(Finance) – In a few days, probably already next Thursday, the pension package will be on the table Minister of Labor Marina Calderone which will then schedule a final meeting of a political nature. This is what we learned at the end of the final meeting of the cycle of technical rounds between the Observatory for Social Security Spending and the social partners, businesses and unions, launched on the pension dossier by the Minister of Labor in view of the next budget law. The final report that will take stock of all four chapters open: guarantee pension for young people; flexibility in exit and exodus; demanding work tasks and social security protections for women; supplementary pension.
According to sources present at the meeting, this morning’s meeting discussed how enhance and differentiate tax advantages for those who join pension funds. For those with split careers the incentive could be greater as it could be for dependent family members. Nothing was said about silent consent, but it seems clear that small and commercial businesses do not like a new semester because they use severance pay as a form of financing. Furthermore, a hypothesis being studied is that of trying to bring public pensions into dialogue with complementary pensions with the aim of reaching the minimum thresholds for retiring. The match, the same sources add, is connected to tax reform.
“The Government will remedy the mistake made with decree 98/2023, with which, without any agreement with the social partners, it decided to assign the functions and resources for the promotion of supplementary pensions to a private entity. We believe it is essential to relaunch supplementary pensions starting from young people, but we believe what the Government has decided to do with this blitz is wrong, in method and substance, and we ask that a step backwards be taken in the implementing decrees expected in October”. This is the first request made by confederal secretary of the CGIL, Lara Ghiglione, at the table this morning with the Ministry of Labor’s observatory for social security spending, which today had supplementary social security on the agenda. “We reiterated the need to introduce a semester of silent consent and to establish a protected office to guarantee that the choice of workers to withhold severance pay in the company is reasoned and above all free. We asked – added Ghiglione – that the supplementary pension is recognized for personnel in the defence, security and public rescue sectors. It is important to bring the taxation on returns to previous and more advantageous parameters for those who join, and it is essential to promote the conditions, also through fiscal leverage, because the negotiated funds invest in the real economy, first of all in order to create new and good jobs and determine greater development of the country. The project launched by Assofondipensione and Cassa Depositi e Prestiti is a first step, more must be done. Let’s repeat again – he concluded – that the technical meetings in the absence of a real dialogue with the ministry on the points addressed and without a discussion worthy of the name with the Government risk becoming superficial appointments, incapable of producing any results. If it is a political choice we take note of it, and on 7 October we will also be in the streets to vindicate our proposals on social security”.
In the technical meeting on pensions at the Ministry of Labor, Uil asked the Government to “turn the lights back on supplementary pensions through an institutional information campaign, in order to increase membership of pension funds”. “It is necessary to accentuate the tax incentives that enhance the social security investment” commented the confederation led by Pierpaolo Bombardieri at the end of the meeting. Uil asked the Government to eliminate the “very serious choice of entrusting the funds of the public committee for the dissemination of pension funds to Assoprevidenza”.
Supplementary social security “is central, even if it cannot be considered a substitute for public social security, so it must be supported through information campaigns and, above all, with advantageous tax policies, aimed at encouraging membership throughout one’s working and professional life – he has declared Fiovo Bitti, confederal leader of the Ugl at the end of the technical table at the Ministry of Labor on pensions -. In this sense it is essential to review the exemption thresholds, including those linked to corporate welfare, and the rates applied to returns. Strengthening the system also involves an action aimed at supporting aggregations between funds, also acting on the internal democracy side. of the same. The hypothesis of a blank semester of membership of the funds is practicable, as an extraordinary measure and perhaps in a simplified form, to relaunch the theme of complementary pensions, mainly among young people, but without structural interventions there is a risk of not achieving the long-term objectives that they should lead to informed adherence. In recent years, some obstacles have clearly emerged, linked, for different reasons, to severance pay, with employees reluctant to have to direct 100 percent to supplementary pensions and with small employers in turn reluctant to give up a form of subsidized financing. Furthermore, it is essential to align the public sector, which is still too late, with the private sector, while the role that Covip and Assofondipensione can play is decisive”.
“A major public information campaign and a new period of silent consent are needed for adhering to supplementary pensions. Supplementary pensions are now a fundamental pillar of the pension system and must be accessible to all workers and, in particular, to young people – underlined the confederal secretary of the CISL, Ignazio Ganga, at the end of the technical table on social security reform -. The pension funds promoted by collective agreements give important social security and tax advantages to members not only at the time of retirement but also during their working life, it is therefore essential to spread the culture of social security”. The CISL in the meeting with the spending observatory this morning reiterated the request to reduce taxation on returns and greater tax breaks in the case of investments in the real economy and infrastructure by pension funds. “The Minister of Labor has expressed on various occasions a particular interest in complementary pensions, which the CISL appreciates – he added – and hopes that this availability will materialize in measures to support complementary pensions starting from the next budget law”. The CISL also reiterated its critical position with respect to the choice of the ministry which it identifies as an operational partner in matters of second social security pillar Assoprevidenza, “private entity not representative of the world of work and of the companies with which the discussion is underway” concluded Ganga inviting the executive to review the choice by retracing its steps.