Forgiving social security dues
Contribution debts to pension funds will be written off in just a decade instead of 20 years
The Labor Ministry is setting a 10-year statute of limitations for social security debts by corporations, freelance professionals and the self-employed to the Single Social Security Fund (EFKA), according to a regulation set to reach Parliament in the near future.
The provision follows a decision of the Council of State, the country’s highest administrative court, which ruled that the 20-year limitation period applicable to claims by EFKA against insured and employers for nonpayment of insurance contributions was contrary to the principle of legal certainty and the principle of proportionality. It should be noted that before this law there were pension funds to which the 20-year limitation period applied and others, such as IKA, which provided for the 10-year limitation period.
As Deputy Minister of Labor and Social Security Panos Tsakloglou told Kathimerini, a further reduction of the limitation period is not ruled out, even down to five years, as applies to tax debts.
The ministry’s General Secretariat of Social Insurance is in the final stage of drafting a bill which on the one hand will comply with the decision of the CoS, and on the other hand will cover the issue uniformly for all debts and funds included in EFKA.
Speaking to Kathimerini, Tsakloglou pointed out that the state must comply with the decision of the CoS and will do so immediately. “But beyond this obligation, we will proceed to a holistic approach to the issue and regulate the period of limitation in all its stages,” he notes.
Tsakloglou added that “the measure in the long run will lead to greater legal certainty for citizens, faster procedures for the administration and better security of collection of contributions.”
The ministry estimates that the whole process concerns debts of about 250 million euros, a significant part of which will be statute-barred. Officials say these are not debts created recently, as the claims on the dues to most of the former funds that joined the EFKA are made within a few months of their creation and in no case exceed 10 years.
