The pension contribution is simply a mandatory monthly payment to the Social Insurance Institution, which is part of the social safety strategy and serves to finance future pensions. It is credited to the individual insured account and determines the amount of future benefit after reaching retirement age. It turns out that according to ZUS, any contributions are paid unduly. According to the Department, they should not be collected due to the fact that the individual who paid them had no social safety work during this period.
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ZUS confiscates pension contributions. People lose a fewer 100 1000 zlotys
If the Social Insurance Institution finds that the contributions were unduly paid, they are confiscated, i.e. entered into the joint budget of the Social Insurance Fund. The bet can challenge the right to contributions even from 20 to 30 years ago. Electoral service.biz described the stories of people to whom something like this happened. People lose 200-300 1000 PLN on average. For example, Mrs. Aldon ZUS took 600 1000 PLN of contributions, of which 350 1000 PLN of pension. It didn't even give her a minimum pension. "I didn't really know that something like this was possible, that after years individual could "cross out" the periods in which he usually worked and paid contributions," she admitted.
- ZUS accepted declarations, contributions all month, confirmed the deficiency of arrears. If, after a year, 2 of them had a signal that there was a problem, I'd just halt paying. I'd put that money in my account. Nobody's always told me before, she added. The reason for this is the legal changes in the Polish social safety strategy introduced together with the Polish Order and the amendment of the Act on the social safety strategy from 1 January 2022. At that time, the rule was adopted that if the Plant considers the contributions to be undue, it would:
may be requested to be reimbursed only for the last 5 years from the date of the deposit or from the minute erstwhile the Social safety Office has informed the Social safety Institution of the irregularity,
all contributions older than 5 years are non-refundable, are credited to the FUS and do not return to the insured person.
In the case of Mrs Aldona, the court found that for 19 years she should not have been subject to social insurance at all. - It was considered my insurance title did not meet the definition of employment. I worked as an accountant on a phase in a company that I was a majority shareholder of. ZUS assumed that since I had an influence on the company's activities, my employment contract was apparent - he informed.
ZUSRemigius Gora / Getty Images
ZUS takes contributions. The Ombudsman intervened
"Current regulations make no citizen sleep peacefully. due to the fact that at any minute ZUS can recognise that the contributions paid by him, for e.g. the last 15-20 years, were incorrect and Zakład has the right to pay everything that we paid during our professional career, confiscate - said Dr. Łukasz Wacławik from the management department of Kraków AGH in a conversation with the service. Another example is the past of Mr Tomasz, who was employed in his own company on the stage. He received a decision from the Department stating that he had not been insured since 1999. The full amount of contributions he paid during this time exceeds PLN 1.5 million. In turn, Mrs. Anna, a retired woman, spent 10 years working on a contract for her retirement. all year, she requested that the benefit be converted. ZUS abruptly stated that the contracts were apparent. The female received a decision to reduce the pension by PLN 800, and on top of that, Zakład demanded a return of over PLN 92 thousand, due to the fact that he felt that she was not entitled to the conversion of the benefit.
It is worth noting that ZUS applies this mechanics not only to people working in its own company, but besides to workers for whom the alleged confluence of titles occurred. We are talking about situations where individual was withdrawing contributions from respective sources, e.g. at the same time from contract contracts and work on the phase or from business activity. According to ZUS, contributions should be paid from only 1 source. The others then find it inappropriate. "Every day, besides thanks to the publications "Gazeta Wyborcza", fresh people are coming to me affected by the same pattern of action. In each of these cases, ZUS took contributions for years, issued further decisions confirming the subjection of insurance or the right to recalculate benefits, and then after a decade or 2 stated that "submission had never been" - said Dr. Katarzyna Kalata, legal advisor from the Kalata Chancellery. In her opinion, if the Plant claims that the contributions were undue, honesty requires their reimbursement. If individual disagrees with the decision of the Social safety Office, they can go to court.
The Ombudsman was curious in the matter. In his opinion, the constitutional standard of protection of individual rights, including citizens' trust in the state, was breached. He asked the Minister of Family, Labour and Social Policy Agnieszka Dziemianowicz-Bąk to take a position on whether there would be a change of regulations so that Poles would halt losing contributions.
