Since January 1, 2026, employees who voluntarily continue to work after reaching retirement age have received a high tax incentive: employees can earn up to €2,000 per month in addition to their pension tax-free – a tax advantage of €500 to €920 per month. Almost four million self-employed people are excluded from this active pension. A petition by the Association of Founders and Self-Employed Persons in Germany (VGSD) is directed against this injustice.
This unequal treatment is justified in the draft law with the succinct statement that, according to the federal government “currently no further incentives … to encourage this group of people to continue working.” In other words, the self-employed would continue to work. Hard-working self-employed people see this justification as cynical and a slap in the face. This is all the more true because many have already been paying into the statutory pension scheme for their entire working life. The restriction to employees also contradicts the principle of equal treatment under Article 3 of the Basic Law and is constitutionally questionable.
The skills shortage does not differentiate between employees and the self-employed. A particularly large number of self-employed people work in sectors with a high shortage of skilled workers (health & care, skilled trades & construction, STEM professions & IT, education & social services). Nevertheless, these flexible skilled workers are denied the tax incentive to work longer and thus make their contribution to the declared aim of the law. Moreover, many only become self-employed when they are older, after decades of employment: their experience and manpower are lost to the labor market due to the lack of incentive.
For years, the German government has assumed that the self-employed are at a particularly high risk of poverty in old age. Instead of providing tax relief for these self-employed people with the active pension, they are being excluded – an absurd political contradiction!
We demand:
The active pension should also apply to the self-employed!
Tax law must be neutral – the form of employment must not determine the amount of the pension! Self-employed people contribute to economic, social and cultural life in Germany every day. They create innovation, secure jobs and personally bear the full entrepreneurial risk. Self-employed people who continue to work in old agedeserve the same appreciation as employees.