Supplementary Old-age Pension Systems

Abstract: The ageing population in Europe has created a demographic shift, especially in the number of pension beneficiaries, which has increased inversely proportional compared to the number of economically active individuals. With the aim of minimizing future pension problems within the EU Member States, the occupational pension system was proposed by the European Commission to integrate the internal pension market in the EU. However, problems arose when the Member States started to restrict the right to tax relief of contributions paid into occupational pension plan taken out with a pension institution established in another tax jurisdiction. In order, to create an integrated internal pension market, the the European Commission issued a Communication in 2001, entitled “The Elimination of tax obstacles to the cross-border provision of occupational pensions”. However, the exclusive competence in direct taxation of the Member States seems to impede the purpose of the Commission Therefore, some disputes were brought before the ECJ. The Bachmann Case, where the ECJ accepted the justifications used by Member States, in order to not allow tax reliefs for contributions paid into foreign pension system, opened up a chain of cases where Member States tried to justify the restriction and thus not change their pension taxation system.the European Commission issued a Communication in 2001, entitled “The Elimination of tax obstacles to the cross-border provision of occupational pensions”. However, the exclusive competence in direct taxation of the Member States seems to impede the purpose of the Commission Therefore, some disputes were brought before the ECJ. The Bachmann Case, where the ECJ accepted the justifications used by Member States, in order to not allow tax reliefs for contributions paid into foreign pension system, opened up a chain of cases where Member States tried to justify the restriction and thus not change their pension taxation system.Hence the purpose of this thesis is to examine whether the restriction on the right to deduction/exempt contributions paid into occupational or private pension plan taken out with pension institutions established across borders are compatible with the principles of tax law, such as the principles of symmetry, exclusiveness and legal certainty or not. The justifications, such as fiscal coherence, effectiveness of fiscal control and balanced allocation of taxing power, used by the Member States as a defence in the judgments of the ECJ will be analyzed, in order to identify the coherence with the principles mentioned above. The findings in this thesis will demonstrate that the Member States have a legal basis to modify or not, their pension taxation system and thereby have the right to not allow tax relief of contributions paid to pension plans taken abroad.