Fiscal law researcher awarded grant from Torsten Söderberg Foundation
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Associate Professor Katia Cejie at the Faculty of Law is to receive a multi-year research grant from the Torsten Söderberg Foundation, for a research project on income taxes and social security contributions in border-crossing situations.
Economic growth is favoured by high international labour mobility. To be able to take a decision to work abroad, people need to understand its implications for their own finances. Here, taxes and social security contributions, and their impact on net income, play a major part. Inability to foresee the consequences of a move dampens mobility in the labour market and thereby also reduces economic growth.
Countries levy taxes and contributions in various ways and with differing purposes. There are international principles governing, and established research on, the combined workings of different tax systems. The same applies, to some extent, to social security contributions. In contrast, there is extremely little research on the two areas’ combined effects. However, an initial review reveals such great complexity that not only employees and employers but government agencies, too, apply the regulations incorrectly. The errors may consist, for example, in certain contributions falling between the systems. This may double the burdens on individuals or prevent the state from collecting the correct taxes and contributions.
The purpose of Katia Cejie’s project is to help enhance predictability (legal security) in these border-crossing situations by:
- surveying how employees who move across national borders can suffer or profit from the fact that taxes and contributions are payable in various ways and for differing purposes
- proposing and analysing solutions for dealing with these problems at national and international level, and
- building an international network of researchers associated with these issues.
Maria Cicilaki