Text 8267, 62 rader
Skriven 2010-06-07 07:44:10 av Robert Bashe (2:2448/44)
   Kommentar till text 8212 av Ward Dossche (2:292/854)
Ärende: Bargeld lacht
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Ward Dossche wrote to Michiel van der Vlist on Sunday June 06 2010 at 17:41:

WD> Here the widow's pension is the same as the husband's pension.

WD> So the widow of Helmut Kohl will draw substally more than the widow of
WD> Robert Bashe.

That in any case, as my pension doesn't amount to many thousands of Euros a
month. Helmut Kohl's does.

In Germany, you also have to realize there's a difference between a pension
(Rente, for privately employed persons) and a pension ("Pension", for tenured
government employees, including representatives and government officials as
well as many teachers). There are no separate words for those in English, so
I've added the German terms in brackets.

The Rente (private pension) is based on earnings and contributions, and up to
now the contributions have been partially taxed. As a result, the pension is
only taxed on the so-called "Ertragsteil", or the interest on the original
contributions. That's presently changing (gradually), and in the future, the
contributions will be free of tax, whereas the pensions will be fully taxed.

A "Pension" (government employee) is a perk of the job and requires no
contributions from the individual. Theoretically, it is paid to compensate
lower salaries for government employees (used to be the case, but is now no
more) and the lack of a right to strike (tenured government employees do not
have this right). It is always fully taxed, in contrast to the Rente. This
difference was one of the reasons for the change I mentioned above that will
place both systems on the same tax basis.

In general, a Rente is normally much smaller than a "Pension" (government
employee). The minimum Rente runs something like EUR 500-600 a month, and can
be supplemented in case of need (the average runs around EUR 1100 a month). The
"Pension" (I'm writing it capitalized and in quotes to distinguish it from the
English word, which is not meant here) is based on the salary during the last
2-3 years of service, and if I'm not wrong, amounts to around 75% of this. The
formulas for calculating these things are very complex and not something you
can do on a pocket calculator.

I draw a Rente based on my contributions to the system when I was an employee.
My Rente is accordingly small, and in fact lies below the poverty level here,
or at least would if I had no other source of income such as stocks and bonds.

Mr. Kohl was a tenured government employee and draws a very large "Pension"
based on his service as Federal Chancellor. In fact, the large "Pensions" drawn
by representatives after even a few years of service (meanwhile eight years,
previously after only two years) are a large bone of contention with those of
us who are not so favored and cannot write their own laws. But as the old
saying goes, you can't fight city hall.

As for widow's pensions, I suspect they will run along the same lines: the
widow of a "Rentner" (such as myself) will always be smaller than that of a
"Pensioner" (such as Mr. Kohl).

It's a complex system with a lot of political ins and outs, and you practically
have to live here for a lengthy period of time to even halfway understand it.
Even then, it takes an expert to really know what's going on.

Cheers, Bob

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