Details of HS | There is a dispute in the board about pension cuts

Prime minister Petteri Orpon (kok) government has developed a significant dispute about pension savings, government sources tell HS.

The Kokoumu is puzzled by the effort of basic Finns to find large and technically complex savings from pensions.

Basic Finns, on the other hand, are surprised by the coalition's need to favor pensioners at the expense of those who will be the targets of other savings.

According to HS sources, it is fairly certain that the savings will also go towards pensions. Several hundreds of millions of euros will possibly be cut from pensions, depending on what kind of cut option the government ends up with.

There is also controversy about how pension savings are implemented.

The government is scheduled to decide on new major savings in mid-April.

According to HS's information, the government intends to adjust the public finances with the decisions of this spring, roughly with savings of around two billion euros and tax reductions of around one billion euros.

The government is supposed to decide on savings first, although there are already preliminary guidelines on taxes.

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In addition to social security savings and possible pension cuts, the savings consist of small streams.

If no agreement is reached on the two billion euro savings, the share of taxes may increase. The coalition would rather plan government spending here and there than to raise taxes and make big cuts in pensions. Basic Finns would be more ready for tax increases and pension cuts.

Pensions and other possible savings targets are currently being negotiated in a working group, which includes the chairmen of the parliamentary group Matias Marttinen (cook), Otto Andersson (r) and Peter Ostman (kd) and MP for the Basic Finns Ville Vähämäki.

HS told in the beginning of February, that the government is also looking for cuts in pensions. They haven't been touched yet, even though the government has already decided on the six billion euro adjustments.

Concern about the fate of pensions arose immediately after the article was published. The pension debate went into even greater rounds after the Minister of Finance Riikka Purra (ps) stated the same In an interview with Ilta-Sanomi at the end of March.

“It is possible that pensions will be cut. The government hasn't touched them yet. Targeting the cuts to the smallest pensions does not make sense at all,” Purra said.

Prime minister Petteri Orpo (kok) said as recently as last year that the pension indices will not be touched.

Part Sources at HS say that the pension cuts will not be as noticeable in everyday life as one could conclude from the current debate on pensions.

In any case, it is not a question of cutting the basic pension, but rather of tightening the taxation of the pension or cutting the indices.

of HS according to the information, there have been different stages in the pension negotiations throughout the spring, but Perus Finns have kept pensions up the whole time.

HS sources describe that the pension savings negotiations are now in an active phase again.

However, nothing has been decided yet, and the alternative is that pensions will again be excluded from savings.

In the last few days, it has been mentioned in the negotiations that the cuts would primarily be aimed at occupational pensions, not so much at guarantee and national pensions.

There are several ways. One option has been a withholding tax for pensions exceeding the prescribed level. The second is the cut of the indices that guarantee the increase in pensions. It is also possible that the cut will not apply to smaller pensions.

In negotiations an attempt has been made to find a pension solution that saves as much as possible directly from government spending. This is because the government needs to balance its so-called framework expenditures.

Last spring, the government agreed on the rules according to which it will act if government spending rises more than agreed last spring. The government decided to cut other expenses if some expenses increase.

Expenditures are now increasing due to, among other things, the growing deficits of the welfare areas, especially due to the rise in prices.

The budget balancing is made more difficult by the fact that taxes may not be used to balance the so-called spending framework.

Taxes, on the other hand, can be used so that Finland can adjust the income and expenditure of its public finances to the framework defined by the EU.

Finland is at risk of falling into the EU's deficit procedure, i.e. the so-called EU monitoring category, if the public finance deficit does not fall below the level defined by the EU.

Pensions the cuts directly ease, first of all, the deficit of the public finances, as pensions are counted as part of the wider public finances.

The government is now going through complex and previously unused ways in which cuts from occupational pensions could be channeled into state savings. It would reduce the need to cut elsewhere.

This is not easy, because the state only pays part of the pensions, such as national and guarantee pensions, its own part of the pensions of state employees and, among other things, part of the pensions of entrepreneurs.

Occupational pensions are largely paid by wage earners and private employers. This money is managed by wage earners and employers.

One the problem with cutting pensions is that the govt has requested parties in the labor market to reform the pension system by the beginning of next year. The goal is savings of one billion euros.

Ay has been warned that the government's improvement will not affect pensions, if it does not want difficulties in pension negotiations.

It would be particularly problematic to touch the pensions of the needy, but even the ay movement could accept interfering with the highest pensions without collapsing the pension negotiations.

Major the cut is targeting social and health spending.

According to HS's information, the government has already reached a fairly advanced agreement on the cuts in social and health spending. The goal was a cut of around 600–700 million euros, but it may be smaller.

You were the first to tell about the magnitude of social security savings and the division of savings of three billion into taxes of one billion euros and savings of two billion euros Evening newspaper at the beginning of April.

HS said on March 12 that the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health (STM) has had difficulty finding ways to implement a cut of hundreds of millions of euros.

STM has been asked to make savings proposals for, among other things, nurse and caregiver ratings, employee eligibility requirements and, for example, doctors' work obligations.

There has also been an issue of bringing forward the cuts that have already been made to social security organizations.

of HS according to sources, in addition to social security savings and possible cuts of hundreds of millions in pensions, the savings consist of numerous small streams.

The more savings there are in the state budget from pensions and social security, the fewer cuts will be made elsewhere.

Education is quite safe, but not completely. For example, the reduction of starting places for vocational education has been discussed.

For the coalition, cuts on the professional side are more difficult than for basic Finns. Basic Finns have also highlighted the index cut of higher education institutions.

In addition, government subsidies to various organizations, from horse organizations to culture, are in the danger zone.

Major the tax increase will be applied to value added tax.

One option is that the value-added tax is increased across the board with certain exceptions, or the increase applies only to the general value-added tax.

The taxes collected from traffic are about to collapse in the next few years, because people are switching from heavily taxed fuels to electricity.

In particular, Perussuomalaiset opposes tax increases for those who drive fuel-powered cars, even though economists are somewhat unanimous that it is possible to increase traffic taxation.