The benefit received after the benefit from a group pension insurance policy is taxed in accordance with paragraph 4 of Article 15 of Law 4172/2013 separately as follows:
- Tax rate Amount received
- 10% <40.000
- 20% >40.001
In the case of early surrender of the pension insurance policy the above rates are increased by 50. No surrender is considered premature for any payment made to an employee who has established a pension right or has exceeded the 60th year of age, as well as for any payment for which the employee is not responsible. (e.g. dismissal of the employee or bankruptcy of the employer). Also, by POL. 108/20.03.2014, surrender is not considered premature when made to the employee who retired due to illness, disability or incapacity, as well as when the insurance contract is terminated due to the employer’s inability to pay it and the existing capital is liquidated.
In a question submitted to the Ministry of Finance as to how pension contracts in which employees had participated 35 years ago within the framework of private pension insurance offered to them by their respective employers and which had a duration of 35 years (at that time 35 years was considered reasonable for retirement), the Ministry of Finance service accepted that contracts meeting the minimum conditions (e.g. contracts of more than 15 years), even if the beneficiaries do not in fact retire from their insurance fund on expiry of the contract, the payment of the benefit is not considered premature, and therefore the above rates are not increased by 50%.
Finally, it is clarified under the transitional provisions of paragraph 16 of Article 72 of Law 4172/2013, as well as the previously applicable provisions of Law 2238/1994, that accumulated funds returned as a benefit to employees and corresponding to premiums that they themselves had paid up to 31.12.2013 (by instructing their employers to withhold them from their payroll), within the framework of these contracts, are not taxed, since they have already been taxed because under the provisions of paragraphs 1 and 2 of Article 47 of Law 2238/1994 they were not deductible from their gross income from employment.
