The Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration has put on the table a new proposal to facilitate the transfer of thousands of lawyers and attorneys from mutual societies to the public contribution system. Sources from the portfolio headed by Elma Saiz have made public this Friday the lines of the gateway that will channel the passage of mutual members to the Special Regime for Self-Employed Workers (RETA) through the rescue of the contributions made during their professional careers that will become exchanged for years of contributions to the public system with the minimum base.
The socialist had already announced a little over a month ago in the Senate that they were developing a model so that all those who had joined the mutual benefit model before 1996 – when they were given the option of moving to RETA – but in The new draft extends the framework until 2005, since it was in this year that the change occurred from the collective capitalization system to an individual one, which has significantly influenced the pension that these professionals receive once they end their professional career. national . The text does not indicate a specific year, given that union mutual societies will be regulated in general, but this is the majority.
In the nineties, the majority of self-employed workers in this sector decided to stay in the previous system, convinced that they would receive higher pensions in the future, but after the change in the capitalization system it has led them to retire with pensions of less than 5,00 euros. . that are not revalued with the CPI. The current regulation allowed professionals to go from the mutual insurance company to the public RETA system; they had to start contributing ‘from zero’, so they were forced to delay their access to retirement to reach a minimum amount.
The two systems were compatible since 2004 thanks to a ruling by the Supreme Court, since previously professionals were obliged to renounce that capital – which could only be recovered at the time of retirement. Therefore, the sector has carried out intense mobilizations in the last year to which the Ministry of Social Security now responds with a new draft in which it proposes that the public system become mandatory in 2027 for all new registered professionals. That is, eliminate the option of alternative coverage with the mutual insurance company except in cases in which the self-employed professional has multiple activities, an exception that was not included in the first proposal.
The Government also proposes that contributions to the alternative mutual society be progressively equated with contributions to the RETA, that is, instead of being 80% of the minimum contribution base, this grows to 100% in order to guarantee the adequacy of mutual benefits. Something that representatives of the sector such as the Mutual Association of Lawyers had agreed with, who on the contrary reject the mandatory contribution to the public system. Saiz’s department says it has prepared the document after “months of weeks of listening and analysis” with the aim of improving the protection of this group.
