Swiss voters set to approve pension reform – poll

ZURICH (Reuters) – Swiss voters were poised to approve a pension reform package that includes raising women’s retirement age by a year to 65 and increasing value-added tax (VAT) to shore up the state pension system, a poll for broadcaster SRF suggested on Wednesday.

The GFS Bern survey found 59% of respondents were in favour of making women’s pension age the same as men’s, and 63% agreed with increasing VAT to help fund the system as the population ages.

Voters in 2017 rejected raising women’s retirement age to 65 as a wave of Baby Boomers stops working.

The poll of around 8,640 people had a margin of error of 2.7 percentage points, SRF said.

The pension measures in the Sept. 25 binding referendums under the Swiss system of direct democracy could still fail should they not carry a majority of individual cantons as well.

In other votes that day, proponents of banning factory farming were narrowly ahead but opponents were gaining ground, arguing that Switzerland already had strict rules that did not need tightening, the poll found.

A vote on a government plan to make Switzerland a more attractive financial centre for issuing debt by ending a 35% withholding tax on interest from bond issues was too close to call, it showed.

(Reporting by Michael Shields; Editing by Andrew Heavens)