The most important changes in HR and payroll for 2020 - employer's obligations
How much more do you have to pay your employees who have been working from 2020 at the lowest rates?
Until when should employees be granted overdue leave for 2019?
What is the leave rate regarding holiday compensation in 2020?
Until when should you provide the annual PIT statements for employees in an electronic version to the Tax Office?
What obligations and deadlines apply to employers at the turn of the year in the field of accident insurance, statistical reporting for the Central Statistical Office or regarding the establishment of the Company Social Benefits Fund?
In 2020, the minimum wage for work rose to a record high. It amounts to PLN 2600 gross, i.e. it increased by as much as PLN 350 y / y. Therefore, each employer who has signed a contract of employment with an employee in the amount of money should change the terms of remuneration, creating an agreement to this contract. If the employer specified the wage in the employment contract as "minimum wage" (without specifying the amount), then he should inform his employee (preferably in writing) about the updated amount of the minimum basic salary.
Increase of the minimum hourly wage on the contract of mandate
At the same time, with the increase in the minimum wage in 2020, the minimum rate per hour of commissioned work also increased - from January it amounts to PLN 17 gross. An hourly rate does not have to be included in the service contract or the mandate contract, as the payment may also be fixed in amount. However, the contractor or the service provider has the right to check before paying whether the received amount divided by the number of hours worked is not lower than the guaranteed minimum rate.
As the minimum wage changes, the associated indicators change, such as the basis of the night allowance, the change in deductions, or the change in the minimum allowance basis.
Overdue leave
With regard to employee leave, it should be remembered that the vacation leave should be granted to employees in the year in which they acquired rights to it. Hence, each employer should have granted the remaining leave until the end of 2019 to those employees who still had days off. If it was not possible, the outstanding leave is transferred to the next year - however, it should be used by the end of September 2020 at the latest.
On the other hand, leave on demand (4 days in each calendar year) is not transferred to the next year. If the employee has not taken the leave on demand, it carries over to the next year as regular leave.
All employees acquired the rights to the new amount of annual leave on the first day of January 2020. Such leave, depending on the length of service of each employee, may be 20 or 26 days in a given calendar year. Part-time employees have a proportionally calculated vacation to their working time, while people with a moderate or severe degree of disability are entitled to an additional 10 days off.
Overdue leave compensation
It happens that the employee has to be paid an equivalent for unused vacation leave - when, for example, the employer terminates the contract with him during the year or the contract expires spontaneously. Then, in order to correctly calculate the equivalent for unused vacation, it will be necessary to use the vacation factor. It depends on the number of days off and statutory holidays falling in a given calendar year - so it is usually calculated anew each year. In 2020, it is PLN 21.08. The annual leave factor applies only to full-time employees. Part-time employees apply the same coefficient, but reduced proportionally to their working time.
Leave plan for 2020
With properly conducted organization of work, companies use year-round holiday leave plans. It is worth remembering that leaves on demand should not be included in the vacation plan. The prepared vacation plan must be provided to employees in the form adopted by a given employer.
Work time schedule
According to the code definition of working time, it may not exceed 8 hours a day and an average of 40 hours in an average five-day working week, in the adopted settlement period not exceeding 4 months. In 2020, two holidays are held on Saturday: August 15 and December 26. This means that employers must designate other additional days off for employees to properly plan their working time schedules. Part-time employees have reduced working hours in proportion to the number of full-time hours.
Annual PIT-11 declaration
The provisions of the Personal Income Tax Act indicate that the employer is obliged to calculate and pay income tax advances for the employed employees.
Annual PIT-4R, PIT-8AR and PIT-11 declarations should be submitted in electronic form by January 31, 2020 to the tax office competent for the employer's seat.
However, by the end of February 2020, each employer hiring an employee under a contract of employment in the previous year, or a contractor under a civil law contract, must provide him with PIT-11. The exception to this rule is when the total amount of remuneration / receivables under a given contract does not exceed PLN 200 gross. Then employers are only required to pay the so-called flat-rate income tax - which is 17%, but they are not required to prepare a PIT-11 declaration.
Contribution to PFRON and declaration
The size of employment is the basic criterion for the obligation to make a contribution to the State Fund for the Rehabilitation of Disabled Persons. Employers who in a given month employ at least 25 people per full-time working time, and who have not achieved a specific employment rate of the number of disabled people in a given month, are required to make payments and submit monthly declarations by the 20th day of each month for the previous month. . The annual PFRON declaration for 2019 should be submitted by January 20, 2020.
Accident insurance
Until January 31, 2020, employers were required to submit the ZUS IWA declaration for 2019 to the Social Insurance Institution. The documentation should contain information on accidents at work and people employed in hazardous conditions. If a given employer submits a ZUS IWA declaration for the next 3 calendar years, then on the basis of such a document, the Social Insurance Institution will independently calculate the accident rate, which will apply from April 1, 2020 to March 31, 2021. Employers who did not submit the ZUS IWA declaration in the previous year, determine the accident rate themselves, based on belonging to a given group of economic activity (PKD classification).
Submitting the ZUS IWA declaration is not an obligation for all entrepreneurs. Such obligation is imposed on payers who have met all of the following conditions:
- were reported continuously with ZUS as payers of contributions for accident insurance from January 1 to December 31, 2019 and at least one day in January 2020,
- in 2019, they reported at least 10 insured persons for accident insurance,
- were entered in the REGON register on December 31, 2019.
Reporting for the Central Statistical Office
Employers are also obliged to submit annual information to the Central Statistical Office, including the following forms:
- Z-05 (labor demand study) - the form should be submitted by January 9, 2020,
- Z-06 a (report on employees, remuneration and working time) - this report should be prepared by entities that were required to submit quarterly reports in 2019 Z-03 - submitted by 18 January 2020,
- Z-06 b (report on employees, remuneration and working time) - this report should be prepared by units belonging to the enterprise sector and submitted by February 4, 2020,
- Z-10 (report on working conditions) - this form should be prepared and submitted by February 15, 2020.
Obligations regarding the Company Social Benefits Fund (ZFŚS)
The Company Social Benefit Fund is created from an annual basic allowance in the amount corresponding to the average number of employees. The basis for calculating the allowance is the average planned number of employees, corrected at the end of the year to the actual average number of employees. The employment status as of January 1 of a given calendar year determines whether the employer should establish a ZFŚS or not. In 2020, the fund had to be established by those employers who, as of January 1, 2020, employ at least 50 full-time employees. On the other hand, if the employer employs at least 20 but less than 50 full-time employees, he must establish a ZFŚS when a union organization submits an application to establish a fund. Other employers, i.e .:
- with less than 50 full-time equivalent employees on 1 January or
- employing at least 20 and less than 50 employees with whom the trade union organization has not applied for the creation of a fund,
they can voluntarily create a ZFŚS or pay holiday benefits. Employers employing at least 50 full-time equivalents, for whom trade unions do not operate or for which the operating trade unions do not demand the establishment of the Social Benefits Fund, may decide not to create a fund for a specified period or for an indefinite period, or decide to change the write-off ratio to a lower one, by making changes to internal regulations (collective labor agreement or remuneration regulations). However, the employer cannot do it arbitrarily.
As the above article shows, employers have a huge number of obligations towards various offices, therefore it is very easy to get lost in these obligations. However, I believe that the above information will be a useful hint.
Emilia Adamska
HR and payroll expert
TaxCoach
