A group of deputies and senators has submitted to the State Duma a bill on amendments to the law “On insurance pensions”, according to which military service in the army will be included in the work experience for early retirement. Today, service in the army is taken into account when assigning only an old-age pension, it does not affect the preferential one in any way. Because of this, according to the authors of the bill, citizens who have served in the army are in a less favorable position.
Recall that at present, individual Russian citizens have the right to retire two years earlier than the established time. These are men whose work experience has reached at least 42 years, and women who have worked for 37 years, while candidates for pensioners must be at least 60 and 55 years old, respectively.
The length of service required for a preferential pension includes only the period of work and the period of being on sick leave. But it does not include the two years that a person has devoted to fulfilling his constitutional duty, although it is obvious that the interruption of his work experience was not due to the demob’s fault. At the same time, conscription service is taken into account when assigning an old-age pension.
The explanatory note to the draft law states: “The passage of military service on conscription, although it is a non-insurance period (insurance premiums were not paid to the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation for it), has a high public utility and social significance for the state and society. At the same time, it is often precisely because of the honorable duty of passing military service on conscription (instead of labor activity), a citizen may not have enough insurance experience to appoint an early pension.
Because of this, according to the authors of the bill, citizens who have served in the army are in a less favorable position compared to those who have worked continuously.
To correct this situation, it is proposed to take into account the period of military service as the length of service and to amend part 9 of Article 13 of the Federal Law “On Insurance Pensions”.
If the law is adopted, the amendments will come into force on January 1, 2022. Then next year, citizens who have reached 60 years of age and have developed 42 years of insurance experience, taking into account military service in the army, will retire. It is not reported how many people will be able to become pensioners ahead of schedule in connection with this legislative initiative.
According to preliminary estimates of the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation, additional federal budget expenditures for the implementation of the draft law will amount to 2.18 billion rubles in 2022, 3.67 billion rubles in 2023, and 3.88 billion rubles in 2024.
Earlier, the Pension Fund explained what “weight” the service in the army has in calculating the old-age pension. The term of service on conscription is included in the length of service, for each year 1.8 of the pension coefficient is accrued. Individual pension coefficients are an indicator on which the size of the pension depends. They are calculated for each year of work or other activity that is taken into account for calculating the pension. The cost of the coefficients is reviewed annually.
It is clarified that military service in the army before 2002 is also taken into account in some cases when calculating a pension, but this does not always provide the largest amount of payment.