The 39th National Congress of FEDERSPEV was held in Taranto from May 11 to 15, with the participation of 400 regularly registered members among the retired doctors, chemists and veterinarians – and entitled widows - who are represented by the association.

The congress theme was More Value For Our Pensions. The subject is highly topical for doctors, chemists and veterinarians who are witnessing a yearly deterioration in the value of their pensions, chiefly due to two factors: the non-connection of pensions to wage increases in other contracts and conventions and the substantial reductions caused by increasingly heavy taxation. As for equalization, not much can be expected from the small percentage linking pensions to the variations registered by ISTAT, which FEDERSPEV has requested should be increased to 100% of the variations of the cost-of-living index. The Congress, however, voiced loud requests for equalization to proceed, by linking with employed workers’ contracts (for those employed by Local Health Units) and by renewing the contracts for General Practitioners and specialists. But the issue that was most debated was presented by the Milan section of FEDERSPEV; it received unanimous consent and was fully incorporated in the Congress’s concluding motion, and it is bound to become a major issue in the short term, with the important changes that are expected on the subject of taxation. Unfortunately the pensions that most suffer from deductions at source are those in the medium-high bracket, which is affected by two unfavourable factors: (a) progressive up-scaling rates whose effects are increasingly heavy, not least because they were established when the value of money was undoubtedly higher compared to the current value of the same amount, and (b) progressive down-scaling rates for tax allowances on pensions, which results in the State taking the most at collection-time, and paying back the least at paying-time, so that the what pensioners finally receive is way below their dues if calculated on the contributions that were actually paid. The situation is completely different for the taxation of income deriving from life annuities which have been earned by yearly payments of tax-deductible insurance premiums: they are subject to a mere 12.50 per cent deduction at source. Referring to the current parliamentary debate, whose outcome will be a tax-reform law followed by a shower of regulations that are already foreshadowed in the version approved by the Chamber of Deputies, the concluding motion of FEDERSPEV’s Congress contains the following requests: - that pensions paid out by autonomous funds or by insurance funds should be equalized, for tax purposes, to any other financial income, inasmuch as they derive from personalized contributions; - that income from pensions should not be treated as employment income or professional income, with the creation of a specific category, especially in relation with the so-called “No Tax Area”; - that solidarity legislation benefiting the elderly should recognize further tax allowances, depending on the age of the entitled pensioners; - that pensions should be regulated by a device designed to guarantee their actual monetary value, for instance by linking them to the wages of active workers of the same category, as currently done in other categories and in other countries. These results will not be easy to obtain, but FEDERSPEV is connected with 40 other associations of retired workers, so it should not be difficult to bring these issues to the attention of law-makers.

traslated by Interpres