If you are one of the self-employed workers registered with the Social Security for the Self-Employed, the health crisis has profoundly changed the payment schedule for your social security contributions. Please find below a reminder of the measures following the resumption of payments by URSSAF, as well as those related to the latest amending finance laws concerning you.
> Resumption of contribution payments
The resumption of the payment of dues since September 2020 is made up of 2 elements: the regularisation of 2019 and the provisional dues for 2020.
1/ Regularisation of 2019
If in 2019 your activity or earnings have increased, you are liable to regularise your contributions for that year. Traditionally deducted from June to December, this regularisation is condensed to the months September to December 2020.
NB: if your 2019 activity or earnings are lower in 2019 than in 2018, you will in principle have received a refund between May and July and are therefore not affected by this adjustment.
2/ Provisional contributions for 2020
In order to avoid significant smoothing and cash advances at the end of the year, URSSAF has automatically adjusted your contributions based on 50% of your last known income (2019).
As a result, if you have managed to maintain your activity or income beyond half of that relating to 2019, significant regularisations may be forthcoming in 2021, as by 31 December 2020 you will have paid only a very small proportion of your annual contributions.
If you are covered by the National Bank of Belgium (BNC) scheme, the shortfall in the levying of contributions in 2020 will automatically have a positive impact on your income subject to tax and social security contributions.
> Future help in regularising your 2020 contributions
If you pay all your personal contributions to URSSAF and are in a sector that has been particularly hard hit by the crisis (mainly hotels, restaurants, tourism and related sectors), or work in a company with fewer than 10 employees whose main activity has been interrupted by a ban on admission to the public, you will benefit from a reduction in contributions. Depending on the sector in which you work, these reductions may be between € 1 800 and € 2 400.
You should apply for this reduction when you next submit your income tax return in April 2021, but for the time being the practical details have not yet been definitively established.
Furthermore, URSSAF specifies that if you wish to adjust your contributions differently from the 50% applied, you can claim a reduction of between 3,500 and 5,000 euros on your income depending on the sector in which you are working.
As you can see, URSSAF’s resumption of payment of contributions requires a great deal of anticipation. Consequently, we invite you to contact the staff member in charge of your file so that he or she can guide you in your decisions and help you find the solution best suited to your situation.
As the processing times by the insurance companies can be relatively long, we advise you to make these arbitrations before the end of October 2020.
Indeed, your request may not be able to apply beyond that date.
Moreover, if you wish to adjust your income upwards, the increases in contributions will have to be deducted from your remaining contributions by 31 December 2020.
If you need further information, please contact us!
