ZUS will not have to be notified of revenues. Relief for previous pensioners

Pensioners and earlier pensioners will no longer have to notify the Social Insurance Institution with additional revenues – assumes a draft amendment to the Act on pensions from the Social Insurance Fund and the Social Pension Act prepared in MRPiPS. Persons obtaining income abroad will remain an exception.

Changes – published on Thursday on the website of the Government Legislation Center – are to significantly reduce bureaucracy, and at the same time close the system to full automation of settlements.

As explained in the assessment of the effects of the regulation, currently – pursuant to art. 127 of the Pension Act – every pensioner and a pensioner who has not reached the universal retirement age (60 years old, 65 years old men), is obliged to inform ZUS by the end of February about the revenues from the previous year. Failure to meet the obligation may lead to the need to return benefits in the event of exceeding the income thresholds.

The obligation also applies to persons receiving salaries from uniformed services, as well as pensioners performing activities exempt from mandatory contributions. Similar regulations apply to persons receiving social pension, which are obliged to submit written statements under pain of criminal liability for false testimonies.

As the family ministry indicates, this solution has been criticizing both the recipients and contribution payers for years – as excessively burdensome and duplicating data, which still go to ZUS and the National Tax Administration. The project assumes that ZUS will independently determine the amount of the recipient's revenues, using the data saved on individual insured accounts.

In the case of persons employed full -time or order, the basis will be the amounts submitted to social or health insurance. A lump sum – 60 percent was accepted for those running a business forecasted average salary – due to the specifics of determining the grounds for contributions in this group. The exception will remain people obtaining income abroad, who will still have to submit additional documents – in case of doubt ZUS will also be able to apply for data to cash registers.

The project also provides unification of rules for persons receiving social pension. Instead of submitting annual statements under pain of criminal liability, also in their case the basis will be system data. The disability pension authority, however, will gain the right to call the recipients to provide explanations if there are discrepancies.

The family ministry emphasized that the change is to bring specific facilitations:

• liquidation of the obligation to report revenues annual,
• reduction of the number of proceedings for reimbursement of unduly collected benefits
• fuller use of data collected in the social insurance system.

According to experts, the project responds to many years of postulates of retirement and trade union circles, and is a step towards simplifying the contact of a citizen with you. Many people, especially older people, had difficulty completing formalities, which ended in disputes with ZUS.

The change is part of the digitization trend of public services and the automation of settlements. As the authors of the project indicate, it was not possible to achieve this goal other than amending the law. The designed solutions will cover about 300,000 earlier pensioners and approx. 300 thousand. people receiving social pension.

As stated, They do not cause an increase in expenses from the state budget. However, they will result in an increase in ZUS expenditure on the implementation of changes in the ICT systemM, which should be included in the ZUS financial plan in 2026. In practice, they may contribute to the reduction of ZUS administrative costs and shortening the proceedings.

Planned changes mean a significant bureaucratic relief for pensioners. The annual obligation to make statements on revenues will disappear, and the burden of settlements will rest on ZUS and KAS systems. The reform may limit the number of disputes and undue payments, although experts emphasize that additional protective mechanisms for the recipients are needed.

It is proposed to enter into force of the Act on January 1, 2027 due to the need to guarantee the necessary time to adapt the IT system by ZUS to implement the solutions provided for in the proposed Act. (PAP)

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