Proposition 50K0256

Projet de loi visant à octroyer une réduction des cotisations personnelles de sécurité sociale aux travailleurs salariés ayant un bas salaire.

General information ¶

Submitted by

Groen Open Vld Vooruit PS | SP Ecolo MR Verhofstadt Ⅰ

Submission date

Nov. 17, 1999

Official page

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Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

social-security contribution social security

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Discussion ¶

Dec. 2, 1999 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

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Mr. Speaker, colleagues, the bill and the bill have the same goal and want to increase the purchasing power of low-wage workers. However, the chosen path to reach the goal differs fundamentally. The government prefers the parafiscal path with a reduction in personal employee contributions to social security. The CVP bill chooses the tax path for principled and administrative reasons. I will go deeper into the principled reasons. Employee social security contributions in Belgium are among the lowest in Europe. The retention on the gross salary is only 9.6%. In the Netherlands the employee contribution amounts to 23.9% of the gross wage, in Germany to 14.1% and in France to 12.2%. Unlike other European countries, the tax pressure on income from labour in our country is much greater. This is the fundamental reason why the CVP chooses the tax path. The draft law introduces a progressivity in the contributions to social security. Until now, we rightly believe, the progressiveness in the withdrawals has been applied only in the taxation and not in the contributions to social security. The CVP prefers to maintain progressivity as an instrument in taxation and not to introduce it in social security. Last but not least, we chose the tax path for the sake of simplicity and transparency. With our choice for the tax path, the CVP is not alone. Paars II in the Netherlands resolutely chooses to further reduce the tax pressure on the wages of employees. The social partners in the National Labour Council (NAR) and the Central Council for Business (CRB) were strong supporters of the tax path. The Social Security Management Committee has indeed advised the Government on the parafiscal path but expressly stated in its opinion again that it continues to prefer the fiscal path. The VBO has already in September 1999, in Infor-VBO, following the government’s intention, said very clearly the following – and I quote: The VBO supports the design of this measure but regrets, however, that the government has not entered into the applicable proposal of the social partners to carry out the increase of the minimum wages through the fiscal path. The VBO states explicitly: The parafiscal solution, after all, leads to significant complications in the wage administration. Administrative simplification is very prominent, such a better thing would have been avoided. We thought so, and that is why we chose the tax path. The VLD and the PRL, partners within the current majority, resolutely chose the fiscal path in the previous legislature. In the employment program of the VLD, the unemployment falls component aims to alleviate the tax pressure on the lowest wages. In this context, our proposal aims to reduce the minimum tax rate from 25 to 23%, while also considering the introduction of a special tax credit for families with low income. This is obviously forgotten in the vote on the bill and the bill. Despite all these statements, the government in the bill chooses the parafiscal path. Despite all this, the majority in the Social Affairs Committee voted our bill without blinking or blinking away. Order is a command, isn’t it? I am not even sure that all commissioners have read the bill themselves. It was the Minister of Social Affairs, Mr. Vandenbroucke, who at least acknowledged that our bill and our argument showed an indisputable strength. The minister, however, said: I am sorry, Mrs D'Hondt. I repeat that, despite all that, speed is not accompanied by efficiency and well-considered, firmly legislative work. I felt like I was not alone there. This is underlined by the State Council in its opinion on the preliminary draft law, which was submitted to it for advice. The considerations of the State Council were so thorough that the government has updated the bill and had to update so much that there is no longer any control possible. After all, the control had to be done through the tax path, because the tax path was indeed the only correct, transparent, administrative path to carry out this. However, the Court of Auditors also supports this, which is reflected in the Court of Auditors’ comments on the 2000 budget. It was about the question that would have been asked to the tax administration to increase the net income from labor for the low-wage earner via the tax route. The Court of Auditors says and I quote: the tax administration ⁇ ly would not have wanted to take on itself, if the State Service of Social Security would be obliged to modify its usual systems for the processing of files and to develop complex computer programs. The RSZ is normally connected only with the employers and not with the employees, which makes any recovery difficult for the latter. For this reason, the government had in the preliminary draft stipulated that the control should be carried out through the fiscal route. However, it had to delete this on the advice of the Council of State. Mr. Minister, I come to my decision. There is no dispute about the amount you have committed. The increase in the net income of the low wage earners through our system of tax path and your proposal through the parafiscal path, has the same budgetary impact. It has the same positive effect on people. It is indeed an assertion that the Social Security Administration is more flexible and therefore can work faster than the Tax Administration, but this is not a valid argument to defend less good legislative work. We supported this bill in the committee. We were greatly voted out. A second exercise has been recorded in the budget. In the Social Affairs Committee you said yesterday that this represents a net amount of 1.9 billion francs for new efforts to raise the low wages and thus also close the unemployment gaps, that you will indeed want to take into account the seriousness of some of our arguments and that the rate with which you said to have to work now will be slightly less. Mr. Minister, I hope that this time you will not only be able to work quickly, but also efficiently and administratively transparent. I hope that you do not, on the one hand, defend the administrative simplification – we are still waiting for its first results – and on the other hand unnecessarily weigh the administration, the employers’ administration and the social security, which could have been avoided by the fiscal way. Mr. Minister, we have lost this battle, but the war will be settled later.

Mr Filip Anthuenis has the word.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, dear colleagues, if you lost the battle, Mrs. D'Hondt, then I assume that we won it.

You are not proud that you have denied your own program.

Mrs D’Hondt, I am proud that we have finally achieved a first outcome in the fight against the unemployment levels. In the context of the activation of the welfare state, today a first tangible bill is being voted, a bill that the VLD group welcomed. After all, the draft fits in the fight against the unemployment drops, more specifically by raising the lowest wages. No matter how primitive it may sound, in principle, people only get over the line to become active again when there is something opposed in sounding coins. That is not shame. On the contrary, we believe that work should be rewarded. The government has chosen a parafiscal approach. There has been some discussion about it and I have understood that Mrs. D'Hondt has also spent a dozen minutes on this. I am confident that our group has also considered the tax approach in the past. Initially, this, by the way, was preferred by social partners. On the ground, however, it has been shown that the parafiscal approach offers the advantage of speed. Furthermore, in the fiscal context, it is impossible to distinguish between the wage-takers and the other occupational categories. Such a risk of violation of the principle of equality should be avoided. That is the main reason why this government solves the problem via the parafiscal route, on purely legal grounds. The gross cost of this measure is estimated at 3.1 billion francs. That is a substantial amount, but for our group this is subject to evolution. At the time and after evaluation of the initial effects of the measure, it should open the way for the extension and deepening of the measure. This concern is also addressed by the draft law. Also for the VLD it is by no means intended to break a hole in the social security. Therefore, it is important that the measure is fully covered by alternative financing that does not compromise the system in any way. The present draft law is a necessary prerequisite for eliminating the unemployment traps. However, it is not enough. The whole should fit into a general approach that provides for all types of interventions, for example in the unemployment insurance, but also in the field of non-financial unemployment cases. We therefore see this bill in conjunction with a number of initiatives announced by the Minister for Employment with regard to unemployed people who accept a job again. Finally, we would also like to pay attention to the situation of part-time workers. It is a good thing that this bill gives a proportionate advantage in relation to the number of hours worked. This is another proof of the efficiency of the parafiscal approach. Colleagues, this bill proves that this government is not only concerned about reducing the burden on employers, but that it also strives to make workers get better out of their work. Our group will therefore support this bill 100%.

The floor is yielded to Marie-Thérèse Coenen.

Mr. Speaker, the Ecolo-Agalev group finds this bill interesting and will support it. The difference between replacement income and labour income tended to decrease and this sometimes posed problems for reintegration into the labour market. Replacement income, like labor income, aims to guarantee a minimum of life dignity. There were two ways to raise the lowest wages: either through a reduction in social contributions or through taxation. This bill takes the option of reducing social contributions while avoiding imbalancing social security revenues. Second interesting element: not only full-time work is taken into account, but the current reality, i.e. both full-time work and part-time work. The reduction of the social burden is therefore proportional to the working time of each. We hope that this will give a boost in terms of insertion into the labour market of those whose income is at the boundary between replacement income and the basic salary, which has increased very little in recent years. We would like the Minister, as he promised us in the committee, to give indicators so that we can, for example, within a year, assess the impact of this measure, not only on the quality of life of workers, but also on employment plans and on the decline in unemployment.

Mr Hans Bonte has the word.

I would like to emphasize the importance of this bill. It is a first concrete decision on an old file, namely that of the unemployment cases. It probably best reflects what is meant by activating benefit providers and forming an active welfare state. This draft is indeed restoring the income incentive for those categories of beneficiaries who today are in fact unable to access vacancies. We can only welcome the design. About the technique - parafisical or fiscal - we have discussed for a long time. In the report you will find all the pros and cons. I am therefore sorry that Mrs. D'Hondt has left the hall. I would like to point out to her that in the previous legislature she defended the tax idea. For reasons of efficiency and efficiency, but also for practical reasons of feasibility, we were then in favor of the parafiscal impulse. However, I would like to point out to the Government that this draft implements one element of a parliamentary resolution that could count on a large majority in the previous legislature. At the same time, the attention was also drawn to a number of other problems in the context of unemployment cases. We find there a number of traces and suggestions back in the draft submitted by the government within the framework of the Employment Programme Act. Indeed, a number of very concrete interventions were included in the unemployment regulation, which should prevent people from becoming embedded in this benefit scheme and, on the contrary, find their way back to the labour market. The other parts of the parliamentary resolution should be taken into account. It should also have been taken into consideration for the part-time – mainly – female workers who receive benefits from the unemployment system and who today have no financial interest in performing more hours as this would only lead to a reduction in their additional benefit. The government will also have to respond to this. It is also necessary to provide a perspective for part-time workers who perform few hours, which leads to more work.