Some employers, although grateful that the state is helping them to continue working, did not expect to have to pay this levy. – The directors and managers of the company have the right to a minimum wage.
In the first week of June, the second minimum wage will arrive to businessmen and employees, and the third in the first week of July, while the first for about 1,052,000 workers in 232,000 companies was paid on May 7, confirmed Sinisa Mali, Minister of Finance, to Tanjug.
He explained that the help of three minimum wages will come in handy for businessmen to consolidate their business and pay their salaries, while, says Mali, economic activity in our country “does not heat up” after the coronavirus.
On the other hand, employers, although satisfied with the care of the state, complain that they have to pay taxes and contributions on this amount. Some employers complain and say that the state gave them 250 euros and took 150 euros. Workers who work for private companies claim that their employers told them that they are in a difficult situation, because they have to pay taxes and contributions in the monthly amount of 150 euros on the minimum paid by the state to their employees.
Since they don’t work, they don’t have income, they say they can’t pay for it, so they are thinking about closing the shops. As a reminder, the state measure of payment of three minimums is mainly intended for those small companies and entrepreneurs who do not have the reserves to overcome the crisis period in order not to lay off people.
After this interpretation of the current situation, the employees are only worried, because they doubt that they will lose their jobs in the long run. However, the payment of taxes and contributions to the state, which otherwise have to be paid, cannot be a reason for the cessation of activities for the simple reason that the state has postponed their payment for the next year and even longer.
It will be that employers or their accountants have not studied well the regulation on fiscal benefits and direct benefits to economic entities in the private sector, which concerns the payment of three minimum wages. Simply put, the state must be paid hers, even when it has given a minimum of its own money, but not now.
Asked whether this is the case, the Ministry of Finance answered that taxes and contributions are paid on the payment of salaries, regardless of the funds from which they are paid. However, the employer has an obligation to pay the employee a salary. Accordingly, the assistance for the employer is that the state has assumed part of that obligation (if the salary is higher than the minimum) or in full (if it is equal to the minimum salary), because otherwise the employer would have a cost in that amount.
Also, the due date for the payment of taxes and contributions for three months has been postponed until next year (January 4, 2021), with the possibility of additional deferral of payment for up to 24 months, which is an additional benefit for employers, the Ministry of Finance points out.
At the same time, the decree nowhere prescribes how much salary the employer must pay to employees, so it cannot be said that this decision imposes any additional obligations on the employer.
Therefore, in the mentioned way, the employers received significant help, they say in the relevant ministry.
And while one dilemma has been resolved, companies that have applied for help have doubts as to whether the only condition for receiving this minimum is that the company has not laid off more than 10 percent of workers since March 15, when the pandemic was declared, or whether there are other reasons to no money is obtained. Whether the help is given to all employees linearly, including directors and managers of companies, or not.
As they say in NALED, Article 13 of the decree stipulates that the funds be paid into a special purpose account of the employer opened in the Treasury. The amount of funds that the legal entity received in May, June and July this year is received by multiplying the basic minimum net salary for March (250 euros for all three months) and the number of full-time employees for whom the form for the accounting period was submitted.
In addition, the number of full-time employees may be increased by the number of workers who do not work full-time in proportion to the percentage of employment. Since the money is paid into a dedicated account of the employer, and not into individual current accounts of employees, the obligation of the employer is to use this money to pay salaries, which means that the company’s management can also receive them.
So, they point out in NALED, there are no restrictions in that regard, it is given to all employees. This means that both directors and managers of companies receive money if they are employed in the company.
The condition is that the number of employees in the following period until the expiration of three months from the last month for which the benefits were used does not fall by more than 10 percent, not counting those whose fixed-term employment contract expires.
What employers who have applied for assistance are interested in is whether in the case of a worker leaving the company in the period after the use of direct benefits, he terminates the employment contract on his own initiative, his departure counts in reducing the number of workers or only those whom the employer fired .
NALED answers in the affirmative, pointing out that this reduces the number of employees, and in this case the employer should hire a new person for this job, assuming that it will be shorter than a month.
Here, it is only not entirely clear whether in this case the payment of direct benefits also applies to the new employee, since it is not on the list for the previous month, which is the basis for the money to be paid, Politika reports.
