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VOLUME 2, No. 1, 2016
and employers
to improve working conditions, giving the employees an opportunity to receive
flexible forms of guarantees and benefits for working in special conditions, which can meet
their interests. These contributions go to the pay-as-you-go (PAYG) part of the insurance
contribution rate and thus have no influence on the retirement pension size of the insured
person.
It is suggested that the following step forward should be done in order to transform the early
retirement system towards personification of pension rights and liabilities and development of
early non-state pension provision.
Bills, offered for development, are to regulate legal, economic and social relations arising
when NSPF provides early non-state pension provision (herein after – ENSPP)
and to set the
main principles of state control over their activities and responsibility for statutory non-
compliance. Moreover, the bills are aimed at stimulating the ENSPP system formation and at
improving pension provision of the people. So, they are to regulate the issues of state support
in forming funds for pension payment under ENSPP pension agreements as well as measures of
tax incentives to involve both employees and employers into these systems.
According to T. Maleva, head of the Institute of Social Analysis and Forecasting at RANEPA,
the bill of the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, on the one hand, is intended to create
strong incentives for the employer to upgrade working places,
and on the other hand, makes
it possible to implement this idea in the framework of a voluntary social contract. It is
also expected that with the course of time the number of working places with harmful and
dangerous working conditions will be reduced and the deficit of the RF Pension Fund will be
decreased as well [9].
The bills being developed will be effective for the following scope of persons:
physical entities – RF citizens, foreign citizens, persons without citizenship insured under
compulsory pension insurance and employed in workplaces with harmful and dangerous working
conditions (their existence being determined through assessment of workplaces with respect to
working conditions and later, after the employer conducted special evaluation study of working
conditions, on the basis of its results;
legal
entities, sole proprietors – employers, their associations creating ENSPP systems;
Non-State Pension Funds that acquired the right to conduct activities on ENSPP in
accordance with the RF applicable legal requirements (namely – having a license obtained in
a due order, having ENSPP rules registered in the Bank of Russia, experienced in simultaneous
management of at least 20 thousand individual retirement accounts and (or) individual
personal accounts of the funded component of a retirement pension, having experience in
simultaneous payment of non-state pensions to at least 500 retired
people during a period of
minimum 5 years;
state bodies and organizations carrying out monitoring and supervisory functions over the
activities of ENSPP subjects;
trade unions, other employee representative units promoting the employees’ interests
during creation and functioning of ENSPP systems.
The volume of the set-aside funds is estimated in the amount of at least one-fifth of the salary
throughout the whole working life of the employee (40-45 years). This very simple postulate
of the pensions’ economic essence is habitual, natural and ordinary in the life paradigm of the
Westerners. But most of the Russian Federation citizens have to become familiar with it. In
many respects this is connected with some ideological and organizational peculiarities of the
native retirement system development, which in the last hundred years was following the way
of noninsurance pension provision schemes [17].
The bills are to provide for the citizens’ rights to participate
in the ENSPP system through
employers’ contributions, their own contributions, state support of this fund formation and the
right to have accountability of funds formed for pension payment in the framework of ENSPP
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CONTEMPORARY PROBLEMS OF SOCIAL WORK
system at individual personal accounts and liabilities of employers, state and NSPF relevant to
the mentioned rights.
Federal Law of the Russian Federation Nо. 410-FL of 28 December 2013 “On amendments
to the Federal Law “On Non-State Pension Funds” and certain legislative acts of the Russian
Federation” contains a blanket standard contemplating adoption of a separate federal
law to set a system of state co-financing of the employees
contributions paid within
ENSPS [7].
It also necessary to contemplate rights and responsibilities of state bodies and organizations
in performing supervisory and control functions when forming funds for pension payment within
ENSPP system by employers and NSPF, and NSPF payments.
At present the institution of early granted old-age retirement pensions is a part of the
compulsory pension insurance system. One of pension qualifications for the early grant of old-
age retirement pensions is the duration of a special employment period in specific working
conditions for a long time. This types of employment are indicated in paragraphs 1and 2, Article
27, of the Federal Law of the Russian Federation Nо. 173-FL of 17 December 2001 and are given
in respective Lists approved by the RF Government.
For early retirement pensions to be granted, a relevant general pensionable service is necessary,
as well as a special employment period. Pensionable length of service is usually different for
men and women – 50 or 55 for men and 45 or 50 for women. Under
certain conditions pension
can be granted before or after the mentioned age.
Since 1 January 2013, in accordance with Article 33.2 of FL Nо. 167-FL of 15 December
2001 “On Compulsory Pension Insurance in the Russian Federation” the government designated
a separate source of funding early retirement and introduced additional rates of insurance
contributions to finance the insurance part of the retirement pension for employers, whose
employees work in harmful and dangerous working conditions. In 2014 and 2015 these
additional rates amount to 6 and 9% for employees occupied in subsurface mining, harmful
and dangerous working conditions and in hot shops, 4 and 6% for employees occupied in other
arduous and strenuous working conditions [4]. These contributions go to the pay-as-you-go
(PAYG) part of the insurance contribution rate and thus have no influence on the retirement
pension size of the insured person.
According
to some experts, these problems of pension provision are given rise in the pension
scheme itself, as it is built on the “unfunded basis of the generations’ solidarity” and “inherent
defects” typical for such pension provision system [21].
Since 1 January 2014 statutory provisions of Federal Law Nо. 421-FL of 28 December 2013 “On
amendments to certain legislative acts of the Russian Federation in connection with adoption
of the Federal Law “On a Special Assessment of Working Conditions” have come into force. They
amend Federal Laws Nо. 212-FL of 24 July 2009 “On Insurance Contributions to the RF Pension
Fund, RF Social Insurance Fund and RF Federal Compulsory Medical Insurance Fund” and Nо.
167-FL of 15 December 2001 “On Compulsory Pension Insurance in the Russian Federation” as
related to the introduction of additional rates of insurance contributions for employers having
working places with harmful and (or) dangerous working conditions detected as a result of a
special evaluation study of working conditions [8]. Demands of the early retirement scheme are
not satisfied by these additional rates and need considerable financing in the form of annual
inter-budget transfers (Table 1).
According to the RF Pension Fund data as of early 2014, there were about 4 mil employees
occupied in special working conditions. Of them about 3.1 mil employees (0.6 mil – List 1,
2.5 mil – List 2 and small lists) have not reached early retirement age and can be considered as
would-be participants of the ENSPP scheme. Among them 0.6 mil employees have full special
qualifying period giving right
for early retirement pension, 2.5 employees do not have such
period [13].