The Federal Council does not want to implement the unions’ AHV initiative by increasing monthly pensions, but rather through an annual surcharge. This opens up tricky questions.
The people said yes.
Anthony Anex / KEYSTONE
«13. AHV pension”: That was a marketing ploy. This popular initiative by the unions was about increasing AHV pensions by 8.3 percent. But that’s not so clear on posters, and “10 percent surcharge” would have been an exact repeat of the union initiative that failed at the ballot box in 2016. «13. AHV pension, on the other hand, sounds like something new and for some citizens, based on the 13th monthly salary, it also sounds like something obvious.
However, this contradicted the narrative of widespread pensioner poverty. If a supplement were urgent, one would have to be in favor of higher monthly pensions instead of making pensioners wait until the end of the year.
After the people voted yes for this initiative, the technicians at the Federal Social Insurance Office came to the conclusion that the simplest implementation would be to increase the monthly AHV pension by 8.3 percent. From the perspective of the AHV compensation funds, this is also the preferred option. The Federal Office of Justice courageously gave its opinion.
Proximity to the constitution versus efficiency
However, the new constitutional norm would suggest a different conclusion. The core sentence is: “Recipients of an old-age pension are entitled to an annual supplement amounting to one twelfth of their annual pension.” – “If a monthly increase had been wanted, the initiators would have stipulated a percentage increase, like last time,” says a constitutional lawyer.
But legal interpretation is not mathematics and is therefore often subject to different interpretations. The Federal Council and Parliament have to resolve a conflict of objectives. What is more important – implementation that is as simple as possible administratively (via increasing the AHV monthly pension by 8.3 percent) or implementation in accordance with the wording of the new constitutional standard (pension supplement once a year)?
The Federal Council surprised
Last week, the Federal Council surprisingly spoke out in favor of constitutional implementation in the form of a pension supplement once a year. He left the hairy details open. The core question: How do you deal with mutations during the year? Insured people die, partners of insured people die, and other changes that affect the monthly pension entitlement occur again and again. It’s not about small things. The AHV pays around 2.5 million pensions every month, and according to practitioners, on average around 60,000 mutations occur per month. Here are some of the sticking points:
- Time. Should the annual surcharge be paid at the beginning, in the middle or at the end of the year? Based on the 13th monthly salary, it would be logical to pay out the supplement together with the December monthly pension.
- Mutations. Liechtenstein already has a 13th AHV pension and pays it out together with the December pension. Liechtenstein refers to the surcharge as “Christmas money” and does not take into account mutations during the year: the claim for the month of December is decisive. This variant is administratively simple, but according to practitioners it would hardly be permissible in Switzerland. The new constitutional norm does not require a Christmas bonus, but rather a supplement of one twelfth of the annual pension for everyone. Anyone who ignores this requirement but at the same time rejects the monthly surcharge with reference to loyalty to the constitution will find themselves at a disadvantage.
- additional demands. For example, if a pensioner dies in June, could the heirs still claim half of the AHV supplement for the year in question? Theoretically, such a claim should exist, but the successful popular initiative wanted to subsidize pensioners and not their heirs. With a one-off payment of the surcharge in December instead of in the middle or beginning of the year, the AHV would at least normally not have to demand repayment from the heirs of an overpaid surcharge.
- Surcharge basis. Even without the death of a pensioner, there can be mutations that change the monthly pension entitlement. Even in such cases, according to the new constitutional norm, it would not be enough to simply pay out the December pension twice. Instead, the twelve monthly pension entitlements would have to be added together and one twelfth of the sum would correspond to the supplement. But this too will have to be decided politically.
2024-04-02 04:23:07
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