Transform your vacation days into savings for your retirement years. This is not a sleight of hand, but rather a possibility offered by your collective business PER (also called Pereco or Perecol). As a reminder, this savings product can be offered by all companies since 2020. If it remains optional, the regulations may provide for the automatic membership of all employees. Thus, according to the Ministry of Labor, a quarter of employees were covered by a Pereco in 2022.
If this is your case, and you arrive at the end of the year with several days of unused leave, you have the opportunity not only not to lose them, but also to pay them in euros into your Pereco. This is possible if you have a time savings account (CET), and your vacation days have been stored there. “A little-known advantage of the collective PER, if your company allows it, is the possibility of integrating days from your CET”, confirms Patrick Behanzin, group pension director and member of the executive committee of Natixis Interentreprises.
You can pay up to 10 days of unused rest per year
More precisely, “you can pay into it up to 10 days of untaken rest per year. The money corresponding to these days is immediately transformed into bonuses on the PER”explains Patrick Behanzin. And having a time savings account is not even an obligation: “Even without CET, you are still authorized to pay up to 10 days of rest not taken per year into your collective PER”, adds the expert. For example, for an employee paid at the median salary level (2,100 euros net), the price of a day of vacation will be 105 euros (15 euros hourly wage multiplied by 7 hours of work per day). If he has 10 days left to take, he can therefore place 1,050 euros on his Pereco.
There are three big advantages to doing this. First, if you chose to have your vacation days paid, they would be subject to income tax. Compensation for paid vacation is in fact considered salary. However, you escape this tax by paying them into your Pereco. Then, these payments being assimilated to voluntary contributions, they can be supplemented by the employer, if the regulations so provide. In this case, if your company has planned the maximum contribution of 300%, it will add 3,150 euros to your 1,050 euros in the previous example.
Finally, unlike other savings products taken out individually, the payment of your leave will be subject to reduced fees: “There are generally no fees on payments and financial management fees on investment vehicles (units of account, or UC) are often much lower than on the individual savings market. They have been negotiated globally by the company, which guarantees more competitive prices for you.assures Patrick Behanzin.
