Zoff in the Federal Council: Keller-Sutter’s Explosive AHV Plan

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FDP Finance Minister Karin Keller-Sutter (59) wants to balance the federal budget – and also start cutting back on the AHV. Her explosive plan: the federal government must pay less in the AHV fund in the future, but the VAT must be increased.

Today, the federal government must account for 20.2 percent of annual AHV expenditures. Last year no less than 9.7 billion francs. As the number of retirees increases, so do federal costs.

“AHV spending is likely to grow significantly faster than the economy over the next 10 years, averaging 4 percent annually,” Keller-Sutter warned her Gspänli in March in a paper based on the Public Information Act. “So the federal contribution would increase from over 10 billion in 2023 to about 15 billion in 2033.”

Several billion less

Too much for the bargain hunter. It was ordered by the Federal Council to propose further emergency measures by the end of February 2024. “The FDF has been instructed to investigate variants for the unbundling of the AHV budget from the federal budget together with the EDI,” the financial administration confirms to Blick.

In her discussion paper, Keller-Sutter outlines the direction in which this should go. The idea: the AHV contribution should be based on economic growth, in particular on VAT revenue. These grow at only 2.5 percent per year.

If the federal government adjusted its AHV compensation to this growth rate, it could save more than CHF 2 billion in total by 2030, and even CHF 6.5 billion by 2033!

Higher VAT as compensation

Money that the AHV would miss. As compensation, Keller-Sutter is therefore also investigating a VAT increase. As a first step, an increase of “about 0.2 percentage points would be needed” by 2030, the paper said. That would be about 600 million francs a year, which the consumer would have to bear. After that, other sources of income would be needed.

In the Ministry of the Interior of Social Affairs Minister Alain Berset (51), the idea received little support: the unbundling had already had no chance in parliament for the 2020 pension scheme, “but the FDF can try again”, said the Berset Secretariat General. laconic.

Zoff on federal contribution

Keller-Sutter’s austerity plans are also causing problems for Berset elsewhere. Originally, the Minister of Finance wanted to reduce the federal contribution to 19.9 percent for five years from 2025, the “Tages-Anzeiger” reports. This “transitional measure” would have eased the federal budget by about $900 million.

But the documents in Blick’s possession show that she wanted more. The federal contribution should later only be increased “to the extent that the reforms on the benefit side relieve the federal budget”. Maximum to today’s 20.2 percent. However, Berset was able to repel this attack on the AHV at the meeting of the Federal Council in late March.

Attack on widows’ pensions

But not the attack on the widow’s and children’s pension. Here Keller-Sutter’s harder pace has prevailed. She made it clear to her friends that the only way to relieve the federal government was to reduce services. In future, widowers’ pensions will only be paid out when the youngest child is 25 years old – as is already the case for widowers. Child pensions for pensioners should also be reviewed. The AHV must save at least 500 million from 2026, the federal government at least 100 million.

Berset fought in vain for a milder model and wanted to largely spare the current widows’ pensions. For widows over 50, there should be a quasi-guarantee of vested rights, leaving about 95 percent of the 174,000 existing pensions untouched. In the finance department’s model, only widows over the age of 58 — which equates to about 84 percent — are allowed to go free.

Berset called for further dampening measures, such as a three-year transition period instead of just one year. The SP man wanted to stay away from child pensions for pensioners, while Keller-Sutter wants to waive new children’s pensions.

‘Politically tricky given the CS story’

The Interior Department warned in vain that measures in the AHV area were “politically difficult, especially given the history of CS”. Instead, Berset must now develop a consultation draft by the end of September.

The targeted hard variant should relieve the AHV by over CHF 1 billion and the federal government by CHF 270 million by the mid-2030s. In the Berset version that would have been only half.

Source:Blick