Russia’s Finance Ministry has drafted a pension reform raising the retirement age while lawmakers dismissed the document as a internal working blueprint, lifenews.ru said on Friday.
Under a letter signed by Deputy Finance Minister Alexander Novak, the retirement age would be increased to 63 for both men and women against the current 60 and 55 respectively.
Young people starting their career from 2014 would have to earn their retirement funds for 30-40 years themselves, without government assistance. To this end, a new insurance tariff would be introduced to basically become a new form of additional tax, which could be paid both by the working person or his/her employer.
The State Duma was rather skeptical about the new document. Yevgeny Fyodorov of the Duma budget committee said the letter signed by Novak was a working document for the Pension Fund, which is running short of funds.
“The fact that the letter leaked to the press indicates that there is some mess in one of the ministries,” Fyodorov said. “But the position of one official is unlikely to affect the position of the government, the president or the premier.”
Earlier media reports said the Health and Social Development Ministry together with the Pension Fund had published a draft concept for the development of the retirement system up to 2050, which would increase the retirement age gradually to 60 for women by 2029 and to 65 by 2047 starting from 2015.
Last week, Russian Premier and President-elect Vladimir Putin said in his Duma address that raising the retirement age was unacceptable and unnecessary.
The Finance Ministry was unable to comment but its press service confirmed that the letter signed by Novak had been drawn up in the ministry.
“The document raised lots of questions and we are now preparing an official reaction,” the ministry said.
