Self-employed workers who are initially registered in the Special Regime for Self-Employed Workers (RETA), or who have not been registered in the two immediately preceding years, are entitled to the following reductions in their contributions:

  • If they pay the minimum contribution, their contribution is 60 euros per month for the first 12 months. If they have a higher base, a reduction of 80% is applied to the minimum base and quota.
  • During the following six months they are entitled to a reduction of 50%, and in the six months after that to a reduction of 30%.
  • If the self-employed person is under 30 years of age at the time of registration (or 35 if a woman), they are entitled to an additional 30% reduction for a further 12 months. That is to say, for this group the reductions have a total duration of 36 months.

PARTNERS:

  • The law indicates that the reductions also apply to members of worker-owned companies and worker-members of cooperatives. However, as the law does not expressly mention the “corporate self-employed” (i.e., those who contribute to the RETA because they have control of their SL and work in it), Social Security makes a restrictive interpretation, excluding these self-employed from the incentives.

SENTENCE:

  • There are judgments that have given reason to the self-employed corporate in this type of claims. On the basis of these arguments:
  • The law providing for incentives for ‘self-employed or self-employed persons’ does not exclude from the application of the incentive to corporate persons. In addition, they fall within the scope of the Act.
  • The purpose of the rules that implemented the incentives was to reduce youth unemployment through self-employment and entrepreneurship, and to support entrepreneurs to consolidate and grow their projects. Therefore, there is no reason to exclude a self-employed person who registers for carrying out an activity through an SL.

RETURN:

As Social Insurance will not have applied the rebate to you, act as follows to claim it:

  • File a letter with the Treasury requesting the application of the flat rate, and ask for a refund of undue income for the contributions paid in excess. The right to reimbursement expires after four years, so that incentives not applied from the date of application can be claimed up to a maximum of four years ago.
  • Social Security must respond within six months. If you do not reply within this period, the application will be deemed to have been rejected.
  • Your application will most likely be refused by Social Security, so the next step will be to lodge an appeal. And if the Social Security maintains its refusal, you will have to go to court with the arguments indicated above.