Hi all,

we all are aware in the present circumstances, we need to go back after 5 years. Fine, we can live with it. But what i cannot digest is that the money i paid into my pensions is being enjoyed by the German govt and i dont even get any interest on it. And the bad part of it is, i have to wait complete 2 years to get my contributions back without any interest.

And the worst part is that pensions paid by my employer into my account is completly swallowed by the German government. Dont you think its a theft. Atleast i feel its akin to the english proverb, robbing you in the broad day light.

Worst part is both me and my wife are victims of this robbery. So its like being robbed twice.

Dont we have any solution for it? That we get back both our contributions and the contributions made by our employee towards our pensions after we leave this country? Unfortunately India (my home land) does not have an agreement with Germany to repatriate the pensions.. Any ideas?

Its crossed my mind today morning.. If we analyse the way German Govt(here after just Govt) has framed the rules for Greencard holders is very much sinister. Its like this.

1. we are allowed to stay and work here for only 5 years.

2. Their pensions rules say that you are eligible for pensions only if you subscribe for more than 5 years. Failing that you get back only your contributions 2 years after you leave this country.

3. And the its generally accepted that they will take all the money contributed by employer if you leave within 5 years.

So they are not even giving us a chance to get back our rightful money by forcing us to leave germany as soon as 5 years are complete. I guess we may stand a good chance if we goto a European High court and do a class action suit against Govt for its day light robbery. Think about it.

Cheers,

Cmreddy

Hi Reddy,

why are you so worry regarding 5 years limitation?

see this link: http://german-green-card.org/ITFachleute.pdf

if you are skilled enough, you should not worry like that.

cheers.

I want a new Job. I tried to find a Job on www.jobpilot.de but until now I’ve got no Answer. I am very disappoint. I thought maybe is a Solution with “Personalvermittlung” or Arbeitsvermittlung”. Is anybody that had found a Job with a intermediate Firma (Personal- und Arbeitsvermittlung Personalberatung) in raum Stuttgart?

Thanks!

hi dhy,

you are missing the whole point. I am bothered about my money. Talk about money and not about the 5 year visa. There are other message who wants to talk abt Aufenthalt etc..

If you have any ideas regarding the Rentenversicherung money let us know. It has nothing to do with my talent. Govt takes money from both talented and not talented..

Hi Cmreddy,

Even I would like to get the RV : 1) On time, not 2 years later. 2)And also the amount contributed by the Arbeitgeber.

But as I know the Rules, I also unwillingly accepted the fact that we would not get Arbeitgebers share of RV. That would be robbed by the Govt.

The only thing which I can add/suggest here is : Govt. is not above law. So, instead of going to EU Courts (which might be very time consuming and expensive) we can try something in Germany only. I have a Rechtschutzversicherung. I would suggest that before going to the Court, one should get this Insurance.

So, if we want to do something in this direction, I am ready to work together.

Chirag.

Hi Cmreddy,

the German itself, they have paid the pension for many years, does not know how much will they get. It can happen that they will get nothing.
so i believe the condition that you get 50% at the same time, is much much better than to wait until you are 65, without no guarantee how much you will get.

Cmreddy,

Your pension contributions are not "robbed" by the government but actually paid out to current pensioners immediately. Interestingly these pensioners are the same people who built up this country which now provides you with rather well paid work! I don't think the overall situation can be considered "unfair" at all.

The return payment which you're may be going receive in two years (in case you want to or have to leave) won't be paid out of "your" contributions as these have already been paid out to someone else. Instead, some other employees contributions will fund your return payment.

What makes you feel *your employers* contributions should be paid out to *yourself personally* anyway? Wouldn't it be fairer to return these payments to your employer instead?

Finally - looking at the bare financial aspects - you're actually getting a better deal than everyone else who have no choice of opting out of the state pension insurance system. Even today, with a remotely reasonable relation of pensioners to pension contributors the imaginary interest received on the contributions is marginal (low in the single percentage figures). In the very near future, the total net pension payments received will be lower than the payments made, because of the demographic development.

Most people here would be happy to surrender all their future state pension in return for keeping half their contributions and putting them into high interest investments. I guess - depending on the time you spent employed in the last 5 years - you'll probably receive a return payment around 20k Euro. Invested over a period of 25-30 years this amount of money will grow up to a sum of maybe 200k Euro. With this kind of money in the bank you'll be able to live like a king in many countries, maybe also including the country where you were born. How are these prospects "unfair"?

Think twice!

Yes, everything looks justified! I don't think there are good solutions to such problems except working for 6 years or if there is a chance of staying here in Germany for 1 more year then we could contribute our pension money from our pockets alone. Howzzat!! The biggest problem is like all other grey areas pension system is under scrutiny as you see that Germany is looking for quick reforms because most of their state owned systems like health, pension etc.. are collapsing sooner or later.

Hi Marc-OS,

Now you are talking like a Deutscher Beamter. I know about the Ratios you are talking about. Are we responsible to the German Demography? Are we responsible that Germany will not have enough Tay payers to sponsor the Rente of retired people? Are we responsible that Germany is so closed when it comes to the Immigration? Are we esponsible that the Germany do not produce enough children?

The discussion here is, what right has German govt. to eat up the Contribution made by the Arbeitgeber to my RV? That belongs rightfully to ME.

If the govt. passes on what I paied to RV to someone else, I am not responsible for that. I should get what was paid for me as RV component. Remember : the Employer considers these costs too when he employs you. Your costs to the employer are more than your Brutto salary. So, the Arbeitgebers contribution to your RV is meant for YOU. And not for the govt.

Chirag.

I think it is time to check out rules & laws, which are in place for these sort of things. If it stated that we will only receive pension money after 2 years, how can one change those laws that easily? sometimes we have to digest such things otherwise we cannot go after each and every problem we are facing here after taking up a suicidal decision to come here on Green Card. The interesting thing is to find a trick to save this pension money but I said you could find a way to contribute for 1 more year by your own or your employer. Otherwise it is definitely waste of time thinking about taking such big things to court! for me it is looks like a sick thing to go around courts in Germany or even European Union. Man! this is definitely a big issue and not offordable for poor GC's to fight with. Sorry for taking a defensive approach!

Dear friends,

I posted this message to get some ideas (innovative ideas) where in we get our money back. I have absolutely no (not even 0.0001 %) interest in convincing MAC OS or someone else that the money belongs to us. So lets not waste our energies.

Lets concentrate on the modes we can get our money back when we leave.

hi,
As a GC we know that we will get half of our RV and that too after two years, it is clearly specified under greencard rules and the 5 yr time limit and i guess no where it is specified that we will be allowed to stay more than 5 years, its ONLY we had a hope that we might get extension. We clearly know about these things right from the begining and i guess German officials told all the rules straight forward. With all these discussions and blaming german govt is ONLY OUR FRUSTRATION.
We have to accept what german officials decide about GC RV & time limit.
Let us just hope for the best or else look for other alternate

regards
Deepak

HI Cmreddy,

Agreed. No more convincing anyone. I would be consulting my Lawyer for a few things in a few days. So, I can also talk about what are the possibilities regarding this Issue.

Will post if there is any further news from my side.
Chirag.

Deepak,

its not a matter of being told to you and you accepting it. The regulation in itself is sinister in its nature and is designed to steal employers contribution from you. That is not fair on German govt part. Remember, even after 60 years holocaust victims are sueing German companies. Its a bad example but there should be some sense of Justice and correctness on part of a great nation like Germany.

the following is a simple calculation

Hi Friends,

i have a scary calculation here. Assuming, a minmum of 3300 Euro salary to a greencard fella.

A monthly outgo in terms of RV - 19.75% of it means 651.75 euros
at the end of 60 months each would have contributed 31905 Euros. Say 32000 Euros (This includes both your and employers contribution.)

And for 15000 Greencard holders the amount of money will be ... hold your breath. 480 Million Euros. And there are 4000 Indians in this 15000 Lot. THey get a cool 128 Millon Euros. Why not press our government to make an agreement with German govt to transfer the money to Indain govt which pay us the pension. This kind of agreements do exist with Australia and other european countries. So its nothing special or new. This is like 640 Crores of Indian rupees. May be we should get this to the notice of our News papers and our politicians.. Howz that sound.

Hi CMReddy,

You are showing the facts but on the other side the fact is GC's are allowed to work in Germany to build their country not your pockets or mine. So if they call you they want to get maximum out of you. There is no point in commenting about pension money! everything is obvious but there is nothing wrong in asking our governments too!! keep going if you have enough time! time is also money!

regards,
Nitin

@Cmreddy -

nice calculation. The actual number of Indian GC holders is more like 2500. When considering only the employers contributions and time out of work, GC holders leaving early, deducting Arbeitslosengeld paid out to unemployed GCs etc. the final figure might be closer to some 10 Mio Euro. Who's going to care? The media? The Indian government? Come on. Get real.

@chirag09 -

I suggest you talk to your Rechtschutzversicherung too, you will probably find out they are never going to pay for this kind of legal action.

Your lawyer will explain that for this issue moral does not really matter, so even if you were morally right with your argument this would be largely irelevant. What matters is whether the existing laws are in contradiction to the German constitution (Grundgesetz) or not. If they were there would then be scope for a "Verfassungsklage" which is a very lengthly and costly procedure. Chances are your own lawyer would not even be qualified to do this so you'd have to hire different and more expensive experts.

Honestly you are both wasting your time, which would be better spent working on improving your technical and non technical skills in order to secure and find work which pays a higher wage.

On the moral issue ask yourself:

When *you* decided to move to Germany, did you expect *any* cash incentive in case you're leaving again?

Back then, were you even aware about getting back half of the pension contributions?

When negotiating your salary - did you even know about the employers' share of pension contributions?

Are you substantially better off here or in the country where you were born?

If you lived in the US, France, UK - would you receive any return on any social insurance contributions at all?

@ Marc-OS,

Your comments are very bad. If you work in any country the pension plan would be same. The pension should be paid from both ends(employee and employer). You can claim your pension back if you don't want to contribute further. As CMReddy said is right, we have to wait for 2 years to get back our contribution back, this is really very bad. WE are loosing interest on it.

Coming to other comments in your huge message... Obviously every one will go abroad to improve their financial status.

Honestly I am telling you, you are wasting time on this kind of big messages.

VSK

Impressive and logical reasoning, Mark!

Billy

Billy,

I have encountered your messages before and I am extremely disappointed by your straits. I am not supporting anyone here because everyone has got their own logic and I felt their was special meaning when CMReddy brought this topic to light. You are definitely marc! and you don't carry a GC with you, don't you?

I agree with Nreddy.

I am sure that there is no need to take Sides here but just Discuss the issue as it was brought up.

Well i dont mean to disappoint Marcc or Bill but just that these kind of comments would kill the thread to death.

Any ways, Cheer up guys and check the ways to get back the hard earned money.At least let us have that.

Well, it has been a while since I post something here!

As usual, Marc has this style that you could easily consider as arrogance, but that after a while living in Germany you start to find is a national feature, and almost a virtue: frontality. It takes a time, though, to understand that kind of discurse, and it can be even harder to catch with it than to learn German!

On some sense, Marc has more than a point: the whole idea of this great social system -a system I still believe should serve as a mirror for the world, and as one of the last real examples that liberalism and democracy may still be the best of options, though far from ideal- is based in the fact that we are now paying for a fair life to those who built the country in which we live now.

Also, I believe it may be a political mistake to go pressing on this "strictly money" approach, if at the same time we would like to push a "let us do our job" agenda. I think is not a good idea to start throwing numbers on how much we should receive and when, at least not now. If we are serious on fighting for our chance to work and live in the land in which our kids are growing (which is many a case), or in the land we are struggling hard to integrate to, or pick your case, then, we should not start talking beforehand of robbery, however unfair the situation may look like.

Even at risk of infuriating some of our colleagues here from India, guys, I must point that your size, numbers and undoubted skills are already freaky enough for the whole world; to push extra numbers on that direction would mean to add more timber to the wrong political pyre, in my opinion. A class action, a suit, whatever, based on such calculations is from my perspective a political suicide. Of course, if we finally get the boot out of here, then it will be a whole other league. But in this games, timing is all.

Having said that, Marc, let me point -again- that you forget always a big chunk of the picture:

-True, the system is based on pay now for the fair retirement of those who worked hard to build this country and this system. Therefore, if we are now paying, let us keep on doing so, and get to the end of the deal as well; that's the whole trick. Also, at this point, Germany cannot allow to lose any taxpayer. Not to mention potential fathers of new generations, something that Germans seem really reluctant to be. This is, too, a great part of the system.
-This system was built by the efforts of generations, but also -and in a big part- by the generosity of the whole world. Debt forgiveness, huge investment AND the craftmanship and marvelous work capacity of the German nation made the miracle possible. Don't forget,though, about the other part of the deal, Marc.
-and even more: this system is also the product of the basic hypocresy of the freemarket world. The CE, USA, Japan enjoy their position due to the biggest unfairness of them all. They push for free market, but protect themselves behind licenses, subventions and environment destruction somewhere else. Not to mention the debt policy into which the Third World is forced to fall.

Marc, believe me: very few will leave friends, family, and that thing difficult to define that is to "belong" to a place if the world was a fair place as a whole. On equal opportunities -why, even giving a good chunk of handicap- most of us will choose to stay where we were born. Which guy from India will leave the Monsoons, the best mangos, the cricket games, for this cold country, however beautiful it may be? Who of us, Southern guys, will leave the steaks, the sea, the easygoing life of our southamerican countries to come to this overstructured and often sad cities?

We are here because the world now works as a whole, and we go where we are payed to have a fair life, true. But Germany is a senior team member in that order of things that makes that for earning a decent living we must look somewhere and not at home.

Look at it as you want, Marc. Or you allow us to compete here, or you allow us to compete from there, but fairly.

You are lucky to be on the part of the world that still can choose on this matter.

Greetings to all,

Diego aka Sudaca.

Hi all but overall, welcome back Sudaca with the big posts. We needed your clarity and very well based point of view to end with this long long thread.

But, trying to make a zoom out to all that situation I´d like to add my 2 cents.

In fact, I guess this reclamation is fair but I guess we are missing the point. I guess before asking some strange way to give back our/their money I would like to fight for the posibility to be here beyond the 5 years limit.

I personally refuse the idea of saying "good bye - give me the money" I would like to have the possibility to stay here, regardless we use it or no.

I think somebody point us a link with a direct response of one of the politicians responsibles of our stay here. "The GC regulation was strongly misunderstood and GC can stay here beyond the 5 years limit if .... (german knowledge + work + housing".

I didn´t come here to make savings. I came here to work and to live, let´s call a "symbiose": Germany receives GC knowledge, we receive money. Nothing have to say thanks for nothing.

Please, let´s keep clear our objectives and let the discussion of the retirement money for the times we can confirm we must leave Germany.

Regards

YO

why all you guys worry abt 5 year later? keep your job after 5 years, I dont think german gov will drive u out of country.

Hi mmtt,

What you say is true, but does not apply to everybody. I am jobless and if I do not get a job till the end of this Year, will have to leave Germany. And I would never get the Employer's share of RV which is the subject of this discussion. And all those GCs who had to leave Germany upto now or will leave in future, would never get it if the things remain the same.

Thanks Sudaca for a complete and unbiased analysis of the subject and situation. I had no patience to reply to Marc. I will still go ahead with finding out more about how I can get back employer's share of RV. Though, now I am inclined to do it at personal level.

Chirag.

Finally, i must admit, that the class action suit doesnt work, which struck me this day.. Because for the following reason.

Once anybody pays into pension fund for 60 months are elible for pensions after they retire. (We dont know what kind of money we get then and I some times wonder what would be the value of an Euro (if it really exists till then) vis a vis my home currency. See my new thread .. )

So in a sense its fair on German govt part to this extent. Scooping off Employers contributions is not fair if anyone leave before their time is up.

Finally Sudaca, i must admit that your reply was beautiful.. With some effort I can see green lush surroundings in my home country (there are already many places as such..).. But no effort can bring me the sun shine and the warmth of Mother India in Germany.

Why am I led to believe that all greencarders are IT and are from INDIA? I am a GC, not an IT or from India. And I am not from pakistan.

There are other places to show ones patriotism; GC forum is definitely not!

@Reply Sudaca

I've been a passive follower of this discussion. but I'm been moved to drop this few lines, due to the clinical analysis of Sudaca !
More power to your elbow!

Cheers,
Onye

Hi Everybody. iam new to this forum. my name is Irfam. A GC holder. A recommendation to 09 Chirag suggestion to go into court for the RV. I would like to say that we should try to make a case against the German Government for misguiding the People while using a name "Green Card" and giving the People a limited residence and work permit. As we know basic idea of Green Card is an unlimited residence and work permit. Other thing we did not get any type of Card which is Green. So if anyone is interested i can talk further to any lawer to get the strength of this complain. Because German laws are anyhow very particular with Words and concepts.


Cheers


Irfan

Hi Guys,

Just a small comment to add.

going to Court is not that simple and easy. You really need to have a good lawyer(defending you ) or you should have Union Support(again Defending you).No workers union in Germany would support you because they themselves are ones causing trouble in Zuwanderungsgesetz.

Am not sure if there is a Union in EU Level.That would be a good starting point. Am sure if there is one you/we need to be members to defend your case either in German court or in EU level.

And now coming to GREEN type Card. All of us got one such thing and it is for sure GREEN in Colour. the Arbeits erlabnis for 5 years. There is no point in saying that you/we expected unlimited residence and unlimited work permit, it was all clearly mentioned in their law that it would be limited for 5 years.But NTL , am not sure if they had mentioned about what would happen after 5 years and the employer still wants him/her. In this case the law seems to be incomplete and so may be you/we could fight to add to the old law or revise the law.

Please see i am not being pessimistic, but checking out the possible things that we could do.

Regards,

Sudeep

Hi
Guys,

This discussion is prolonged from one week.As green card Holder eavry body should remeber fallowing point
When you took green card that you already accepted the rules of GreenCard. It means that you are not able to stay more than 5years
and you get RV only that you pay not by Arbeitgeber.



regards
Krishna Kanth

Sorry
you get RV only that you pay, not by Arbeitgeber.



regards
Krishna Kanth

hello guys,
I dont understand why you guys are crazy about german green card and staying more than 5 years in a green card(only 5 years))
hating country.what is the benefit in working a country which is
having 45% deductions. Of which almost 50% of these money is lost and the rest is mismaneged by the government.( i am not sure about figures please forgive me)I personally
think it is good only to work 2 years in germany and use this experience as a spring board.( I heard that german experience is
having good value due its high quality and also , if one survives in germany he can survive in many other environments easily).
I dont advise you to go to court as the government is already poor(have budget deficiency). They will become more poor if they have to pay ur money back, and it damages ur image as a high earning grün cardler(How could u be so inhumane to such a country which is doing lot of humanatarian work in the world).
If germany gives u something u have have to give back something.No business is a zero sum game.

so if u think about all these things i think u can leave all ur hard earned deductions and look for greener pastures which is not having 45 % salt in it.
cheers

Is Rentenversicherung going to be paid back to people who are going back their home country (before 5 years) which is going to become UE "state" after 1st of may??
Or in another words is Poland has any agreement with Germany in this issue??

enough posters spend more time on other important issues! for me personally this is not important at all. You are looking deeeeeep into the hole where you forget to understand what kind of hole is that!

Babu cmreddy,

Ikkada Veellato avvadu gaani..

Intaki Enta varaku Vachhindi E Sangaty.

naaku ikkada mail Chey - Kalingaz@yahoo.com.