MEPs approved a bill on the remission of social security contributions. The law expands the existing Antivirus program with a new regime C, which consists in the remission of social security contributions. It applies to companies with up to 50 employees. The MLSA thus provides additional targeted support to mitigate the effects of the coronavirus crisis in order to maintain the maximum possible number of jobs.
The Act on the Remission of Social Security Premiums remits the part of social security premiums paid by employers. In total, this is 24.8% of the total income of their employees for the months of June, July and August. The MLSA promises that the administrative process will be easy. Instead of submitting the application, employers only state the reduced assessment base in the monthly OSSZ statement and pay the reduced insurance premiums.
To be entitled to a premium remission, employers must meet the following three basic conditions:
- They shall employ a maximum of 50 employees who are covered by sickness insurance.
- It shall also comply with the fact that the number of employees found in each of those three months has not decreased by more than 10% compared with the number of employees in March 2020. Employers must also maintain 90% of wages as in March 2020. Compliance with these conditions will be assessed on a monthly basis.
- Furthermore, employers are obliged to pay insurance premiums for employees on time. In addition, in the relevant calendar month, they cannot apply for funds from the Antivirus program in mode B, ie obstacles to work on the part of the employer.
There are two exceptions to the deduction of assessment bases. Cannot be deducted:
- for employees an assessment base higher than CZK 52,253, ie more than 1.5 times the average wage set for social insurance purposes for 2020. If the employee's assessment base amounts to CZK 100,000 in June, the total assessment bases for this employee will decrease only about 52 253 CZK.
- the assessment basis of the employee in the employment relationship, to whom the employer gave termination notice pursuant to § 52 letter a) to c) of the Labor Code.
The purpose of the Antivirus Program is to mitigate the negative effects of the worldwide spread of COVID-19 caused by the SARS-CoV-19 virus on employment in the Czech Republic. It therefore aims to help maintain a high employment rate through state remuneration for those employees whose jobs were significantly threatened by the coronavirus crisis. Due to the fact that we have information on relatively active control activities by state administration bodies focused on the eligibility of Antivirus Program contributions, which will increase in the coming periods, we would recommend all employers to consider whether to actually participate in this program.
If you would like to discuss the details, please contact our experts: antivirus@asbgroup.eu.
Klára Cowan
Head of Payroll
ASB Czech Republic
E: kcowan@asbgroup.eu
Jiří Bosák
Corporate Services Manager
ASB Czech Republic
E: jbosak@asbgroup.eu