Amor criticizes the “hack blow” of the rise in the minimum contribution base to some self-employed workers “riddled” with expenses
LAS PALMAS DE GRAN CANARIA, 1 (EUROPA PRESS)
The president of the Association of Self-Employed Workers (ATA) and vice-president of the Spanish Confederation of Business Organizations (CEOE), Lorenzo Amor, has criticized the “hack” of the 8.6% increase in the minimum contribution base for some self-employed workers who they are “riddled” with expenses.
“At no time did we agree in July that the minimum contribution base was going to rise to 8.6% this year. Traditionally, with the Government of Aznar, with that of Rodríguez Zapatero, with that of Rajoy and with that of Pedro Sánchez in his first legislature, every year the rise of the minimum bases was consulted, discussed and even agreed, ”he said he.
This was revealed this Wednesday in a statement to the media before meeting with the Canary Islands Confederation of Entrepreneurs (CCE), where he added that it has now been two years in which Minister José Luis Escrivá, “unilaterally, without informing or consulting”, raises the minimum contribution base. “If we consider the rise that occurred in 2022 disproportionate,” he continued, “the one that has risen this year by 8.6% is an ax blow.”
Amor recalled that the agreement was that the self-employed could quote based on their net income and that they could choose it, but what the self-employed who have a net income of less than 600 euros have found in the months of January and February, “is not that they are going to pay 230 euros as it is in the agreement, but they have been hit with an ax of 325 euros ”.
In this sense, he indicated that minimum quotas and contribution brackets have been agreed in 2023, 2024 and 2025 so that, once that time elapses, the Government that is in place makes an assessment of the system and will see what happens between the year 2026 onwards.
“It is not true that the quota will be raised in 2026, that is not on any paper. It is said that a review will be done and we will see what happens, ”she observed.
In the same way, he pointed out that with what the self-employed are going through at the moment, the rise in inflation that was known this Tuesday “does not reflect anything else” but the situation that the self-employed and companies are experiencing in Spain.
“RIDDLED WITH EXPENSES”
“A rise in prices because the vast majority of freelancers and companies are riddled with expenses,” he continued. Fiscal costs are increasing, financial costs, labor costs, rents and mortgages, production, raw materials, fuel… and we can continue”.
He also affirmed that one in five companies in Spain knows that when they open this Wednesday they will have more expenses than income and that this is the reason that prices are being raised, not to make profits, but to be able to sustain the activity.
Finally, Amor highlighted that it is the first time since 2012 that a year has ended losing freelancers and companies in Spain.
