Translated material
Pension for three
Members of the RSPP promise volunteers a secure old age
“Equidistant” domestic businessmen continue to demonstrate their responsibility by getting involved in more and more new social projects. Yesterday, representatives of big business expressed a desire to contribute to the fight to reduce the huge gap between the level of the average salary and the average pension of Russians. At a meeting of the working group on pension systems of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP), it was officially announced that businessmen could participate in co-financing the future pensions of our fellow citizens in exchange for some tax breaks. The technical side of how employers' funds will be transferred to workers' pension accounts has been assigned to the working group participants. “This will take three to four months,” says Sergei Sorokoumov, one of the experts at the National Association of Non-State Pension Funds.The conceptual part of the new scheme appeared in the summer and became, in fact, a response from business to the initiative of President Vladimir Putin. In April of this year, in his annual message to the Federal Assembly, he proposed stimulating voluntary pension savings for citizens. The motivation is the simplest and most effective: the state adds a thousand rubles to every thousand transferred to the pension fund by the citizen himself. It is planned to seek funds for state co-financing of pensions from the National Welfare Fund. It is assumed that the money should be enough for approximately ten years, provided that no more than 18 thousand rubles will be “added” to one person. per year.
The head of the RSPP working group, vice-president of LUKOIL Leonid Fedun yesterday proposed not doubling the amount of pension savings of citizens, but tripling it - now at the expense of the employer, who in turn should transfer proportionally one thousand rubles to the accounts of future pensioners. Mr. Fedun announced a number of measures designed to involve not only large, but also medium and small businesses in the process of increasing pensions.
In particular, the RSPP proposes to exempt the employer's contribution from the single social tax (UST), while maintaining the previous obligations of companies to pay the UST on other payments to the employee. According to him, such a scheme may be of interest to many enterprises. The RSPP assures that this proposal has already received about 300 positive reviews from Russian companies. Businessmen hope that the authorities will also show interest, since the budget will in any case receive all the due contributions.
To manage voluntary pension contributions, the RSPP considers it necessary to attract non-state pension funds, management companies, and specialized depositories already operating in this market. But first, conduct serious monitoring of these companies, making sure of their solvency and reliability. To increase reliability, a normative ratio of own funds, for example, a private pension fund, and attracted money from future pensioners should be established by law in the amount of one to ten. But the main guarantee that the money earned through back-breaking work and accumulated over the years will not disappear in the next financial crisis should be insurance of pension funds, similar to insurance of bank deposits. “This should be handled by the state insurance agency,” says Sergei Sorokoumov.
The source of financing for the insurance premium should be the funds’ own property, formed, among other things, from part of the income from investing pension savings. The minimum requirement for the size of property to ensure the statutory activities of a non-state pension fund (NPF) from July 1, 2008 will be 50 million rubles, and from July 1, 2009 - 100 million rubles. Let us recall that the law on non-state pension funds now establishes requirements for the minimum amount of property of a fund providing compulsory pension insurance in the amount of 30 million rubles.
In attracting working citizens to voluntary pension savings, it is planned to place special emphasis on the so-called retail. That is, for individuals who, independently, without delegating this right to their employer, will choose a pension fund for their savings. RSPP experts believe that these will primarily be workers in non-chain wholesale trade, the service sector and private entrepreneurs. It is this category of citizens that should, in theory, become the first link covered by the new pension co-financing. But not only them.
“Currently, voluntary pension insurance is used mainly by employees of various Gazproms and Lukoils, there are 6 million people in total. Or maybe many times more,” Konstantin Ugryumov, chairman of the board of the National Association of Non-State Pension Funds, told Vremya Novostei. “Every month a homeless person from Komsomolskaya Square comes to my pension fund and brings 15 thousand rubles,” says Mr. Ugryumov. “The homeless man says that he has no one else to rely on except us, only we can provide him with his homeless pension.” Of course, this is a grotesque example. The co-financing program is designed primarily for quite successful citizens whose salaries are enough not only for their immediate needs, but also to save for their old age.
The RSPP intends to ensure the future of the majority of citizens in this way in three stages. By the end of this year, it is planned to make a fundamental decision on the share participation of the state and employers in voluntary pension savings; in 2008-2009, it is necessary to adopt the entire package of tax laws, and then begin to develop laws related to the administration of the entire pension system. As a result, according to representatives of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, pensions of Russians everywhere should reach 40% of wages, which is fully consistent with the standards of the International Labor Organization. True, business representatives find it difficult to predict in what year this will happen.