On one hand, what a bitter pill, but that’s equality. Parents never stop being parents in their heads, but the economical perspective of life is a bit different. Children grow up and make their own lives. Children are not dependent anymore, so the money goes to…what?
On the other hand, it feels like fraud contributing to AHV-IV and then be left out hanging out to dry. Why pay for an insurance that one day changes the contract terms? If I die and they refuse to pay my wife…we should be getting a discount in 1st pillar contributions if the the obligations are only for workers but not for the insurance. Screw the 1st pillar.
Wait a min, I just realized that this comes on top of the marriage penalty of income tax.
So, pay more income tax during adult life, pay AHV-IV, main income spouse dies, then…get told to apply for “supplementary benefits” in case of poverty.
I’m thankful for having zero interest to change things here, otherwise this is a cause for popular revolt.
Married couples profit from a reduced tax rate the entire time, and that’s on top of the higher deductions. A non-working spouse gets AHV credits based on the other’s income. Etc etc.
The notion that all married couples pay more is a blatant lie, that’s not even the case for all double-earners.
I agree. I’m also still trying to figure out what they’re on about when talking about the “Heiratsstrafe” (marriage punishment).
In the end facts count: I did not pay more taxes while married (double earners) than I did before or after.
As to widow’s pension. Say a woman age 30, two kids under age, loses her husband.
The kids get a half-orphan’s pension. The wife the widow’s pension. AfaIk she gets that even if she’s going to work making good money. If she likes move in with her new boyfriend some day. All she has to do is not remarry.
The loss at first ist tragic. But the rest of her life she had a pretty good deal?
The much bigger problem people don’t realize is that the surviving spouse has no access to accounts and wealth of the other until everything is settled and that can take for ever!! Even with married couples they search for other heirs (all over the world!) imagine how long that takes.
I know someone who went through this about three years ago. If she hadn’t had money of her own she would not have known how to survice. If I remember correctly even AHV stalls until all is done and dusted.
So shared accounts and things are not a good idea really. You should make sure everyone has a decent account of themselves, under their names.
Well, it’s basically the fact that before marriage, the spouses get taxed separately. Married, the joint income gets them into a higher tax bracket, though that gets mitigated by the reduced tax rate. This will be felt for higher earners, especially if both incomes are in the same range.
Just as certainly, they’ll keep being privileged with individual taxation. It wouldn’t surprise me if it ends with something like “taxed for half the joint income” or a general reduced rate.
Indeed. I checked the numbers for canton Aargau, no religion and no children. All for withholding tax (quellensteuer).
A married couple with double income pays about the same as a single person up to an income of 80k per year. For larger incomes, the married couple with double income pays 1-1.5% less than the single earner.
The big difference is a married couple with 1 earner. They pay 4-5% less than married couples with double earners and single people.
It’s much larger than that, or at least it can be, because some deductions are available twice when married (admittedly some may require a wife working [incl. part time]). In BS for instance, a married couple with 100k taxable income paying the 3a maximum of 7k twice, reduces the tax burden by 2x 1900, from 23.7 to 19.9k. The additional 3a alone reduces the tax burden by 10%.
And that’s far from the only deduction that’s available twice when married.
The adjustment of survivors’ pensions demanded by the European Court of Human Rights has been delayed. The National Council committee responsible wants to discuss the outstanding issues as part of a related popular initiative.
By 14 votes to 11, the National Council’s Social Affairs and Health Committee (SGK-N) has decided to temporarily suspend consideration of the Federal Council’s proposal to adjust survivors’ pensions, the parliamentary services announced on Friday.
It would like to take an overall view of AHV benefits based on marital status and gender and is awaiting the dispatch on the popular initiative “Yes to fair AHV pensions for married couples too” from the center party. The Federal Council intends to adopt this by the end of March 2025 at the latest.
The Commission stated in a communication that it wanted to eliminate the unequal treatment in AHV survivors’ pensions and adapt the system to social developments. In 2022, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled on this unequal treatment of the sexes.
According to the Federal Council, widows and widowers should in future receive a pension until their youngest child reaches the age of 25 - regardless of their marital status. However, pensions already paid to widows and widowers over the age of 55 would continue to be paid. Today, women receive a pension for life, even if they have no dependent children. Widowers, on the other hand, only receive a pension until the youngest child comes of age.
Last December, the Federal Council submitted its proposal for consultation until the end of March. Opinions on the reform were divided. While the conservatives welcomed the changes, the SP and Greens criticized the fact that they worsened the situation for certain groups of women.
For further consultations, the SGK-N commissioned the administration to carry out clarifications and calculations. Among other things, the current privileges for married couples and options for retirement and survivors’ pensions independent of marital status are to be highlighted, the situation of surviving dependants is to be analyzed and the impact of the current draft on widowed women of retirement age is to be explained.
Issue is the survivor partner pension was always bailed as the reason 2 partners don’t get 2 full pensions because the funding is needed to fund survivor pensions. Now if they take this away then they should also this “penalty” away and given each person their own full pension.
Nope, calculate the pension the regular way, you don’t get the full pension unless you actually paid in the full amount of years. As things stand, the stay at home spouse gets credit from the working spouse’s pay-in, this needs to go, too.
When calculating a woman’s contribution record, she will be credited
for the years of her marriage or widowhood prior to 31 December 1996
during which she was insured, but did not pay any contributions.
