Sources reveal sensational detail of new pension reform
No sooner had the Russians moved away from one pension reform than another hung over them like a sword of Damocles. In a week, the Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank are to submit a draft of a new system of funded pensions. As sources in economic circles told us, the project will include a provision stating that another 6% will be automatically written off from citizens with a certain level of income, plus to the current deductions.
If the decision to raise the retirement age was made in a hurry, so that the people did not have time to really understand anything and raise a riot, the concept of pension savings has been developed for three years.
The authorities seem to have approached the issue with all scrupulousness and responsibility, but the trouble is: the new system has not yet been presented, and it already has a bad reputation. Russians remember well what happened to the past model of the funded system: the state “froze” the money and took it for its own needs.
The new funded scheme is based on “individual pension capital” (IPC). True, it will not appear in the name of the project, the Ministry of Finance reported just now. According to rumors, the emphasis will be on the words "voluntary" and "accumulative". But this does not make it less alarming.
The very idea of accumulating part of the pension on your own is quite viable for a market economy. The idea is that the working citizens themselves (or the employer with their consent) will deduct a percentage of their salaries to the savings fund. This is what happened before: 22% of salaries went to the pension system, of which 16% went to the insurance part of the pension, 6% to the funded one. Five years ago, savings were frozen - the state needed money for Crimean pensioners and a way out of the crisis, that is, the funded part merged with the insurance part. Two years later, they began to come up with an alternative - and this is how the IPK concept appeared.
The main provisions are as follows: participants are invited to deduct another 6% (not immediately, but in increments of 1% per year) of their salary to a personal savings account in excess of the 22% that the employer will continue to pay. However, now the funds will be the property of citizens - the state will allegedly no longer be able to take and use them. Needless to say, the idea of an additional pension tax outraged everyone. The tax burden in the country is already increasing, and the authorities shamelessly impose another divorce for money. Therefore, the authorities started talking about the voluntariness of the system.
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Here it should be clarified that the developers of the project originally planned to participate in the accumulative system by "auto-subscription". That is, all officially working people would be driven into the IPK with the right to refuse to participate later. The logic of the authorities is clear: with absolute voluntariness, few would decide to part with 6% of their salary. Then they remembered: such "automatic machines" contradict the civil code. This was confirmed by President Putin, placing the voluntariness of the system as the main conditions for its existence. We got out in the government gracefully: instead of auto-subscription, we decided to make auto-registration. The difference is that the employee will be informed about the funded system, after which he will “voluntarily” sign a document on participation in it.
The issue has not yet been resolved with those who will not show themselves in any way. In the previous funded system, there were many "silent" - those who did not dispose of the deductions in any way. And here the Civil Code can play into the hands of the state. In accordance with it, "silence is recognized as an expression of the will to conclude a transaction in cases provided for by law or by agreement of the parties." It turns out that the saying "Silence is a sign of consent" has legal force.
The government needs an “automatic”, otherwise the new system has no chance. However, you cannot collect much from those who receive a salary of 10-20-30 thousand rubles. Realizing this, the developers of the reform decided to extend the reform of pension savings to workers with high wages. According to data from the economic community, available to MK, the final version of the project will contain a proviso that the system will automatically include citizens with salaries of 80-85 thousand rubles (that is, about 1 million per year). It turns out that the promised voluntariness may turn out to be selective in practice. However, there is no official confirmation of the information about "automatic switching on" yet - we will definitely find out everything in a week.
In order to soften the blow, the Ministry of Finance assures that individual savings will work for citizens. Of course, not directly, because an IPC is not an interest-bearing deposit. The authorities promise to invest the money of future pensioners in the economy, and with its improvement there will be “happiness” for people. But who guarantees that the state will not take the savings to save it from the next crisis? Moreover, according to forecasts of economists, the crisis will break out in 2020-2021 - just when the new system is planned to be launched.
For those who nevertheless trust the state of accumulation, this can turn sideways. This has already happened. Since 2011, there has been a program of co-financing of pensions - exclusively voluntary. The conditions were tempting: the state offered to double their charges. Everything looked like a super-profitable deposit with a yield of 100% - only in the accounts of the state so that it could use this money. Upon retirement, the co-financiers had to pay the doubled savings at a time. It just turned out that the state does not want to part with the money entrusted to it so easily. Years later, a condition was introduced: lump-sum payments are due only to those who have been assigned a pension of more than 15 thousand rubles (in the regions this is an almost unattainable figure). Otherwise, the money is paid in portions over ten years, during which the state will continue to spin it.
In general, all our "market" experience teaches us: you shouldn't play games with the government for your own money. Moreover, of good will. The win will definitely not be ours.
Inna Degotkova