Pension insurance & bogus self-employment at a glance: From client to boss?

Pension insurance has its pitfalls: Even if you are self-employed for the tax office, you may be classified as an employee by social security: For example, if you are prescribed by the client as a contractor - and a few other factors. That has consequences!

Voluntary or compulsory?

Actually, you might not care about the statutory pension insurance. Because, to their delight, many self-employed people are not one thing: a member there. However, some professional groups are required to become members. And a second look is also worthwhile.

The German Pension Insurance Association (DRV) is responsible for most occupational groups. As a self-employed person, you will not automatically become insured, but must register with the DRV if you want or need to take out pension insurance. The DRV maintains around 1.000 information and advice centers nationwide (can be found under the menu item “Advice”), which you can contact for detailed information.

Private old-age provision may be worth more than voluntary pension insurance. In statutory pension insurance, you have to pay all the contributions yourself, except for artist social insurance, which is currently 19,9 percent of your income or what you specify as the assessment value.

Benefits of compulsory insurance

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But: Only if you are compulsorily insured in the statutory pension insurance (whether on application, via the KSK or by law, it doesn't matter) are you entitled to Riester funding with a private old-age provision. the Rüruppension with tax advantages, on the other hand, is open to everyone.

At least one advantage: Most self-employed people can look forward to it decidewhether they insure themselves voluntarily or if they apply for compulsory insurance.

The evil awakening: borderline cases of social security

But imagine that you work as a freelancer. You have properly registered with the tax office and you take care of your social security yourself. But then comes the bad awakening: The German pension insurance comes to you with a status assessment procedure - and in the end it comes out: you are not at all self-employed. At least not for social security, which doesn't care what the tax office says about it.

Even those who are actually doing an internship but are actually doing a normal full-time job are not legally doing an internship at all. Because with an internship, the focus must be on the training character. At least that was the verdict of the labor court in Kiel on November 19th. Even if the decision is not legally binding, such judgments can have far-reaching consequences: Accordingly, it is not important what kind of contract was concluded, but what the actual work looks like. In plain language this means: Even if the intern only has an internship contract with a low salary - if he is not trained but works full-time, then he is completely independent of the designation in the contract and must also be paid and insured as such.

Help, I am not at all independent!

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Result: your previous client becomes your employer and suddenly has to insure you like a normal employee. That means he has to take her to the Health insurance, long-term care insurance, pension insurance and unemployment insurance and from now on withhold half of the due contributions from your fee and pay the other half as an employer contribution.

After all, your new one must Executive insure them against occupational accidents with the employers' liability insurance association - the employer pays the contributions all by himself. And indeed, that's the nasty thing about it, the gross pay is your basis for calculating the insurance premiums - and not the profit, for example.

That could not bother you any further - but you're probably going to get rid of the client. For you have become incredibly expensive now.

What if you are suddenly self-employed?

If your contract is classified as a fictitious, there are three options:

1. Your client changes the contract so that you are clearly self-employed.
2. You become a member of the social security system and from then on you are compulsorily insured under the statutory health, pension, long-term care and unemployment insurance. The client has to report them there and you both pay half of the insurance premiums. However, you can remain independent in terms of tax and employment law (as long as the tax office does not mind).
3. It also offers a normal working relationship. For example, you can then arrange part-time work and, at the same time, engage in other self-employment activities. And you can complain about permanent employment.

When are you self-employed?

So that it doesn't get that far in the first place, you should Regulate for bogus self-employment: It depends on where and when you do your work and, above all, whether you are in the Work organization of your client are firmly integrated or not.

If you are strongly instructed, eg your place of employment and the working time are prescribed, this is already an indication. Another is that you are strongly involved in the work organization of your client.

Compulsory insurance for certain professions and groups

Some self-employed people don't have one at all Choice: You are obliged to pay into the state pension insurance as soon as you earn more than 400 euros a month or 4.800 euros a year with the job in question (what else you do is irrelevant!). to earn, if they themselves do not employ any employees who are subject to compulsory insurance and you Companys is not a corporation.

However, this earnings limit of 4.800 euros per year is the profit in the sense of income tax law. Of their Turnover you can first deduct your business expenses. The insurance premiums are calculated in the same way as for compulsory insurance upon application.

Who has to pay?

This regulation affects, among other things, the self-employed in teaching, medical and nursing professions (this also includes child minders and aerobics trainers), home traders or anyone who practices a craft that requires a license.

Also affected are self-employed persons who receive more than 5/6 of their fees from one and the same client due to a standing order relationship or regularly recurring order relationships.

It is the job that counts, not the name

When it comes to the question of whether your job is subject to pension insurance or not, what matters is what your job looks like, not what it is called. But if your work is, for example, more consultative and less educational or healing, you can Adviser name and are then exempt from the pension insurance obligation.

If you are unsure whether you belong to one of these groups, you should inquire with the DRV. If you belong to this group, you must report to the DRV yourself within the first three months after taking up compulsory insurance.

exceptions

According to the Stiftung Warentest, independent teachers were able to be exempted from the pension insurance obligation until September 30, 2001. This regulated paragraph 231 paragraph 6 of the VI. Social Code.

The prerequisite was that they made private provisions. However, those who had not made private provision or became self-employed afterwards had no choice and had to join the statutory pension insurance scheme.

Calculation of contributions

As with compulsory insurance, the contribution rate is calculated on request. Young professionals can be exempted from compulsory insurance for the first three years.

Anyone who does not report must expect retroactive payments of up to four years. If the DRV suspects that you have deliberately not taken out insurance, even up to 30 years. But also the postpayment obligations due to late reporting of a fee activity expire after four years.

Who thinks he won't get caught: The DRV makes regular company audits, especially for those clients who employ a large number of honorary staff in the relevant professional group.

Honorary teachers are not allowed in the KSK

By the way, the honorary teachers have a particularly difficult time: this depends on the one hand on low earnings, but on the other hand also on the unjust social security, which has now been confirmed again by the Federal Constitutional Court

While many other solo self-employed people are allowed to join artist social security and normal self-employed people at least several customers have, freelancers are doubly poor: they have to insure themselves with 4800% ​​pension from an annual income of 19,9 euros, but are otherwise in the same position as employees:

Usually only a few clients, very often only one (the respective education institute), if courses fail times, then there is no failure hornonorar. And yet you have to pay the pension insurance.

Constitutional complaint rejected

On the other hand, a non-professional honorary lecturer had now submitted a constitutional complaint. The corresponding verdict was issued at the end of June and was published on the 13.07 by the Press Office of the Federal Constitutional Court (BverfG).

Accordingly, the First Senate of the Court had unanimously decided not to accept the constitutional complaint. Justification http://www.mediafon.net:

The Chamber saw the compulsory insurance as a legitimate purpose of the corresponding regulation in Section 2 of the Sixth Social Security Code. This protects those affected and reduces the need for financial assistance Age contrary, summarizes the press release of the court. This becomes “only a self-evident prevention required for old age”. The court was not able to see unequal treatment in the law compared to other self-employed persons: It found that the special need for protection of teachers compared to other self-employed persons was a sufficient differentiation criterion. The legislature rightly assumes that self-employed teachers have a special need for protection. It is based on the fact that "self-employed teachers who do not employ any employees are in need of protection because, like dependent employees, they depend on their own labor to secure their livelihood," says the judgment. - According to this logic, however, all solo self-employed (and thus the majority of all self-employed) would have to be subject to compulsory pension insurance by the legislature.

Measured with two dimensions?

Personally, I also think that there was a double standard – after all, the “journalist and media lobby” (I call it that to put it bluntly) was able to do one too recently Success account for themselves in the copyright.

My conclusion: honorary teachers simply lack the lobby. You're only left with a handful Alternatives:

1. accept
2. work only part-time and do not exceed the limit of 4800 Euro per year
3. Seeking permanent employment
4. completely change the job
5. emigrate

Which Schweinderl would like to have?

Voluntary pension insurance

As a self-employed person, you can voluntarily take out statutory pension insurance. You do not have to pay attention to any previous insurance periods, entry or termination dates, but can take up and end voluntary pension insurance at any time. How much you actually earn is irrelevant for voluntary pension insurance. You can do that Income, according to which your contributions are calculated.

However, your assessment value must be at least EUR 400 and may not exceed the contribution ceiling of EUR 5.500. With a contribution rate of 19,9 percent, the minimum contribution is 79,60 euros (19,9 percent of 400 euros) and the maximum contribution is 1.094,50 euros.

In contrast to compulsory insurance, the assessment value and contributions are identical in East and West Germany. And of course the following applies: the higher your assessment value or contribution, the higher your pension later.

Compulsory insurance on request

You can also apply to the DRV for compulsory insurance. The advantage: You can then apply for a Riester pension. However, a monthly income in the amount of the reference amount is used to calculate the contributions - this is currently € 2.555 (in the west) and € 2.240 (in the east). With a contribution rate of 19,6 percent, you then have to pay a monthly contribution of 508,45 (West) or 445,76 Euro (East) in full, since there is no employer share.

Young professionals only have to pay half of it in the first three years of self-employment. If you earn less and can prove it, a correspondingly reduced monthly fee is possible. To prove the actual income, the DRV requests the last tax assessment and then adds the average income increases that have occurred since then. However, if your income has dropped by more than 30 percent since the last tax assessment and you can prove this with documents such as bank statements or proof of order, your assessment value can also be set lower.

If you are unable to submit a tax assessment notice or “suitable documents” (for example, because you have just started your own business), you must carefully estimate the expected income. According to this estimate, the pension contributions are calculated until the first tax assessment is available. After that, all future contributions will be calculated according to the respective tax assessment. You can only apply for compulsory insurance in the first five years of self-employment and you can only terminate compulsory insurance if you give up your self-employment.

Status determination procedures

If you are deemed to be self-employed for an employment relationship, it is unimportant how many clients you have - as soon as the criteria are met, you are self-employed for this contract.

If you are unsure: One possibility can be a “status assessment procedure” with the Deutsche Rentenverisis. Their decision is binding, and if you are bogus self-employed, you are subject to insurance from the date of the determination. Experts do not recommend this, however, because the application is almost always classified as a bogus self-employed person.

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