they replied that it is indeed outside of the monthly salary so as to not tax it. The lady said it's done by means of "Rector's Resolution" which I suppose is a translation of the spanish "resolución de rectoría" but I am not sure what that means. I do know however, that I receive it in the same transfer in my account with other travel expences etc.

She has also mentioned that the commission doesn't give them specific directions on how to perform this, so I suppose that is why many universities don't manage to transfer the mobility allowance to the researchers untaxed. 

In this case, the policy document planned to be written by the MCAA is highly relevant to support those guidelines.

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Jorge Julvez

Hello all,

I'm a IEF fellow in the UK. My mobility allowance is also being taxed.

In fact, the mobility allowance assigned to my fellowship is not even in my payslip... the quantity that appears as mobility allowance in my payslip is 21% less than the quantity assigned to my fellowship. As far as I know (I'm still investigating) this because 16% is deducted for a UK pension scheme called Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) and 5% for national insurance. The remaining 79% appears in the payslip as mobility allowance which is part of the gross salary and hence taxed (around 30%, again some of this percentage is for national insurance). My data for the poll: IEF2013 > UK > University of Cambridge > 40% > Yes > 1000 > 600

Surprisingly, it is only for MC fellows that the 16% percent deducted for USS from salary (http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/media/global/wwwadminoxacuk/localsites/personnel/documents/recruitingstaff/contractscurrent/Marie_Curie_fellow_pensions_costs_letter_August_2013.docx). For the rest of the staff the 16% is paid by the employer, that is, we are being treated differently from the rest of the staff. I'd like to know if someone in the UK is also aware of this.

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Maria Paola Bissiri

Hi Jorge,

employer's deductions should come from our fellowship, this is correct. In this sense we are different than the other employees. But this is the way it is meant to be: our fellowship should cover all our employment costs.

What should not be is the taxation of the mobility allowance.

Ciao,

Maria Paola

 

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Hi All,

My mobility allowance is untaxed. It has a different row on my salary slip... The university itself has to sort this out in the right way, so that they put this as a different Allowance (not taxable). Good luck with getting what is yours!

Marlies

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Jan Thiele

Dear all,

Many thanks to all contributors for sharing their experience. I will be starting my IEF in February 2015 at CCHS-CSIC and my contract is currently being prepared by the human resources department. It seems that previous Marie Curie researchers were/are paying taxes on their MA, but thanks to the information from this poll I will discuss this with the people form the Consejo. Anyway, I will let you know about the outcome...

Jan