Perco, PEE, PER… All you need to know about employee savings plans

PEE, PER, Perco: difficult to navigate among the jungle of acronyms and acronyms of employee savings plans. Despite this apparent complexity, these devices show a remarkable dynamism. At the end of 2021, 167.6 billion euros were placed there, according to the latest figures from the French Association for Financial Management (AFG). That is an increase in outstandings of 14% over one year, and almost doubling in ten years.

However, they remain relatively unknown to the French. One in two (51%) is unaware that he can place his personal savings in an employee savings plan, according to a survey published at the end of August 2021 by the company Epsens, a specialist in this type of investment. Who can benefit ? What are the differences between the existing mounts? Are they financially attractive? Le Figaro answers all your questions.

Employee savings plans are collective savings schemes set up within certain companies. “It is a receptacle allowing you to build up capital with the help of your company”, sums up Dominique Dorchies, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Natixis Interépargne, a subsidiary of the BPCE group and number two in the sector in France (31 billion euros). of assets under management, for 3 million savers in more than 67,000 client companies).

Employee savings plans can be classified into two categories: company savings plans (PEE) and retirement savings plans (PER). Adopted in May 2019, the Pacte law wanted to make them more readable. It thus created the collective company PER, sometimes called Percol, which will gradually replace the collective retirement savings plan (Perco). Apart from Percol, two other PERs have also emerged: the mandatory company PER and the individual PER.

If companies can no longer subscribe to a Perco since October 1, 2020, they can keep it if they had set up such a plan before this date, without obligation to transform it into Percol. "It's a product that will slowly but surely disappear in the years to come, and which will be replaced by Percol", predicts despite everything Xavier Collot, director of employee savings and retirement at Amundi, a subsidiary of Crédit Agricole and leader French market (76 billion in assets under management, for 4 million savers and 115,000 corporate clients).

If a company offers an employee savings plan, all employees can benefit from it, including apprentices or seasonal workers. A seniority condition may however be required by the company, but the minimum duration requested may not exceed three months.

However, among the PERs, a company has the option of setting up a mandatory company PER, which may be reserved for certain categories of employees, generally senior executives and managers.

Employees can fund their PEE, their PER or their Perco with different sums. When their participation and/or profit-sharing bonus is distributed to them, they can choose to pay it into an employee savings plan, or cash it immediately.

Employee savings plans can also be funded via voluntary payments by employees (capped in the case of PEE and Perco) and via days off placed in a time savings account (CET). It should be noted that companies can themselves contribute money to these plans: this is called "matching", which is limited. They cannot exceed three times the funds paid by the employee, also with a ceiling in terms of amount - lower for the PEE than for the PER and the Perco.

In the case of the PEE, the company can also make payments without the need for the employees to have paid money on their side. But these must be intended exclusively for the purchase of company shares (with a discount offered, which can range from 30 to 40%).

The rules for blocking and unblocking the savings accumulated on an employee savings plan depend on the device. In the case of a PEE, the sums are blocked for five years. But there are several possibilities for early release, the most common of which are marriage, the birth of a child, divorce, departure from the company, disability, death or even the acquisition of the main residence.

For retirement savings plans (PER and Perco), the funds are blocked until retirement, and the conditions for early exit are fewer: death, disability, over-indebtedness, acquisition of the main residence and expiry of rights to unemployment insurance. It is necessary to add to this list, for the Percol, the cessation of self-employed activity following a judgment of judicial liquidation, and for the Perco, the restoration of the main residence following a natural disaster.

Employee savings plans are all subject to advantageous taxation, which differs according to each scheme. For the PEE, the capital gains on the sums saved are exempt from income tax upon exit from the plan. The employee must therefore pay only social security contributions, which amount to 17.2% (against 30% normally for capital income). Ditto for the Perco in the event of issuance in the form of capital.

As part of the PER, voluntary payments during a year are deductible from taxable income - which is not the case in a PEE. This deduction must not exceed a certain ceiling. On leaving, if they have been deducted from the declaration, the part of the savings corresponding to these voluntary payments will be subject to income tax. Conversely, if they have not been deducted, only the capital gains will be taxed.

Imagine that you have a small savings available, that you want to invest in an employee savings plan. It can be difficult to know if it is more judicious to place this money in a PEE or a PER/Perco. "The choice must be made according to its objective and its tax situation", underlines Dominique Dorchies. "If you have a short-term project, for example moving or a child, the PEE is more flexible," she says. "On the contrary, if you don't have a big short-term project and you want to reduce your taxes, it is interesting to pay into a PER."

It is also necessary to study the advantages offered by the employer "to encourage employees to go into the PEE and/or Percol envelope", adds Xavier Collot, in particular in terms of matching contributions or employee shareholding, the latter being possible only in the PEE.

It is possible to transfer sums from the PEE to a Perco, but not from the PEE to its Percol. In the other direction, the sums of the Perco, which will disappear in the future, are transferable to the new Percol. The transfer from Percol to the PEE is impossible.

The new PER, created by the Pact law, are "a fungible envelope", also notes Xavier Collot. Concretely, this means that the savings accumulated on the Percol, for example when leaving the company, can be transferred to all the other PERs, for example to an individual PER if the new employer does not have Percol.

To promote new PERs, the Pacte law makes it possible, until January 1, 2023, to transfer sums from a life insurance contract (more than 8 years old) to a PER, with a tax advantage at stake .

When saving on a PEE or a Perco/PER the question of returns obviously arises. "They are correlated with the funds in which you invest, depending on the associated risk", emphasizes Xavier Collot.

According to professionals in the sector, this is “competitive” savings, because it is negotiated by companies, after discussions with the social partners. "Employee savings are the best investment for employees", even judge Dominique Dorchies.

But in fact, it is not always interesting to invest in an employee savings plan, nuance Philippe Crevel, director of the Cercle de l'Epargne. “Big companies often have more interesting products than smaller ones”, explains the economist in particular, who cites among the biases, in addition to the size of the company, its sector of activity and the manager, “who can be more or less generous. But "it is always better to save on a PEE than a booklet A or an LDDS (sustainable and solidarity development booklet)", he says, because of the extremely low interest rates of these two booklets (0, 5%).