There are almost 1.5 million self-employed workers who benefited in 2020 from the extraordinary benefit for cessation of activity during the pandemic. A measure that the Court of Auditors considers effective because it allowed the self-employed to maintain their employment, which was the main objective sought. However, criticism comes when examining the management of benefits, which is considered so inefficient as to demand that thousands of these workers, around 300,000, return 550 million euros received. Specifically, the court requests that the review procedure be initiated and that “when appropriate, the benefits unduly received be reimbursed.”
The average benefit paid during the period of validity of the average was 2,513 euros, to which 1,007 euros more were added as exemption from social contributions. In absolute numbers, an expense of 5.2 billion euros.
The audit report published today by the Court of Auditors points out three large groups of irregularities. On the one hand, it points to 125,000 beneficiaries who received a total of 119.5 million euros, despite not meeting required requirements, such as not being registered with Social Security or not being up to date with the payment of contributions. Also included are recipients with incidents in the procedure, management or control of the benefit, such as duplications and incompatibilities.
A second group is made up of 156,000 self-employed workers who received 386 million euros whose activity had an associated National Classification of Economic Activities (CNAE) code that was not on the indicative list of suspended activities.
Finally, there are 69,269 beneficiaries with a fee exemption of 41.6 million euros who incur non-compliance and incidents related to the management and control procedure of these exemptions.
With the available data, it is difficult to know the number of self-employed workers affected, because it is possible that some are included in more than one group. If this coincidence did not exist, the total number of people affected would be 350,000. The sum of the amounts received in procedures in which non-compliance or incidents have been detected reaches 547.1 million.
The origin of the problem for the court is that the regulation of the benefit was insufficient and in addition that up to seven modifications were introduced between 2020 and 2023. This is what has caused legal uncertainty and has favored dysfunctions and inefficiencies in management.