The German pension insurance sees considerable problems in the implementation of the planned basic pension. President Gundula Roßbach called several critical points.
Rossbach sees difficulties in the following topics:
- the planned data exchange between pension insurance and tax authorities
- the determination of the provided 35 years with contributions and
- the planned start time of the basic pension.
"With millions of pensions running, which should be considered, the relatively short period to 1 January 2021 is problematic for the development and deployment of a fully automated solution from the point of view of pension insurance," said Roßbach.
The coalition seeks to reward long-term low-income earners with 35 years of contributions from employment, education or care. Before, the income of sufferers and partners should be examined.
Problems when examining the income
Even the determination of who of the 21 million pensioners has the necessary contribution years , "is anything but trivial," said Rossbach. Possibly not all of them have the necessary data - for example, people who were already pensioners in the GDR.
"Above all, however, the planned examination of the incomes of the recipients of a basic pension and possibly also of their partners will pose problems", said Roßbach.
In order to receive the full pension supplement, the monthly income for single living should not exceed 1250, for couples over 1950 Euro. Roßbach explained that there was no link between the pension accounts of partners .
Rossbach sees possible additional needs of a thousand places
Thus, probably a transmission of data on marital status by the registration authorities to the pension insurance needed. Otherwise threaten a "massive expansion of the processing".
According to Roßbach, the central question is: "Which data can be processed and when?" Above all, an electronic transmission of all necessary data on the amount of income by the tax authorities to the pension insurance is necessary.
"If the electronic data interchange with the financial administration can not be realized in the ambitious timetable, we assume an additional need of several thousand additional places with the pension insurance."
Details on the basic pension
Roßbach also pointed out that the tax offices can only provide information on taxable income with a delay of two years .
In the annual 1.6 million new pensioners, however, the income changes with entry into the pension - and is expected to be overestimated in the proposed test. Open is also the handling of pensioners without tax return .
At the same time, the pension insurance stated that it was working hard on the implementation. "We are ready to do anything to make the law work," said Alternate CEO Annelie Buntenbach.
Doubts about the timely implementation of the financial transaction tax
CEO Alexander Gunkel urged the coalition to hold on to the planned financing of tax revenue . He expressed "by experience" doubt that this is so. He pointed out that the coalition wants to spend the majority of the estimated costs up to 1.5 billion euros for the basic pension through the not yet existing financial transaction tax .
This taxation of certain financial transactions should come within the European framework. "So far, there is no consensus on this at European level, so there are doubts that the financial transaction tax will come in time," said Gunkel.
more on the subject
At the same time, the pension insurance affirmed that pensioners can hope for significantly higher salaries in the coming year. According to current planning figures, pensions in the west are expected to increase by around three percent on July 1, 2020, and in eastern Germany by another 0.7 to 0.8 points, Gunkel said.
The increase could also be smaller in view of economic uncertainties. Final clarity will only be available in the spring. On Monday, a draft for the Annuity Insurance Report 2019 had become known, after the pensions on July 1, 2020 in the West by 3.15 percent and in East Germany should rise by 3.92 percent.
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