Contracts for specific work transferring to gray area

On January 1 this year, new regulations came into force, obliging the Social Insurance Institution (ZUS) to keep records of contracts for specific work. At the same time, the above regulations impose new strict obligations on companies and natural persons. Within just seven days of concluding a specific work contract, it must be reported to the Social Insurance Institution (ZUS) on a special RUD form. In the event of failure to report or delay, a penalty of up to PLN 5,000 can be expected.

Both employers and contractors are obliged to register all contracts for specific work, apart from three occasional exceptions. Also, if you are a natural person and are not registered with ZUS as a contribution payer, you must register a contract for specific work. Additionally, many problems for companies are generated by the lack of a clear and clearly explained difference between a specific task contract and a premium contract. The provisions in this matter are so imprecise that in some cases they are defined only by the existing judicial decisions. There are also well-known causes of questioning contracts for specific work and calculating ZUS contributions backward on this account. All this causes both additional costs, introduces unnecessary elements of business risk, and consumes entrepreneurs' time.

“Registration of contracts for specific work in ZUS, in accordance with the new regulations, is neither easy nor quick. To prove the above thesis, numbers can be cited. In the entire last year, over 0.5 million contracts for specific work were signed and implemented in Poland. So the weekly average is close to 10,000. In the first eight days of 2021, when the new regulations were already in force, only 1,600, i.e. 15 percent of contracts, were reported to the ZUS' records, compared to the same period in 2020. The whole of January this year was slightly better because 30,000 contracts have been registered in ZUS, but this is still only 71 percent of contracts reported in 2020,” Przemysław Głośny, President of the Useme.com management board, commented.

(WBJ)