Sánchez dismisses that the rise in the minimum wage affects the contribution of the self-employed | Economy

The rise in the minimum wage by 22.3%, up to 900 euros per month, will not affect the contribution bases of the self-employed. This Tuesday has been announced by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, in the Congress. This measure is complemented by what the Minister of Finance had said, María Jesús Montero, the day before that in January of next year there will be a new quotation system for the self-employed so that they can quote according to their income, developing the agreement with Podemos in the budget agreement.

When it was learned that the minimum interprofessional salary was going to go up by 22.3%, there was concern in the autonomous associations. The minimum wage coincides with the minimum contribution base of employees and, in addition, the General Law of Social Security requires that the rest of the bases evolve in parallel to this, unless there is an additional provision with the status of law that says otherwise. This has been what has happened in recent years, when the SMI has risen by 8% and 4%, so that the so-called corporate self-owners of a company-did not see such a significant increase in their contributions.

The pact of the Government and Podemos did not go down to this detail. It points out that in 2019 the "quotation system to link it to real income" would be reformed. Little more. In such a way that led the president of the largest association of self-employed, ATA, Lorenzo Amor, pointed out that the rise of the SMI could imply an increase of 420 euros in what the self-employed pay to Social Security every year. 85% of self-employed workers contribute for the minimum base, taking advantage of the fact that, unlike salaried employees, they can choose their contribution level.

The issue has exploded during the control session to the Government in Congress. In the scuffle between Sanchez and the leader of Citizens, Albert Rivera, who on Tuesday had met with ATA, the president said: "We are not going to raise the minimum quotas for self-employed workers, so take that idea away from your head." Confirmed the version given by Secretary of Organization of Podemos, Pablo Echenique, on Twitter. This provoked the positive reaction of the other autonomous associations, UPTA and UATAE.

To avoid this connection, in the Ministry of Labor are pressing the accelerator to have ready before the end of the year the new contribution mechanism, point source of the department. What would solve the problem de facto. In fact, they have already called a meeting with the autonomous associations for Tuesday of next week.

But if the government did not arrive on time and did not have the norm ready and approved before the end of the year, something very likely given that it is October, it would have to de-link the evolution of the minimum bases of contribution of the minimum wage through a decree law, since neither on January 1 will the budget law be in force.

If this happens, there may be an exception: that the minimum contribution base of the self-employed is below that of the general regime. It would be the first time that this happens and could result in very peculiar situations: one would be that who quotes by choosing their contribution base could have a lower than who does not have that possibility.