Social Security rectifies and proposes freezing contributions for self-employed people who earn less than 1,667 euros per month

The Government has partially rectified its idea of ​​increasing the fees paid by the self-employed. The minister in charge of Social Security, Elma Saiz, has announced that this Monday will propose to social agents to freeze quotas for all self-employed workers who earn 1,667 euros per month or less next year. That is, the first three sections of the 15 that make up the contribution system that was launched in 2022.

This was revealed by the minister in an interview with The Countryin which he defends that the turn of the rudder is done “out of sensitivity to the most vulnerable sectors.” He also stressed that there is already a flat rate for those who start an activity and recalled that for people with very low incomes there are already “other aid mechanisms such as the Minimum Living Income.

The proposal that the Government had conveyed to unions and self-employed associations last Monday proposed increases in the contribution base (and, therefore, in the fee payable) of the 8.7% to the self-employed with 670 euros per month of net income or less; of the 6.7% to those who earn between 671 and 900 euros or less and 4.3% to the section between 901 and 1,166.7.

Thus, the installments to be paid each month they increased 17 euros for the lowest section from the ladder (up to 217 euros); 15 euros for the second section of the three smallest (up to 235 euros) and 11 euros in the last one of them (up to 271 euros). With the change of opinion, they will be extended at the current levels: 200, 220 and 260, respectively.

With this approach, the paradox arose that these self-employed workers had faced higher fee increases than those of some higher income brackets. For example, for the group with income between 1,166.70 and 1,300 euros, the proposed increase is 3.8% and for those between 1,300 and 1,500, 5.9%.

Although the Government now proposes freezing the contribution of the lowest sections at least next year, its proposal for the remaining 12 segments remains. The document that Security sent to the social agents included increases ranging between 3.8% and up to 35%, which, translated into currency, implies fee increases between 11 and 206 euros.

ATA rejects the proposal

The ATA self-employed employers’ association, integrated into CEOE, has positioned itself against the ministry’s new proposal. Its president, Lorenzo Amor, considers something “logical” that the lowest sections freeze, but the rise of the rest continues to be considered a “slash” and a “robbery” of contributions to the rest of the self-employed above the CPI. “It will have our rejection and I suppose also that of Congress,” Amor published in a message on the social network X.