Ten years after the 2005 reform, supplementary pensions are at a standstill. The time is thus now ripe for a broad reflection on its role in a more harmonious design that addresses the issue both from a conceptual point of view, and from a regulatory point of view and finally from the modality of adhesion. This is the opinion of Insurance scheme, the Italian Association for Complementary Welfare, national technical center for the development of complementary protection in social security and healthcare.
There are three for Assoprevidenza i main issues to address: 1) establish that the supplementary pension is needed; 2) implement non-penalizing legislation; 3) reconsider how to join.
“From this situation – said the president Sergio Corbello during a press meeting on the subject – one comes out with the ability to understand that funds and coffers are social instruments and not financial products. Secondly, it is hoped that with a minimum of economic recovery there will be the possibility of having resources to reduce the taxation of the funds and at the same time a government initiative towards the social partners is desirable so that they use the contractual instruments to develop the pension funds".
THE SUPPLEMENTARY SECURITY IS NEEDED
“It seems to us that someone is mistaking pension funds as financial instruments,” Corbello noted. Although they make use of financial instruments, in fact, pension funds have a different and specific purpose: they are used for retirement planning. And not only for elements of a social nature, but also for considerations of an economic nature, linked to the role of long-term institutional investors which characterizes sector operators.
Assoprevidenza is in fact aware of the potential macroeconomic repercussions of social security resources in terms of investments in the country's development (SMEs, public works, infrastructures, etc.) but notes that the pact must be "clear", as is the case in Northern European countries where pension funds invest in hospitals and public works but know how much they invest, how much the return is and with what risk. “We need to take a step back on taxation and identify the tools for investing in the country – explained Corbello -, the CDP should invent some investment tools of complementary pensions without forgetting that the investment is given by the duration, the riskiness and the return”.
On the contrary, for Assoprevidenza the recent legislative interventions on supplementary pensions pose "important questions" on the future development of the sector. The Association shows a "total dissent" on the merits of the approach, defined as "punitive and potentially destructive", completely contrary to what is operated by other European countries, on the subject, for example, of the taxation of returns. But the problem is deeper: it is not only the single measure that generates perplexity but the method with which the measures are taken, "connected - says Assoprevidena - to the obvious lack of an organic design for the sector, whose reality and function even seem be misrepresented". In other words, Assoprevidenza believes that the Government has totally misunderstood the role of supplementary pensions "considering the funds as financial products for pension purposes and not as providers of pension services".
A NON-PENALIZING REGULATION
Assoprevidenza, for example, considers the severance indemnity the essential basis for being able to create a supplementary pension plan thus criticizing the law on severance pay in payroll (ln 190/2014 art.1, c. 26). Just as, to cite some of the cases indicated, taxation does not go in the desired direction, which among other things, points out Assoprevidenza, derogates from the approach of the European Union which is summarized in the acronym E/E/T: exemption taxability for a reasonable amount of contributions per year; total exemption from taxation of returns achieved from time to time; taxation of benefits for the individual.
In reverse, Italy relies on a modest exemption for contributions (just over 5.000 euros a year); facilitated taxation of returns - in the past 11%, then 11,50% on the accrued and not already on the realized - extremely favorable taxation for services (almost non-existent at the moment), with recognition of a tax credit for taxes already ` paid on returns.
Assoprevidenza also notes that "such a heavy derogation from the general European E/E/T scheme represents a serious obstacle to the intra-community portability of the individual supplementary pension positions of Italian workers and, consequently, limits their free movement within the EU ”. In fact, by transferring the individual position from an Italian fund to a European one, the Italian worker loses all the tax credits accrued on the returns and would be taxed again in full, upon using the services.
HOW TO JOIN
It is on the membership front that the system presents the greatest criticalities: not only does the number of members, significant in itself (over 6,5 million) represent less than 30% of employed people, but for over five years, in By virtue of the continuing economic crisis, the physiological decrease in subscribers to pre-existing funds is accompanied by a continuous contraction in the number of subscriptions to newly established negotiable funds (-5% since 2008). "The increase in members registered in recent years is therefore essentially the result of the "appeal" of open funds and, above all, of PIPs which, at the end of 2014, held over 50% of the total number of members of supplementary pensions - explains Assoprevidenza – At present, some categories such as young people, women, residents in the southern regions are still without adequate supplementary pension coverage, precisely the subjects who risk being less covered by the basic pension treatment". It fits into this framework need to reflect on the central role of collective bargaining to develop the membership of subordinate workers, providing for the possibility, suggests Assoprevidenza, "of making the participation in the pension fund by the workers of the catchment area considered compulsory ex contract, without prejudice to the right of the individual worker to renounce the creation of the pension plan (expressed dissent)".
