The importance of contributions for workers makes it even more important, in the last years of their working life, that this flow of contributions does not decrease. In all minds, guarantee the right to a retirement pension of an amount sufficient to cover the expenses of the retiree once he stops working.
The cause of all this is the method of calculating Social Security retirement pensions, in which the contribution bases of the last 25 years are added together (300 in total) and divided by 350 to calculate the regulatory base.
That’s why any break in quotation markseven if there are gaps integrated to mitigate these interruptions (with the minimum base or 50% of it) may have a negative impact on the worker’s pension.
At the same time, the number of years worked is also important, since it depends on it to reach more or less significant percentages of the regulatory base (36 and a half years are required to be entitled to 100%).
These two factors together mean that unemployed citizens have a problem: that of accumulating contributions lower than those they would have if they were still employed. And, in these cases, the figure of the special agreements can prove very useful.
What is a special agreement?
On its website, Social Security explains that a special agreement is “a situation similar to registration, which results from an agreement of wills between the subscriber and the General Treasury of Social Security, with an obligation for the subscriber to pay the corresponding amount at his own expense”. contributions, in order to preserve the right to coverage of benefits for the eventualities covered”.
In the event of retirement, this special agreement must be signed to cover benefits for common contingencies. In practice, this means that the citizen is solely responsible for paying the contributions that will generate, maintain or expand the right to a retirement pension.
Who can sign a special agreement with Social Security?
Not all workers or citizens can sign a specific agreement with Social Security. The organization imposes a common requirement (contribute at least 1,080 days in the previous 12 years) and also specifies that they can only subscribe when come from the following situations:
- Disaffiliation from one social security scheme without being included in another.
- Be a permanent employee or self-employed worker registered from the age of 65 and able to provide proof of the years of actual contributions necessary to be exempt from Social Security contributions.
- A situation of accumulation of jobs or multiple activities and the cessation of any independent or salaried activity.
- Cessation of self-employed or salaried activity and hiring for a contribution base lower than the average of the immediately preceding twelve months.
- Be retired due to total disability and work as a self-employed person or employee, registered with a social security scheme and find yourself in one of the cases above.
- Termination of recovery of unemployment benefit or a subsidy.
- Having been retired due to permanent disability and subsequently being declared capable or partially disabled.
- Be in receipt of permanent disability or a retirement pension and the pension has been withdrawn by final decision.
- The application for a retirement pension which was ultimately refused.
What fees do you pay with a special agreement?
The first step is know what the regulatory basis is of the worker. The citizen can choose one of these bases:
- The maximum contribution base for common contingencies of the contribution group of the professional category or the Scheme in which you have been registered, provided that you have contributed for at least 24 months over the last 5 years.
- The contribution base resulting from the division by 12 of the sum of the bases for common contingencies for which contributions were paid during the twelve consecutive months preceding the cessation or obligation to contribute is extinguished, provided that this figure is higher than the minimum contribution base.
- The minimum contribution base of Article 1 of the general table of contribution bases for self-employed workers, provided that it is not higher than the minimum contribution base for self-employed workers in force on December 31, 2023 (if this is the applicable minimum base) the contribution base will be the latter).
- Any contribution base between the minimum base and the maximum base applicable to the worker.
Once the regulatory base is known, the contributions corresponding to this base must be applied: 29% resulting from the addition of 28.3% for common contingencies and 0.7% for the Intergenerational Equity Mechanism, the MEI.
The resulting amount multiplied by 0.94 and after this operation we will have the amount of fees to be paid in this special agreement.
