"Ausgschlossen von der Neuregelung sind u.a. ... Einkünfte aus selbständiger Arbeit" curious to see how this is gonna go down

Personally I also think that rich pensioners (and their soon to be rich kids) should pay more and there are certainly roads which could be taken there, but then we are ralking about a different Verteilungskampf.

for 45 years (very unlikely), they would currently get a gross pension of ca. €3600 per month. In absence of a further income source, would they count as rich? Their household income would probably be higher, and ideally the tax authorioties (but not the pension system) would know about.2/3

Two issues of the top my head: you can have pensioners with very few points but high househould income (e.g. civil servants who worked as dependent emplyoees early in their lifes) benefiting from such a measure. Also if someone has earned an income near the income cap (Beitragsbemessungsgrenze)1/3

I understand your point. But that cost has to be paid by someone somehow. And looking at the pension level and the pension distribution, I don't think reducing or redistributing pensions is the way to go.

(which is one of the controversial topics in the German policy debate) and therefore the sustanibility factor is dropped, there will still be a link, which however would be weaker than the current link.2/2

yes, the sustainability factor itself hasn't yet had a negative effect on pension adjustments. The ca. 10% decrease in pension level since its introduction has been mainly caused by the "Riester-Treppe" through the "contribution rate factor". But even if net pension level (before taxes) is fixed1/2

Sorry, I should have said I find it hard to argue why "Höherwertung der Ost-Entgelte" (one could say one of the "costs" of reunification) be paid through a flat contrbution rate?

a lower adjustment, since the pension level refers to net pension level (before taxes) 2/2

I didn't mean that indirectly. I meant through the so-called contribution rate factor and the so-called "sustainability factor" in the pension formula (see also def. of Äquivalenzbeitragszahler). Even if the pension level is fixed in the future, an increase in the contribution rate will result in1/2

takes demographic change into account. And to the extent that demographic change is caused by increasing life expectancy it tends to (cet. par.) increase rates of return.2/2

for my take on tha tax subsidy (see below), but at least since 2000 the increase has been only nominal and there doesn't seem to be a trend that it is increasing as proportion of the federal budget (see e.g. rentenupdate.drv-bund.de/DE/1_Archiv/...) The pension model used in the IMK-paper 1/2

pension claims. Secondly, even if you don’t count this item and the early-retirement costs (which by the way include more than the costs for early-retirement after 45 years you are still left with ca. €92bil which would be very hard to argue should be paid through direct contributions.2/2

www.deutsche-rentenversicherung.de/Bund/DE/Pres...
On slide 16 there is a list of expenditure items which are not covered by direct contributions. Firstly, pension for widows is only counted partially (only the part which goes beyond what the widows would have got, had they chosen to split 1/2