There are one million self-employed people who already have pension plans that would add up to a total of 20,000 million euros and they are precisely one of the targets of the simplified employment pension plans that have started their journey this summer.
The main objective in this field of the policy deployed by the Ministry of Inclusion and Social Security during the last legislature has been to move the center of gravity of individual pension plans, until now the dominant ones in Spain, with high commissions and which benefit basically the high middle incomes; towards employment plans, with fewer commissions and a wider range of beneficiaries. The regulation ended up being approved just before the July election, and from now on is when the self-employed can actually opt for these plans.
According to Inclusio, with the new plans commissions will be reduced in such a way that the self-employed sector will save around 200 million per year for this concept, which increases profitability.
The self-employed have three main options to invest in employment pension plans, in all cases with an increase in the relief limit up to 5,750 euros per year (4,250 from the employment plan plus 1,500 from the individual limit). The first is through the plans of the self-employed associations, with ATA, which has already had one in place for a year, and UPTA which will start it this October; the second are those developed by the professional associations, and the third, the option of adding to the sectoral plans.
The plan for freelancers that started earlier is that of ATA, but with meager results at the moment. Launched a year ago and managed by VidaCaixa, it has only added 1,000 freelancers with a total balance of 3 million euros. It is true that the actual deployment of the simplified employment plans took place later with the approval this summer of the corresponding regulations. However, the sector acknowledges that "awareness is lacking" and "a new impulse", and they also justify the slow start with the results of the election year.
For its part, UPTA signed a pension plan with Banco Sabadell in June which, in practice, will start this October. The commission he charges is well below the individual plans, and as always in these cases, the risk varies according to the life cycle, so as the self-employed person approaches retirement, the investment is more conservative.
"The main element of the plan is to reduce the risks to the minimum expression, it is necessary to preserve savings", says Eduardo Abad, president of UPTA, who is confident that "there will be a mutation from individual plans to employment plans, because they have another tax treatment and now the improvements can be guaranteed", he adds.
Another of the paths that the self-employed can opt for are the plans that will be launched by professional associations and other associations. In this context, this week the General Council of Economists (CGE), which brings together 45 colleges and 55,000 members, received approval from the Social Security so that they too can launch these pension plans, a step for which they are already well advanced in negotiations with a banking entity to take over its management.
"It's that phrase that used to be said, the virtue of saving. Since they have reduced the incentives of the individual plans, the employment plans are an opportunity", says Valentí Pich, president of the CGE, who adds that "a clear regulation" was necessary, and that is why they consulted with the Social Security if the col general laws, such as the CGE, included the concept of promoters of these plans, and obtained an affirmative answer.
The third way that the self-employed can choose is to sign up for the pension plan of their sector; for example, the construction one, which is already underway, or the hospitality one, which is being prepared.
