Tuesday, February 24, 2015

DAVE COMMITTEE ON PENSION REFORM

[The Dave Committee on pensions reported on 11 January 2000; I read its report carefully because I have much respect for Ajay Shah, who was its economist member. I had considerable reservations about the report, as shown by this column in Business Standard of 14 February 2000.]

A better deal for pensioners

The Dave Committee on Pensions Reforms has worked assiduously for a long period; it has also, unlike a typical government commission, held most extensive consultations. There is much in its report to ponder over. Let me take up three important issues.
First, the pension industry is currently bound hand and foot by the government. Most of the savings go into the government’s provident fund. Employers’ provident funds have to be entirely invested in government securities or cash. And no one is allowed to choose between provident funds. The Dave Committee wants to introduce competition in the system, but not too much. It proposes that six private asset management companies be allowed to offer three pension funds each. The figure of six AMCs is picked out of a hat; the idea is probably not to confuse the saver with too many choices. Mr Dave said that the assets of poorly performing AMCs should be transferred to better performing ones. But provided that there is complete and easy transferability of savings from one fund into others, without an exit load, savers’ choices themselves will achieve such transfers.
The basic issue is that failure of a financial business has always held a particular horror for governments. Financial intermediaries are under a temptation to run away with the money of investors in them, and governments take it as their duty to prevent them from doing so. To this end, they license financial firms. And some governments ensure that intermediaries make better profits by limiting competition. This is why Reserve Bank licenses banks.
SEBI, however, does not believe in limiting competition; so the number of mutual funds has kept on expanding. The Dave Committee is uncomfortable with this; it does not want any pension fund to go bankrupt. So it wants the government to license no more than six pension funds. In my view, however, the government is not competent to choose. There will in any case be severe restrictions on what the pension funds can invest in; those restrictions, plus compulsory audit that SEBI insists on, are the best guarantees of their viability.
Second, the Committee is intent that some of the savings must go into equity. The idea is that equity yields more than debt in the long run, and that Indian savers should get some practice in investing in equity. The question is, how long a run is necessary to make sure that the investor will get a superior return? Taking the pitfalls of investing at the peak and liquidating at the trough, the period would have to be at least ten years, and quite possibly much longer. Hence if the saver is to be attracted to equity without burning his fingers, it is necessary that he should be forced to invest his savings for a long enough period. The Dave Committee’s proposal that withdrawals should bear a tax of 10 per cent is not enough; in fact, since this rate is lower than the marginal income tax rate of so many taxpayers, they will be tempted to use pension funds as short-term tax shelters. Hence, as in other countries, withdrawals of pension fund savings before the saver reaches the retirement age should be taxed at his relevant marginal income tax rate. So should the funds accumulated in the pension fund which, at the attainment of the age of retirement, are not converted into an annuity. The annuity does not have to be for the life of the pensioner alone; it can cover the joint lives of the pensioner and his or her spouse. But the money must not be left for heirs if it is to go taxfree.
The question needs to be asked here: should the savings in Dave-style pension funds be allowed to be used for daughters’ dowry, sons’ weddings and purchase of houses? This is how pension savings are currently being dissipated. The answer to this question must depend on whether these uses of savings must have the same priority in the eyes of the state as provision for old age; and the answer, to my mind, is no. It is in national interest that people should save for their old age, but it does not matter in the least whether parents spend on their childrens’ weddings or buy houses.
Finally, the Dave Committee would exempt the savings from any tax provided they are converted into an annuity at the retirement age; but it wants annuities to be sold only by insurance companies. However, if an insurance company is going to sell annuities, there is no reason why it should also not offer mutual funds that on retirement are to be converted into those annuities. Also, the conversion of a lump sum into an annuity does not require much sophistication. The Dave Committee is befuddled by the mysteries of actuarial science, and would like to confine the annuity business to insurance companies that command actuarial hocus-pocus. But actuarial science is simply calculus of integral numbers; it is actually simpler than calculus. So in my view, there is no reason to prevent pension funds from offering annuities as well. The Committee’s hermetic separation of the savings and annuity businesses is misplaced. We have got a fuddy-duddy insurance commissioner in Mr Rangachari, and I would not like him to mess up the pension industry in the way he is going to mess up the insurance industry. Pension funds are best kept out of his clutches.

What the Dave Committee does not take into account and worries me is the fact that however liberal the investment regulations may be, savers’ preferences will force pension funds to invest most of the savings in debt; the volume of private marketable debt available in India is too limited, and pension funds will be forced to investment in government debt. This would be bad for them as well as the government. The best solution to this problem would be to permit them to invest in foreign debt.