The Foment del Treball employer’s association yesterday criticized the new solidarity fee that workers and companies will pay for the part of the salary exempt from contributions starting in 2025. The measure approved last year was developed normatively in the BOE (Official State Gazette) from last Holy Thursday.
The measure involves the payment of between 0.92% and 1.17% of the part of the salary that exceeds the 56,600 euros that were exempt from contributions as of 2025. These quotas will be progressively increased each year until in 2045 they will be between 5.5% and 7%. This extra contribution over the current situation will be borne by the company (83%) and by the worker themselves (remaining 17%). The objective of the so-called contribution cap is to finance pensions.
From Foment, chaired by Josep Sánchez Llibre, they demand that the administrations take “measures to facilitate hiring and maintaining employment” and regret that “workers and employers are punished.” According to the employers’ association, the solidarity fee “will require an extra contribution to the system that will grow exponentially and represents a de facto tax on hiring and maintaining employment.” The new rate was announced by the then Minister of Social Security, José Luis Escrivá, in March of last year as part of the general reform of the pension system, which included other regulatory changes.
The employers’ association yesterday cited data from the latest Indicator on the situation of SMEs published by Cepyme, which shows that labor costs grew by 5.3% last year. Since the fourth quarter of 2021, these types of social costs have skyrocketed above 11% for the smallest companies and 10% for medium ones, as can be seen from the ministerial order that has approved the new contribution bases for this year, published in the BOE last Thursday to adapt it to the latest increase in the interprofessional minimum wage (SMI), of 5%. The order places the maximum base for any professional category and contribution group at 4,729.50 euros per month or 205.24 euros per day, 5% more than in 2023, Foment calculates. The minimum base also increases, set at 1,323 euros per month.
In a statement, Foment considers that “the central government, after the Ministry of Finance announces a record collection that reduces the fiscal deficit, would have to promote measures that do not affect either employees or businessmen.” In the opinion of Catalan businessmen, the solidarity fee is an added detriment to the non-deflation of personal income tax. The employers’ association proposes “reducing the administration’s current spending, which is already unsustainable.”
