Policy makers and academic researchers have been preoccupied in recent decades with the design of pension schemes and effective pension system reform. Relatively little attention has been given to the taxation of pensions and, more broadly, the provision of retirement income.
The book The Taxation of Pensions, co-edited by CEPAR Director Professor John Piggott and CEPAR Honorary Professor Dr Robert Holzmann, is the first of its kind to explore the theoretical and policy perspectives on the taxation of pensions, viewed in an international context.
The contributions of international experts, including CEPAR researchers Hazel Bateman, Rafal Chomik, George Kudrna, John Piggott and Alan Woodland, are especially timely, given recent demographic and political developments including population ageing that lengthens the time between contribution payment and benefit receipt, the mobility of capital and labour brought about by globalization, and the complexity of pension taxation within and between countries.
In shedding light on these issues, the chapters document the various forms of taxation of pension systems; use economic theory to explain both qualitative and quantitative observations; and consider whether the observed interaction of taxation and pensions is efficient.
Theoretical overviews are followed by rigorous analyses of pension taxation in specific countries, including Denmark, Sweden, Portugal, Australia, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Further information is available at MIT Press.