Pension
Government wants to lower hurdles for company pensions
Company pensions should be an important pillar of old -age protection. But finally the quota dropped. Now the U -turn should succeed.
With a new law, the government wants to ensure a stronger spread of company pensions. Employees with low and medium earnings should also be increasingly secured by company pensions for age. “Good company pensions contribute to the quality of life in old age,” Labor Minister Bärbel Bas told the German Press Agency in Berlin. Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil spoke of an important pillar next to the statutory pension.
Thanks to the “second company pension law” of BAS and Klingbeil (both SPD), which is to be given the green light in the cabinet today, smaller companies are intended to offer company pensions, for example as part of a company agreement. The existing social partner model, in which employers’ associations and unions can agree to company pension schemes, is to be further developed accordingly.
BAS said: “Company pensions are efficient and safe, especially if they are organized by the social partners on a collective basis.” Employees with low incomes and in small and medium -sized companies should benefit from this form capital -covered additional pensions.
Klingbeil said the dpa that company pensions help to make people who worked hard all their lives could live well from their pension. “Our draft law is an important step so that more employed company pensions can receive and thus have more security and good provision for old age.”
So-called opting-out systems are to be made easier, in which one has to contradict if part of the fee is not to be used automatically for company pensions.
Risks and thus returns should be higher when saving. Regulations for pension funds are “flexible”, as it is said. The tax funding of the company pensions is also to be increased.
At the end of 2023, 18.1 million employees subject to social security contributions had an active company pension entitlement with their employer. That is 500,000 more than in 2017, but due to the simultaneous employment structure, the distribution rate decreased slightly to 52 percent.
According to the bill, the planned tax improvements should cost the state around 155 million euros annually.
dpa
Source: Stern
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
