Rififi on the side of pensions. The subject has rarely been so much at the heart of the news, at the same time social, political and economic. The pension reform desired by Emmanuel Macron is beginning its consultation phase in France, which is far from delighting those concerned and those who will be in the coming years.
Indeed, the French are massively opposed to a decline in the legal age of departure, one of the key measures of the bill. Now set at 62, it could be pushed back to 65 by 2031, falling four months each year after the measure is passed by Parliament in the summer, if the timetable is maintained.
This bad news is offset by good surprises in recent weeks, which directly concern the pensions paid to beneficiaries. Indeed, after a 4% increase in the basic pension last summer, the Agirc-Arrco supplementary pensions will also increase on November 1, by 5.12%. Planet has calculated for you the increase in euros that will result from this by next month.
While this is good news for the 13 million pensioner beneficiaries, they will still have to be vigilant at the start of next year, because the rules will change on January 1, 2023. The transfer collection of contributions to Urssaf will be active on this date and, according to several professionals in the sector, many errors could occur for more than 5 million beneficiaries… What should we expect? What should you pay particular attention to? We take stock.
Today, Agirc-Arrco is responsible for collecting supplementary pension contributions from private sector companies. As La Dépêche explains, from next January 1, this role will fall to Urssaf, for companies subject to payment in a single location. As of January 1, 2024, this transfer will concern all private companies in France.
Concretely, this does not change much for you, but it makes life easier for companies because, according to Urssaf, this transfer would allow them to save money and have only one contact. Good news offset by the fears of trade unions and employers’ organizations, who are worried about errors and additional difficulties for retirees. These problems could even impact the pension rights of private sector employees…
This simplification is not at all to the taste of the unions. Asked by Le Parisien Thursday, October 6, their representatives are worried: “By entrusting Urssaf with the collection of pension contributions, it is a pension reform that does not say its name. The risk is that the State uses, as has just been done with Action Logement, in the contributions of private sector employees to finance other expenses.
For their part, the bosses are worried about a deterioration in the service for retirees. “There are doubts about Urssaf’s ability to pass on the right nominative and exhaustive information to all private sector employees”, explains Capital Eric Chevée, from the Confederation of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises. For Brigitte Pisa, vice-president of the scheme, the concern is different, as she explains to the Parisian: “Why generate major risks of errors in the pension rights of employees by adding an intermediary, Urssaf?”
This concern was shared by the Senate, recalls La Dépêche, particularly by the rapporteurs of the social security evaluation and control mission (MECSS): “The reliability capabilities of individual data from the nominative social declaration (DSN) of URSSAF have been developed too recently to allow the implementation of the transfer, which is only of residual interest in terms of simplifying the procedures for companies and saving money on management”. They even asked for the measure to be postponed until January 1, 2024. Questioned by Capital, Urssaf said on the contrary that it was ready for this change.