Lietuvos pensijų reformos poveikis valstybės finansams

LTStraipsnyje nagrinėjamas 2004 m. Lietuvos pensijų reformos, kurios esmė - pensijų sistemos dalinis privatizavimas, poveikis valdžios sektoriaus finansams. Aptariamos iki pensijų reformos veikusi valstybinio socialinio draudimo ir po šios reformos pradėjusi veikti daugiapakopė pensijų sistemos. Daugiausia dėmesio skiriama senatvės pensijų pertvarkos ir visuomenės senėjimo finansinių pasekmių vertinimui. Straipsnyje pateikiami skaičiavimai rodo, kad ilgu laikotarpiu dėl 2004 m. pensijų reformos valstybės socialiniai įsipareigojimai mažėja, tačiau nepakankamai, kad būtų užtikrintas valdžios sektoriaus biudžeto subalansuotumas ir nedidėjanti valdžios sektoriaus skola. [Iš leidinio]Reikšminiai žodžiai: Pensijų reforma; Pensijų sistema; Socialinio draudimo sistema; Valstybės finansai; Pension reform; Pension system; Social security system; Public finances; Visuomenės senėjimas; Pensijų reforma (sistema); Socialinis draudimas; Valdžios sektoriaus finansai (biudžetas); Obsolescence of society; The reform of pension system; Social insurance; Public finance (budget).

ENToday, pensions are among the issues that cause huge anxiety of the ageing societies of industrial countries. Already ten years ago, the birth-rate indicators started declining too fast in these countries and the focus in the population pyramids was shifting to middleaged people, who are now in the most productive period of their life and are relatively free from the children raising burden. However, what is considered an advantage today may grow into a problem tomorrow. Also, the problem is becoming still more urgent due to the fact that in many cases we speak about social obligations of the State that already now constitute a considerable part of the GDP in the European countries, causing a direct threat to one of the key principles of the successful functioning of the Economic and Monetary Union – the requirements of the Stability and Growth Pact to maintain the public sector deficit and debt at an acceptable level. The Lithuanian pension system is based and operates on the so-called pay-as-you-go (PAYG) principle, i.e. one-year expenses of pensions, benefits and compensations are covered by the contributions (paid by the employers and employees 31+3%) of the same year. However, income of different types is taxed with a very different burden of social insurance taxes. The wages are taxed with a rate of 34% of social insurance taxes; other income (profit, income according to a business licence) is taxed with the efficient social insurance tax rate of about 3.4%, and the third group – income according to authors’ agreements, royalties, etc., which is not taxed with the social insurance at all. In the present situation, around 20% of employment will not qualify for a future pension even at a relatively low replacement rate.A part of them will acquire the basic pension with 46% of the average pension coverage only. So, in contrast to the previous Soviet period system, reflecting full employment participation in the social security system, the net social safety target is not maintained completely. As a result, the pension system is in a sustainable position just due to a very low average replacement ratio. But in the future even this “sustainability” can easily disappear due to negative changes in the demographic situation. In an ageing Europe, Lithuania is not an exception either. Within the past few years, the population of Lithuania decreased considerably and the same trends are forecast for the future. Moreover, the expected economic development and the improvement of social living will prompt an increase in life expectancy. As a result, the share of old people as compared to the number of people of working age is projected to increase sharply over the next decades, simultaneously that of the most important determinant of the PAYG pension system – support ratio (defined as the ratio of contributors to beneficiaries) will decrease. As the majority of the EU Member States outside the euro area, Lithuania has introduced a multi-pillar pension system with the major objective of coping with the overall burden of the population ageing issue. The above mentioned reform could be characterised by the three key elements: 1) PAYG; 2) mandatory funded and 3) voluntarily funded arrangement. The fiscal implication of the pension reform is studied within the so-called aggregate accounting framework, which consists of making a certain set of assumptions about the evolution of several key demographic and economic variables, and then using accounting identities to infer social security system expenditures and revenues.Therefore, three different forecast variants will be presented. In the first variant, the situation in the social insurance system (SIS) is not changing, i.e. only the PAYG system is functioning; the second variant shows the SIS budget balance after the start of the pension reform, and the results of the third variant show the changing position of the SIS, in line with the extension of insured workers with the uniform social insurance contribution rate up to 93% of employment. Summarizing the results of the study we may draw the following conclusions. Beside the unfavourable demographic situation which will cause difficulties to all PAYG arrangements, Lithuania’s pension system faces problems related to the low coverage of the pension system and highly unbalanced taxation. A favourable situation for the state social insurance system under the purely PAYG pension scheme is to continue until about 2016. On the other hand, the introduction of a funded second pillar will bring quite a high loss to the SIS. In this case, an important role in restructuring the state pension insurance system belongs to the assurance of the system universality. The Lithuanian SIS still possesses huge “internal” resources for tackling problems related to the increase of expenditure for pensions. The government has properly extended the coverage of the pension system as broadly as possible. This is very important for the social safety target as well. [From the publication]