A few weeks ago the second leg of the pension reform was approveda change in legislation promoted by the Ministry of José Luis Escrivá that has the objective of shielding the pension piggy bank and boost your income. It comes at a crucial time, one in which the labor system is facing unstoppable aging and in which the generation of baby boom is at the gates to enter retirement.
As we count in this other article, maintaining the pension system is going to have a significant cost. And repercussions in many sectors of the economy, especially in the case of the self-employed and companies, whose prices are going to change.
Objective: inflate the piggy bank. As we said, the reform will have a considerable impact for self-employed workers, a group that will have to contribute neither more nor less than almost 40% of additional income destined to maintain the pension system until 2032. According to Social Security forecasts, the total of this extra income to alleviate the deficit would be around 20,000 million and one in three euros destined for the piggy bank will come from the portfolios of the self-employed.
As? The new tax called Intergenerational Equity Mechanism (MEI) has resulted in a rise in prices. Until now, businesses with dependent employees pay 0.5% more than the company assumes and 0.1% more than the worker assumes. But the reform will stop being 0.6% and it will go up one tenth each year until reaching 1.2% in 2029. This new mechanism on the contribution basis also implies that the quota of a self-employed person increases.
In 2032 each self-employed You will have to contribute 2,500 euros on average per year to the pension piggy bank. According to the Government, in this way it will be possible to increase pension spending to 15% of GDP compared to the current 12%.
What do the freelancers say? According to him Barometer of the Association of Self-Employed Workers (ATA)which reflects the forecasts of the self-employed for their business development, the reform will negatively affect the activity of 77.2% of the self-employed. In fact, only 8.3% support it, while 48.1% consider it detrimental to their competitiveness. Even 29.1% indicate that they will not be able to assume the burdens that the new law entails.
In addition, nine out of ten freelancers think that administrative obstacles have been increasing in the last three years. And what is worse: 38% of them consider that their income has been reduced, while another 38% believe that it has remained the same.
The “hack”. The president of the association, Lorenzo Amor, pointed out a few days ago that the reform is “a hack”since “it is not good for employment” and it will “pave” the way to the submerged economy: “Raise contributions both as a self-employed person and as an employer, the MEI doubles and The Government already foresees in 2026 an extra collection of 1,800 million600 euros on average per self-employed person”, he explained.
Raise the minimum retirement pension. On the other hand, the new legislation also introduces other novelties that will affect all the self-employed who are no longer active, that is, retirees. It foresees a rise of at least 22% in minimum pensions by 2027 of the self-employed, including those who do not meet the requirements to collect 100% of their pension, which means €3,000 more per year in some cases.
Contributory pensions depend on the contribution of the self-employed and are calculated based on the contributions they have made to Social Security. However, in some cases, he may receive an amount independent of his contribution bases. According to calculations by AutónomosyEmprendedoresToday, any pensioner in this situation and with more than 15 years of contributions would receive a minimum of €13,526 per year. With the reform, the pension would become €14,500 per year in 2024.
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