Last Wednesday, May 29, Congress approved in the first vote the reform of the pension system, an initiative developed within Fuerza Popular. Among its main cards is the consumption pension, which “seeks to include 20 million Peruvians” outside the pension scheme.
The consumption pension consists of 1% of annual purchases of up to 8 UIT (S/41,200). Electronic sales receipts—present in supermarkets or convenience stores like Tambo, for example—will serve to map this tool.
According to the opinion – pending a second vote in the Plenary – the contribution for consumption will be administered by the Private Pension System and may be subject to commission: the AFPs and the financial entities that would now have the green light to operate in this area. Even if you are in the ONP, your consumption account will be credited to one of the private regime.
Why would the pension reform only give “crumbs”?
As specialists warned La República, the consumption pension will only benefit those Peruvians who have the most income. Furthermore, it does not take into account that the bulk of the population is informal and supplies itself daily in stores that do not issue payment receipts.
The congresswoman Sigrid Bazan (CD-JP) maintains that With 1% of the limit of S/41,200 per year in purchases, the contribution to the pension fund will be S/412 per year —or S/34 per month. Bazán believes that the system “only offers crumbs and not a decent pension or real reform.”
“They give a cat for a hare. It is not a reform of the pension system (…) How many people consume 42 thousand soles a year? It is not the vast majority. And let’s say it was, it’s equivalent to 412 soles a year for your pension or 34 soles a month. Is that the big reform? 34 soles a month?” said the legislator, who assured that, according to MEF data, low-income Peruvians consume only S/10,000 a year.
For its part, Patricia Juarez (Fuerza Popular), insisted on seeing “the positive side of the projects” and recalled that the consumption pension is only complementary and “it is a campaign promise” by Keiko Fujimori that aims to put the VAT to good use, which currently ” “it goes to corruption.” “We want Peruvians to be able to build in their individual account in a responsible manner an amount that will allow them to pay for the basics when their useful life ends,” she noted.
Source: Larepublica
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