The Ministry of Culture emphasized that the regulations of the Cabinet of Ministers on downtime benefit for self-employed persons affected by the spread of Covid-19 stipulate that the downtime period is from March 14 for a certain period, but not longer than the government decision on the emergency.
The standstill allowance mechanism is a short-term solution to compensate for the loss of income and livelihood of self-employed persons who, due to an emergency situation, cannot earn income from economic activities. Taking into account that the current epidemiological situation in the country does not allow to determine the exact deadline by which it will be necessary to continue the emergency situation in the country, the Ministry of Culture proposed to set June 30 as the end date of the downtime period.
Along with amendments to the Cabinet of Ministers’ regulations on downtime benefits for self-employed persons affected by the spread of Covid-19, the government has clarified the length of the downtime period in order to prevent the self-employed persons from losing their full income and livelihood.
Taking into account that together with the downtime benefit, in cases when its amount is less than 180 euros, as well as in situations when a person does not qualify for downtime benefit, downtime assistance benefit is paid, the term of this support mechanism is also extended until 30 June.
In addition to the downtime allowance, a supplement of EUR 50 is paid for each dependent child. Accordingly, this form of aid is also extended until that date.
The Ministry of Welfare estimates that from March 14 to June 30, 2.08 million euros will be needed to provide a supplement for persons whose downtime benefit does not exceed 180 euros, which would provide an average of 71 euros for three and a half months for a total of 8371 persons. .
In turn, in order to grant the downtime assistance benefit from March 14 to June 30, those who do not qualify for the downtime benefit will need 6.2 million euros, for which such support could be provided to a total of 9843 persons.
Meanwhile, the government plans to allocate a total of 689,010 euros to provide benefits for a dependent child, thus providing this supplement for three and a half months.
In total, the government will allocate 8.97 million euros to all three of these positions, which is 5.63 million euros more than previously allocated for the period from 14 March to 14 May.
Downtime benefits can only be claimed for the current month
Also, in an extraordinary sitting on Thursday, the Cabinet of Ministers supported the proposal of the Ministry of Economics (MoE) to determine that in the future downtime benefits can be applied for only for the current month and not for previous months.
Such changes are included in the amendments to the regulations for employers affected by the Covid-19 crisis, who qualify for downtime allowance and for the distribution or deferral of payment of arrears for up to three years.
The current version of the regulations provided that in order to apply for downtime benefit, the employer affected by the crisis submitted to the State Revenue Service (SRS) an application for downtime benefit for the period from 14 March to 31 March and thereafter until 30 April of the following month. date. Thus, until now, the employer has been able to claim the payment of the downtime benefit to the employee for the months since the state of emergency has been declared.
However, the amendments to the regulations reduce the period during which you can apply for downtime benefit, stipulating that you can only apply for downtime benefit for the current calendar month. The MoE explained that thus it will not be possible to receive the downtime benefit for the previous month or, for example, when applying for the downtime benefit in May, it will not be possible to receive it for the previous months, but only in May.
The amendments to the regulations also stipulate that in the future, those who receive income from economic activity that does not exceed 430 euros at the same time will be able to receive the downtime benefit. If the said income from economic activity exceeds 430 euros, the employee will not be able to qualify for the downtime benefit.
The amended regulations also stipulate that for those who return to work from parental leave during downtime, the downtime benefit will be set at 100% of the granted parental benefit for the six months preceding the declaration of the emergency, but not more than 700 euros per calendar month.
Also, it follows from the amendments to the regulations developed by the MoE that the employer affected by the crisis will be obliged to immediately inform the SRS about termination of downtime for an employee who has been granted downtime benefit or other circumstances that are grounds for termination of paid downtime benefit.
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43% of downtime benefits do not even reach 180 euros per month
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By Wednesday afternoon, the State Revenue Service (SRS) had paid downtime benefits in the amount of 10,630,123 euros. The SRS has paid downtime benefits to 5,479 employers, 31,488 employees, as well as 2,068 self-employed persons.
Benefits in the amount of 10,011,593 euros were paid to a total of 31,488 employees upon the submission of 5,479 companies. In turn, after 2068 applications from self-employed persons, benefits in the total amount of 618,530 euros were paid.
The downtime benefit requested by the SRS shall be paid within five working days after receipt of the application by transferring the benefit to the employee’s account specified in the application.
In total, the country has so far decided to allocate around four billion euros to mitigate the negative effects of Covid-19.
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