Glossary of key terms

The Apothek­erver­sorgung Schleswig-Hol­stein (Phar­ma­cists’ Pen­sion Fund of Schleswig-Hol­stein) is geared to mak­ing pro­vi­sion for old age. There is a gen­er­al enti­tle­ment to a retire­ment pen­sion for life when reach­ing the age of eli­gi­bil­i­ty for the stan­dard retire­ment pen­sion under the gen­er­al statu­to­ry pen­sion scheme (retire­ment age). Depend­ing on your year of birth, the full retire­ment pen­sion is there­fore paid out from between 65 and 67 years of age. The pen­sion start date can be brought for­ward at the ear­li­est to 60 years of age. Phar­ma­cists who joined the Apothek­erver­sorgung Schleswig-Hol­stein after 31 Decem­ber 2011 can draw their retire­ment pen­sions at the ear­li­est from age 62. Of course, draw­ing the retire­ment pen­sion ear­ly reduces its amount.

Pen­sion ben­e­fits and thus also the retire­ment pen­sion are only grant­ed on appli­ca­tion. The request must include infor­ma­tion on your bank account, home address and health insur­er, as well as a dec­la­ra­tion on whether you have eli­gi­ble depen­dants. An appli­ca­tion form can be obtained at the office. You can also down­load the pen­sion application

If you are unem­ployed, the employ­ment office (Arbeit­sagen­tur) is gen­er­al­ly required to pay con­tri­bu­tions to the Apothek­erver­sorgung in the amount that would be paid to the gen­er­al statu­to­ry pen­sion scheme. How­ev­er, you need to noti­fy the employ­ment office express­ly that your pen­sion is with the Apothek­erver­sorgung. Fur­ther­more, imme­di­ate­ly before apply­ing (to the exact date) you must have been in employ­ment and held a cer­tifi­cate of exemp­tion from Deutsche Renten­ver­sicherung. The employ­ment office will then trans­fer the con­tri­bu­tions direct­ly to the Apothek­erver­sorgung. Gen­er­al­ly, per­sons receiv­ing sec­ond-stage unem­ploy­ment ben­e­fit (Arbeit­slosen­geld II) receive a sub­sidy for occu­pa­tion­al pen­sions. How­ev­er, the require­ment is that they are already a mem­ber of the Apothek­erver­sorgung before claim­ing ben­e­fits and are licensed to practice.

Min­istry for Social Affairs, Health, Youth, Fam­i­lies and Senior Cit­i­zens (Min­is­teri­um für Soziales, Gesund­heit, Jugend, Fam­i­lie und Senioren) of the state (Land) of Schleswig-Holstein
Adolf-West­phal-Straße 4
24143 Kiel, Germany
Tel.: 0431/988–0
Fax: 0431/988‑5416
E‑Mail: Poststelle@sozmi.landsh.de

Employ­ees and self-employed per­sons are exempt­ed from con­tribut­ing to the gen­er­al statu­to­ry pen­sion scheme for the employ­ment or self-employ­ment that requires them to be a mem­ber of the occu­pa­tion­al pen­sion fund.

Self-employed per­sons do not gen­er­al­ly need to file a sep­a­rate appli­ca­tion for exemp­tion. How­ev­er, the excep­tion are those self-employed per­sons who make a vol­un­tary dec­la­ra­tion choos­ing manda­to­ry insur­ance with the gen­er­al statu­to­ry pen­sion scheme.

Employ­ees must apply for exemp­tion from the gen­er­al statu­to­ry pen­sion scheme for each job falling with­in the def­i­n­i­tion of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal prac­tice. Exemp­tion appli­ca­tions can be obtained at the offices of the Apothek­erver­sorgung or down­load­ed­here. The appli­ca­tions must be returned to the Apothek­erver­sorgung, which will then con­duct the exemp­tion pro­ce­dure with the gen­er­al statu­to­ry pen­sion scheme. To obtain the exemp­tion from when you com­mence employ­ment, you must apply with­in three months. For appli­ca­tions sub­mit­ted after this peri­od, the exemp­tion may poten­tial­ly only apply from the date of receipt. A new exemp­tion appli­ca­tion must be filed for each new employment.

Mem­bers who do not apply for an exemp­tion from the gen­er­al statu­to­ry pen­sion scheme must – in addi­tion to their manda­to­ry con­tri­bu­tions to the gen­er­al statu­to­ry pen­sion scheme – pay the Apothek­erver­sorgung a pen­sion con­tri­bu­tion amount­ing to 2/10 of the manda­to­ry con­tri­bu­tion applic­a­ble to them They are sub­ject to a dou­ble insur­ance obligation.

The basis for assess­ing con­tri­bu­tions is the income sub­ject to con­tri­bu­tions. This is tak­en as the gross income gross income from self-employed or salaried phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal prac­tice. The con­tri­bu­tions are cal­cu­lat­ed as a per­cent­age (con­tri­bu­tion rate) of the basis for assess­ing con­tri­bu­tions, up to the respec­tive con­tri­bu­tion ceil­ing (max­i­mum con­tri­bu­tion). The Ger­man fed­er­al gov­ern­ment issues a reg­u­la­tion each year set­ting the con­tri­bu­tion rate and con­tri­bu­tion ceil­ing. The uni­form nation­wide val­ues are of key impor­tance for the con­tri­bu­tion cal­cu­la­tion pro­ce­dure with­in the Apothek­erver­sorgung. The pen­sion con­tri­bu­tions are cal­cu­lat­ed pur­suant to the basis for assess­ing con­tri­bu­tions and the uni­form nation­wide con­tri­bu­tion rates.

The Apothek­erver­sorgung pro­vides only one type of cov­er for ill-health and dis­abil­i­ty: a pen­sion if you have a dis­abil­i­ty that pre­vents you from prac­tis­ing. Every mem­ber of the Apothek­erver­sorgung who has paid a con­tri­bu­tion for at least one month and who is unable to prac­tise as a phar­ma­cist due to a phys­i­cal afflic­tion or dete­ri­o­ra­tion of phys­i­cal or men­tal capac­i­ty and there­fore ceas­es prac­tis­ing as a phar­ma­cist entire­ly may apply for a dis­abil­i­ty pen­sion, pro­vid­ed the dis­abil­i­ty lasts for a peri­od of more than 90 days.

A mem­ber is deemed not to have ceased phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal prac­tice while the phar­ma­cy con­tin­ues to be run by a rep­re­sen­ta­tive or, in the case of employed phar­ma­cists, their employ­er con­tin­ues to pay their salary. Fur­ther­more, a mem­ber is deemed not to have ceased phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal prac­tice dur­ing any peri­od in which they receive sick­ness ben­e­fits, work­ers’ com­pen­sa­tion or a tran­si­tion to work allowance.

In the case of self-employed phar­ma­cists, pro­vi­sion­al proof of income is pro­vid­ed by sub­mit­ting the tax assess­ment notice (income from busi­ness) for the finan­cial year before last or by sub­mit­ting a con­fir­ma­tion from a tax pro­fes­sion­al. Final proof of income is pro­vid­ed by sub­mit­ting the tax assess­ment notice for the rel­e­vant finan­cial year.

In the case of employ­ees, their income is report­ed by their employ­er through the employ­ers’ elec­tron­ic report­ing sys­tem (Arbeitgebermelde­verfahren).

If you wish to take mater­ni­ty and/or parental leave, please send us a copy of your child’s birth cer­tifi­cate and a con­fir­ma­tion from your health insur­er stat­ing the peri­od of mater­ni­ty leave.

Gen­er­al­ly speak­ing, it is not pos­si­ble to obtain a refund of con­tri­bu­tions. Mem­bers are only enti­tled to apply for a refund of their con­tri­bu­tions if they leave the Apothek­erver­sorgung, move their pri­ma­ry res­i­dence to a loca­tion out­side the ter­ri­to­ry of the Euro­pean Union, the EEA or Switzer­land on a not mere­ly tem­po­rary basis and paid con­tri­bu­tions to the Apothek­erver­sorgung or anoth­er occu­pa­tion­al pen­sion fund for a peri­od of less than 60 months. The amount refund­ed is 60% of the for­mer mem­ber’s pre­vi­ous contributions.

The Apothek­erver­sorgung makes a gen­er­al adjust­ment in accor­dance with actu­ar­i­al prin­ci­ples to make up for peri­ods in which mem­bers are not mak­ing con­tri­bu­tions, for exam­ple due to par­tic­i­pa­tion in train­ing or while car­ing for chil­dren. No proof is required.

Fol­low­ing a mem­ber’s death, their sur­viv­ing spouse receives either a wid­ow’s or a wid­ow­er’s pen­sion. No enti­tle­ment to the pen­sion exists if the mar­riage was entered into after the mem­ber’s 60th birth­day or after the mem­ber became unable to prac­tise due to dis­abil­i­ty and the mar­riage did not last for at least three years. If the wid­ow or wid­ow­er was more than 15 years younger than the deceased mem­ber and if the mar­riage did not pro­duce a child, the wid­ow’s or wid­ow­er’s pen­sion is reduced by 4% for each year or part there­of by which the age dif­fer­ence exceeds 15 years, how­ev­er it will not be reduced by more than 50%. For each year or part there­of by which the mar­riage exceeds five years, 4% of the wid­ow’s or wid­ow­er’s pen­sion is added back to the reduced amount until the pen­sion is back to its full amount.

The Apothek­erver­sorgung does not offer a lump-sum pay­ment instead of recur­ring retire­ment pen­sion pay­ments. How­ev­er, wid­ows and wid­ow­ers who remar­ry receive a lump-sum pay­ment. The amount of the lump-sum pay­ment depends on the date of remar­riage and the age of the mem­ber when they died.

Recip­i­ents of sick­ness ben­e­fits or work­ers’ com­pen­sa­tion under pri­vate health insur­ance pay con­tri­bu­tions equiv­a­lent to half of the con­tri­bu­tion rate to Deutsche Renten­ver­sicherung. Recip­i­ents of sick­ness ben­e­fits under pub­lic health insur­ance pay con­tri­bu­tions equiv­a­lent to the (full) con­tri­bu­tion rate that would be payable to Deutsche Renten­ver­sicherung under the law gov­ern­ing the gen­er­al statu­to­ry pen­sion scheme. The cal­cu­la­tion is based on the notice issued by the health insur­er. The fore­go­ing does not affect the abil­i­ty to lodge an appli­ca­tion with the rel­e­vant health insur­er as referred to in sec­tion 47a SGB V.

Pen­sion recip­i­ents who also receive a pen­sion under the statu­to­ry pen­sion scheme (DRV) and were mem­bers of the pub­lic health insur­ance scheme for a cer­tain peri­od (“pri­or peri­od of insur­ance”) are required to be insured with the statu­to­ry pen­sion­ers’ health insur­ance scheme. If there were no req­ui­site pri­or peri­ods of insur­ance, pen­sion recip­i­ents can opt in to the pen­sion­ers’ scheme.

Pen­sion recip­i­ents who are exempt or have been exempt­ed from the statu­to­ry pen­sion­ers’ health insur­ance scheme must (con­tin­ue to) hold pri­vate health insurance.

In both cas­es, the pen­sion recip­i­ent them­selves must cov­er the full amount of con­tri­bu­tions to health and long-term care insur­ance out of the pen­sion paid by the Apothekerversorgung.

Fol­low­ing the deci­sion of the Fed­er­al Social Court (Bun­dessozial­gericht) con­firm­ing that mem­bers of our pen­sion funds are enti­tled to home care leave under the statu­to­ry pen­sion scheme, the leg­is­la­ture respond­ed. The Act to Amend SGB IV to Estab­lish a Fund for Appor­tioned Pen­sion Enti­tle­ments on Divorce and to Amend Oth­er Acts (Gesetz zur Änderung des SGB IV zur Errich­tung ein­er Ver­sorgungsaus­gle­ich­skasse und zur Änderung ander­er Geset­ze) pro­vides that dur­ing parental leave, mem­bers of the Apothek­erver­sorgung also have future enti­tle­ments to home care leave under the statu­to­ry pen­sion scheme, and that par­ents who have not ful­filled the gen­er­al qual­i­fy­ing peri­od by the time they reach stan­dard retire­ment age may apply to pay ret­ro­spec­tive vol­un­tary con­tri­bu­tions for as many months as are nec­es­sary to ful­fil the qual­i­fy­ing peri­od under the statu­to­ry pen­sion scheme. Please con­tact Deutsche Renten­ver­sicherung Bund if you have any queries in rela­tion to this.

Mem­bers of same-sex civ­il part­ner­ships that are reg­is­tered in accor­dance with the Ger­man Civ­il Part­ner­ships Act (Lebenspartner­schafts­gesetz) fall with­in the group of per­sons eli­gi­ble for a sur­viv­ing depen­dants’ pension.

The Apothek­erver­sorgung pro­vides the fol­low­ing spe­cif­ic benefits:

1. Dis­abil­i­ty pension
2. Dis­abil­i­ty pension
3. Sur­viv­ing depen­dants’ pension: 
   1. Widow’s/widower’s pen­sion
   2. Half-orphan’s pen­sion
   3. Dou­ble orphan’s pension
4. Addi­tion­al reha­bil­i­ta­tion ben­e­fits (there is no legal enti­tle­ment to this)
5. Death ben­e­fit (for mem­bers who joined on or before 31 Decem­ber 1991)

The “local­i­ty prin­ci­ple” applies to all phar­ma­cists’ pen­sion funds. This means that a per­son becomes a mem­ber of the pen­sion fund that oper­ates in their place of prac­tise. It is pos­si­ble based on a per­son­’s con­tri­bu­tion-pay­ing his­to­ry that when they reach retire­ment age, they will need to apply for a retire­ment pen­sion from var­i­ous pen­sion funds. If a per­son leaves the juris­dic­tion of one pen­sion fund, they have the option of rolling over their pre­vi­ous con­tri­bu­tions to the new pen­sion fund, pro­vid­ed they were not a mem­ber of the old fund for 60 months or more. The aim of this rule is to avoid the accu­mu­la­tion of tiny future entitlements.

Mem­bers of the Apothek­erkam­mer (Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal Soci­ety) who are employed as pub­lic ser­vants cease to be active mem­bers of the Apothek­erver­sorgung. If their posi­tion in the pub­lic ser­vice ends, they have the option of back-dat­ing their mem­ber­ship of the Apothek­erver­sorgung. Mem­ber­ship can only be back-dat­ed upon appli­ca­tion, and it is car­ried out by trans­fer­ring ret­ro­spec­tive con­tri­bu­tions to the Apothek­erver­sorgung. Appli­ca­tions for back-dat­ed mem­ber­ship must be lodged with­in one year of leav­ing the pub­lic ser­vice. The one-year appli­ca­tion peri­od is a strict time lim­it, in oth­er words it must be observed with­out excep­tion, oth­er­wise it is a require­ment that mem­ber­ship of the gen­er­al statu­to­ry pen­sion scheme be back-dat­ed, even if this is of no prac­ti­cal use or ben­e­fit for the per­son con­cerned. Back-dat­ed mem­ber­ship also applies to med­ical offi­cers who leave the military.

The gov­ern­ing bod­ies of the Apothek­erver­sorgung (Phar­ma­cists’ Pen­sion Fund) are the Del­e­gates Assem­bly (Kam­merver­samm­lung), the Super­vi­so­ry Board (Auf­sicht­sauss­chuss) and the Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee (Ver­wal­tungsauss­chuss). The Del­e­gates Assem­bly con­sists of 30 mem­bers who rep­re­sent all phar­ma­cists prac­tis­ing in Schleswig-Hol­stein. It is made up of an equal num­ber of self-employed and employed mem­bers. The Del­e­gates Assem­bly is the respon­si­ble body for amend­ments of the Arti­cles of Incor­po­ra­tion, adop­tion of the annu­al finan­cial state­ments and for all changes to pen­sion ben­e­fits. The Super­vi­so­ry Board­’s role is to draft guide­lines for the admin­is­tra­tion of the Apothek­erver­sorgung, review and approve the bal­ance sheet and the income state­ment, draft invest­ment guide­lines and approve the acqui­si­tion, dis­pos­al and devel­op­ment of prop­er­ty. The Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee man­ages the affairs of the Apothek­erver­sorgung and is respon­si­ble for imple­ment­ing the res­o­lu­tions of the Del­e­gates Assem­bly and the Super­vi­so­ry Board. The Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee receives assis­tance from the Man­ag­ing Direc­tor to per­form its functions.

Like income from employ­ment, pen­sion ben­e­fits are liable to attach­ment. This means that retire­ment, dis­abil­i­ty and sur­viv­ing depen­dants’ pen­sions may be the sub­ject of a writ of attach­ment. By con­trast, addi­tion­al ben­e­fits grant­ed for reha­bil­i­ta­tion mea­sures can­not be attached. On the oth­er hand, attach­ment may be levied against recip­i­ents of the death benefit.

Mem­bers of the Apothek­erver­sorgung who pro­vide care at home on an infor­mal basis to some­one who is enti­tled to ben­e­fits under the pub­lic or a pri­vate long-term care insur­ance scheme (infor­mal car­ers) are enti­tled to have their pen­sion insur­ance con­tri­bu­tions paid to the Apothek­erver­sorgung by the long-term care insur­er hav­ing regard to the extent of the care they pro­vide. The aim of this con­tri­bu­tion pay­ment is to increase will­ing­ness to pro­vide infor­mal care by extend­ing the scope of occu­pa­tion­al retire­ment pen­sion insurance.

Gen­er­al­ly speak­ing, con­tri­bu­tions based on infor­mal care­giv­ing are received by the Ver­sorgungswerk very late, how­ev­er they are cred­it­ed to the month for which they were paid and not mere­ly from the time they were actu­al­ly received.

Mem­bers of the Apothek­erver­sorgung must pay con­tri­bu­tions on their total income from phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal prac­tice. In some cas­es it can be dif­fi­cult to deter­mine whether a per­son­’s pro­fes­sion­al activ­i­ty con­sti­tutes phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal prac­tice. “Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal prac­tice” is not even uni­form­ly defined by the courts.

The admin­is­tra­tive courts con­sid­er phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal prac­tice to include not just the tra­di­tion­al areas of devel­op­ing, man­u­fac­tur­ing, test­ing and dis­pens­ing med­i­cines, but instead inter­pret the term more broad­ly. The term also includes areas on the fringe of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal prac­tice. The Fed­er­al Admin­is­tra­tive Court (Bun­desver­wal­tungs­gericht) has express­ly referred to the dis­tinct nature of phar­ma­cy as a sci­ence that to a cer­tain extent com­bines inter­dis­ci­pli­nary sci­en­tif­ic find­ings from the fields of chem­istry, physics, biol­o­gy and med­i­cine, and which gets its dis­tinct char­ac­ter from the com­bi­na­tion of these fields.

The social courts con­sid­er phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal prac­tice to have a much nar­row­er meaning.

Any doubts about whether a cer­tain job falls with­in the def­i­n­i­tion of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal prac­tice must be clar­i­fied with the gen­er­al statu­to­ry pen­sion scheme direct­ly. This body decides whether a per­son is exempt from con­tribut­ing to the gen­er­al statu­to­ry pen­sion scheme for a spe­cif­ic job. We can con­firm reports that Deutsche Renten­ver­sicherung is apply­ing an increas­ing­ly restric­tive approach in its decisions.

In Schleswig-Hol­stein, trainee phar­ma­cists do not auto­mat­i­cal­ly become mem­bers of the Apothek­erkam­mer. For this rea­son, they are also not required to become mem­bers of the Apothek­erver­sorgung. How­ev­er, trainee phar­ma­cists may apply to become mem­bers and may join the Apothek­erver­sorgung on a vol­un­tar­i­ly basis.

In order to join, you or your employ­er needs to reg­is­ter with the Apothek­erkam­mer. Once we have received your reg­is­tra­tion, you will auto­mat­i­cal­ly receive all of the doc­u­ments nec­es­sary to become a mem­ber of our pen­sion fund.

It is gen­er­al­ly a good idea for trainee phar­ma­cists to become a mem­ber. How­ev­er, if you have already paid con­tri­bu­tions to Deutsche Renten­ver­sicherung in the past and have been insured with that scheme for 60 months or more (includ­ing the work place­ment peri­od), it is advis­able to wait until after your work place­ment to join the Apothek­erver­sorgung. That way, you secure both a future enti­tle­ment to a pen­sion from the gen­er­al statu­to­ry pen­sion scheme and from the Apothekerversorgung.

If you apply to join the Apothek­erver­sorgung imme­di­ate­ly upon the com­mence­ment of your phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal train­ing, you must apply for an exemp­tion from the gen­er­al statu­to­ry pen­sion scheme with­in 3 months of com­menc­ing your prac­ti­cal train­ing com­po­nent in order to avoid unin­tend­ed disadvantages.

The Apothek­erver­sorgung is a body of the Apothek­erkam­mer Schleswig-Hol­stein (Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal Soci­ety of Schleswig-Hol­stein), a pub­lic cor­po­ra­tion. The assets of the Apothek­erver­sorgung con­sti­tute a fund of the Apothek­erkam­mer Schleswig-Hol­stein. The con­tri­bu­tions paid by the mem­bers and the assets of the Apothek­erver­sorgung are des­ig­nat­ed for a spe­cif­ic pur­pose. The Apothek­erver­sorgung’s assets are exempt from lia­bil­i­ty for the Apothek­erkam­mer’s lia­bil­i­ties. The Apothek­erver­sorgung is rep­re­sent­ed in and out of court by the chair­per­son of the Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee of the Apothekerversorgung.

The legal bases for the Apothek­erver­sorgung are sec­tion 4 in con­junc­tion with sec­tion 21 (2) sen­tence 1 no. 2 of the Act on Pro­fes­sion­al Soci­eties in the Health Care Sec­tor (Heil­berufekam­merge­setz) of 29 Feb­ru­ary 1996 (Schleswig-Hol­stein Gazette, p. 248), most recent­ly amend­ed by arti­cles 3 and 4 of the Act on Elec­tron­ic Legal Trans­ac­tions (Gesetz zum elek­tro­n­is­chen Rechtsverkehr) of 18 April 2017 (Schleswig-Hol­stein Gazette, p. 273), in accor­dance with which pro­fes­sion­al soci­eties may oper­ate pen­sion schemes to pro­vide for retired and dis­abled soci­ety mem­bers and their sur­viv­ing dependants.

Reha­bil­i­ta­tion is designed to mit­i­gate the effect that ill­ness or dis­abil­i­ty has on earn­ings capac­i­ty and thus avoid hav­ing to leave the work­force pre­ma­ture­ly. The aim of reha­bil­i­ta­tion is to enable long-term inte­gra­tion into the workforce.

The Apothek­erver­sorgung does not grant any legal claim for the assump­tion of costs for reha­bil­i­ta­tion mea­sures. It is only in excep­tion­al, dis­cre­tionary cas­es that, upon appli­ca­tion, a one-off or recur­ring addi­tion­al ben­e­fit of a max­i­mum of 50% may be grant­ed to cov­er the costs of reha­bil­i­ta­tion mea­sures that are of neces­si­ty par­tic­u­lar­ly expen­sive. Pre­req­ui­site is that the abil­i­ty to prac­tise is at risk, reduced or negat­ed due to a phys­i­cal afflic­tion or dete­ri­o­ra­tion of phys­i­cal or men­tal capac­i­ty, and it is expect­ed that such reha­bil­i­ta­tion mea­sures would pre­serve, sub­stan­tial­ly improve or restore the appli­can­t’s abil­i­ty to practise.

A med­ical opin­ion to demon­strate the neces­si­ty of the reha­bil­i­ta­tion mea­sures and the prospects of their suc­cess must be pro­vid­ed. The appli­cant must demon­strate the rea­son for and amount of the nec­es­sary costs of the reha­bil­i­ta­tion mea­sures or pro­vide an esti­mate by attach­ing sup­port­ing doc­u­ments (quotes/invoices/receipts). Such costs will not be accept­ed to the extent that anoth­er agency has an oblig­a­tion to reim­burse them by law or under its arti­cles of incor­po­ra­tion. It is express­ly not­ed that the Apothek­erver­sorgung decides on the amount it will con­tribute towards costs at its dis­cre­tion hav­ing regard to all of the cir­cum­stances of the spe­cif­ic case.

The pen­sion assess­ment basis is impor­tant for cal­cu­lat­ing the indi­vid­ual pen­sion. Mem­bers’ pen­sions are cal­cu­lat­ed as at the pen­sion start date on the basis of accu­mu­la­tion units. The mem­ber acquires the accu­mu­la­tion units by virtue of the con­tri­bu­tions paid. A max­i­mum of 2 accu­mu­la­tion units can be acquired in a year upon pay­ment of the com­pul­so­ry con­tri­bu­tion. At retire­ment, the accu­mu­la­tion units are added up, yield­ing the retire­ment pen­sion as a per­cent­age of the pen­sion assess­ment basis. The pen­sion assess­ment basis is cal­cu­lat­ed in accor­dance with actu­ar­i­al prin­ci­ples and adopt­ed annu­al­ly by res­o­lu­tion of the Del­e­gates Assem­bly. The res­o­lu­tion must be approved by the super­vi­so­ry authority.

The Ger­man Retire­ment Income Act (Alter­seinkün­ftege­setz), which entered into force on 1 Jan­u­ary 2005, gov­erns the tax deductibil­i­ty of con­tri­bu­tions paid into pen­sion plans on the one hand and the tax­a­tion of retire­ment income on the oth­er. The Apothek­erver­sorgung is required to noti­fy the pen­sions paid by it. Since 2008, when each tax­pay­er was assigned a per­son­al tax iden­ti­fi­ca­tion num­ber, the pen­sion pay­ments made by the Apothek­erver­sorgung, are report­ed to the Cen­tral Ben­e­fits Agency for Retire­ment Assets (Zen­trale Zula­gen­stelle für Altersver­mö­gen, “ZfA”).

As a rule, mem­bers of the Apothek­erver­sorgung are all mem­bers of the Apothek­erkam­mer Schleswig-Hol­stein. The rel­e­vant legal rela­tion­ships are gov­erned by the Arti­cles of Incor­po­ra­tion of the Ver­sorgungswerk (Apothek­erver­sorgung) der Apothek­erkam­mer Schleswig-Hol­stein and the Reg­u­la­tions Gov­ern­ing the Actu­ar­i­al Bases of Cal­cu­la­tion of the Versorgungswerk(Apothekerversorgung) der Apothek­erkam­mer Schleswig-Holstein.

As a rule, mem­bers of the Apothek­erver­sorgung are all mem­bers of the Apothek­erkam­mer Schleswig-Hol­stein. The rel­e­vant legal rela­tion­ships are gov­erned by the Arti­cles of Incor­po­ra­tion of the Versorgungswerk(Apothekerversorgung) der Apothek­erkam­mer Schleswig-Hol­stein and the Reg­u­la­tions Gov­ern­ing the Actu­ar­i­al Bases of Cal­cu­la­tion of the Versorgungswerk(Apothekerversorgung) der Apothek­erkam­mer Schleswig-Holstein.

Upon the death of a mem­ber who became a mem­ber of the Apothek­erver­sorgung on or before 31 Decem­ber 1991, a death ben­e­fit will be paid to the heirs in the amount of EUR 613.55 assum­ing that con­tri­bu­tions were paid reg­u­lar­ly in the amount of the respec­tive con­tri­bu­tion ceil­ing. The amount of the death ben­e­fit is adjust­ed accord­ing­ly if low­er or high­er con­tri­bu­tions were paid.

The tax­a­tion of income from pen­sions has changed sub­stan­tial­ly since 1 Jan­u­ary 2005. Pen­sion­ers must declare a per­cent­age of their gross annu­al pen­sion (before con­tri­bu­tions to health and long-term care insur­ance are deduct­ed) based on the year in which the pen­sion begins as tax­able income. The remain­ing amount is the tax-exempt por­tion of the pen­sion. This tax-exempt amount is fixed for the entire term of the pen­sion from the year fol­low­ing the pen­sion start date. The amounts by which the pen­sion is sub­se­quent­ly increased as a result of any pen­sion adjust­ment will be attrib­uted in full to the tax­able amount.

Whether a giv­en indi­vid­ual must pay tax­es on their pen­sion depends on a vari­ety of fac­tors, such as mar­i­tal sta­tus, addi­tion­al income, amount of health insur­ance pre­mi­ums or extra­or­di­nary expens­es. The com­pe­tent tax office makes the income tax assess­ment after the tax return has been filed. Income tax returns must gen­er­al­ly be filed by 31 May of the fol­low­ing year.

The “local­i­ty prin­ci­ple” applies to all phar­ma­cists’ pen­sion funds. This means that a per­son becomes a mem­ber of the pen­sion fund that oper­ates in their place of prac­tise. It is pos­si­ble based on a per­son­’s con­tri­bu­tion-pay­ing his­to­ry that when they reach retire­ment age, they will need to apply for a retire­ment pen­sion from var­i­ous pen­sion funds. If a per­son leaves the juris­dic­tion of one pen­sion fund, they have the option of rolling over their pre­vi­ous con­tri­bu­tions to the new pen­sion fund, pro­vid­ed they were not a mem­ber of the old fund for 60 months or more. The aim of this rule is to avoid the accu­mu­la­tion of tiny future entitlements.

If a per­son is exempt from con­tribut­ing to the gen­er­al statu­to­ry pen­sion scheme in favour of the Apothek­erver­sorgung Schleswig-Hol­stein, they pay the same amount that would be payable if they were not exempt from con­tribut­ing to the gen­er­al statu­to­ry pen­sion scheme. If income reach­es or exceeds the con­tri­bu­tion ceil­ing in the gen­er­al statu­to­ry pen­sion scheme for employ­ees, the gen­er­al pen­sion con­tri­bu­tion is payable, which is equiv­a­lent to the applic­a­ble max­i­mum con­tri­bu­tion payable as an employ­ee. If income is below the con­tri­bu­tion ceil­ing, the applic­a­ble statu­to­ry con­tri­bu­tion rate is payable on gross income. The employ­er pays 50% of the contribution.

Con­tri­bu­tions

Self-employed per­sons gen­er­al­ly pay the gen­er­al con­tri­bu­tion which cor­re­sponds to the respec­tive max­i­mum con­tri­bu­tion in the gen­er­al statu­to­ry pen­sion scheme. If income is demon­strat­ed to be below the con­tri­bu­tion ceil­ing, the con­tri­bu­tion is cal­cu­lat­ed on the basis of the statu­to­ry con­tri­bu­tion rate based on the annu­al income. The min­i­mum con­tri­bu­tion payable by self-employed per­sons is 2/10 of the gen­er­al con­tri­bu­tion. In the case of new­ly found­ed phar­ma­cies or where exist­ing phar­ma­cies are acquired or report an unfavourable finan­cial posi­tion, an appli­ca­tion may be lodged for a pro­vi­sion­al assess­ment of the rate for the gen­er­al con­tri­bu­tion based on expect­ed earn­ings until such time as the actu­al income can be reviewed. The final con­tri­bu­tion state­ment for the assess­ment peri­od will not be issued until after the tax assess­ment notice for the rel­e­vant finan­cial year has been sub­mit­ted. If con­tri­bu­tions are under­paid, a back-pay­ment is required and inter­est will be charged there­on. Over­paid con­tri­bu­tions will be refund­ed upon application.

Con­tri­bu­tions for self-employed persons

On 1 Sep­tem­ber 2009, new leg­is­la­tion on the appor­tion­ment of pen­sion enti­tle­ments on divorce (Ver­sorgungsaus­gle­ichs­ge­setz) entered into force, fun­da­men­tal­ly chang­ing sub­stan­tive law and the pro­ce­dur­al rules of fam­i­ly courts. As a gen­er­al rule, each spouse’s enti­tle­ment to a pen­sion will in future be appor­tioned inter­nal­ly, i.e., with­in the pen­sion sys­tem of the oblig­at­ed spouse. For the Apothek­erver­sorgung Schleswig-Hol­stein, this means that it may in future be required to admit third par­ties out­side the pro­fes­sion who upon retire­ment receive a pen­sion from the enti­tle­ments trans­ferred to them in the con­text of pro­ceed­ings to appor­tion pen­sion enti­tle­ments. A trans­fer of enti­tle­ments to anoth­er pen­sion fund (externe Teilung), i.e., where an enti­tle­ment is estab­lished with anoth­er pen­sion scheme, will only be car­ried out where the pen­sion scheme of the oblig­at­ed per­son and the eli­gi­ble spouse so agree or where the pen­sion scheme requests the trans­fer of enti­tle­ments to anoth­er pen­sion fund in the case of small­er set­tle­ment amounts.

On 1 Sep­tem­ber 2009, new leg­is­la­tion on the appor­tion­ment of pen­sion enti­tle­ments on divorce (Ver­sorgungsaus­gle­ichs­ge­setz) entered into force, fun­da­men­tal­ly chang­ing sub­stan­tive law and the pro­ce­dur­al rules of fam­i­ly courts. As a gen­er­al rule, each spouse’s enti­tle­ment to a pen­sion will in future be appor­tioned inter­nal­ly, i.e., with­in the pen­sion sys­tem of the oblig­at­ed spouse. For the Apothek­erver­sorgung Schleswig-Hol­stein, this means that it may in future be required to admit third par­ties out­side the pro­fes­sion who upon retire­ment receive a pen­sion from the enti­tle­ments trans­ferred to them in the con­text of pro­ceed­ings to appor­tion pen­sion enti­tle­ments. A trans­fer of enti­tle­ments to anoth­er pen­sion fund (externe Teilung), i.e., where an enti­tle­ment is estab­lished with anoth­er pen­sion scheme, will only be car­ried out where the pen­sion scheme of the oblig­at­ed per­son and the eli­gi­ble spouse so agree or where the pen­sion scheme requests the trans­fer of enti­tle­ments to anoth­er pen­sion fund in the case of small­er set­tle­ment amounts.

The Apothek­erver­sorgung (Phar­ma­cists’ Pen­sion Fund) is rep­re­sent­ed in and out of court by the chair­per­son of the Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee of the Apothek­erver­sorgung Schleswig-Hol­stein vertreten.

The Apothek­erver­sorgung pays a dou­ble orphan’s pen­sion and a half-orphan’s pen­sion. Dou­ble orphans receive 20% and half-orphans receive 10% of the retire­ment or dis­abil­i­ty pen­sion that the deceased mem­ber was receiv­ing. Orphan’s pen­sions are paid for a lim­it­ed peri­od of time, name­ly until the child reach­es 18 years of age. For chil­dren who are com­plet­ing school­ing or voca­tion­al train­ing, ben­e­fits will con­tin­ue to be paid until, but not beyond, the child’s 27th birth­day, or for chil­dren who are unable to earn their own liv­ing when they turn 18 years of age due to a phys­i­cal or men­tal con­di­tion. If the child’s school­ing or voca­tion­al train­ing is delayed or deferred due to their par­tic­i­pa­tion in com­pul­so­ry mil­i­tary ser­vice, civ­il ser­vice in lieu of mil­i­tary ser­vice or com­pul­so­ry civ­il pro­tec­tion, the orphan’s pen­sion will be extend­ed beyond the child’s 27th birth­day by the dura­tion of the com­pul­so­ry ser­vice, how­ev­er by no longer than the peri­od of com­pul­so­ry ser­vice com­plet­ed pri­or to the child’s 27th birthday.

The wid­ow’s or wid­ow­er’s pen­sion is no longer paid to wid­ows or wid­ow­ers who remar­ry. Enti­tle­ment to the pen­sion is extin­guished upon expiry of the month in which the wid­ow or wid­ow­er remar­ries. Wid­ows or wid­ow­ers who remar­ry will receive, upon appli­ca­tion, a lump sum payment:

a) equal to 60 times their pre­vi­ous month­ly pen­sion if they remar­ry before turn­ing 35 years of age;

b) equal to 48 times their pre­vi­ous month­ly pen­sion if they remar­ry between 35 and before 45 years of age;

c) equal to 36 times their pre­vi­ous month­ly pen­sion if they remar­ry after turn­ing 45 years of age.

The Apothek­erver­sorgung pays a wid­ow’s and wid­ow­er’s pen­sion. The wid­ow’s and wid­ow­er’s pen­sion gen­er­al­ly amounts to 60% of the pen­sion the mem­ber was receiv­ing at the time of their death or would have received had they been enti­tled to a dis­abil­i­ty or retire­ment pen­sion. Enti­tle­ment to the wid­ow’s and wid­ow­er’s pen­sion is extin­guished upon expiry of the month in which the wid­ow or wid­ow­er remar­ries, in which case they receive a lump-sum payment.

The funds of the Apothek­erver­sorgung may only be used to pay the ben­e­fits pre­scribed in these Arti­cles of Incor­po­ra­tion, meet the nec­es­sary admin­is­tra­tive costs and recog­nise the req­ui­site pro­vi­sions and reserves.