It is now a well-known news that China’s new social security fee-charging rule will be in effect on Jan 1st, 2019. The newly launched rule stipulates that all social security fees, including 

• pension insurance, 

• medical insurance, 

• unemployment insurance, 

• work injury insurance

• maternity insurance, will uniformly be charged by the tax department. 

众所周知，中国将在2019年1月1日开始 实行新的社会保险费征收规则。新规则主要改革部分的内容是将将基本养老保险费、基本医疗保险费、失业保险费等各项社会保险费交由税务部门统一征收。

To Check Your Social Security In The Strictest Era!最严征管时代,社保查漏补缺

© Image | 中国政府网

Dirty Tricks 

社保猫腻

Enterprises have the legal responsibilities to pay social security for their employees, However, many companies in China refuse to do their due parts and they even brazenly play dirty tricks on the social security issue. Following are the three most commonly seen dirty methods: 

企业为员工购买社保本是企业应尽的法律责任。但中国有很多企业通过种种手段在员工社保的问题上耍猫腻，下面是这些企业主要采取的三种手段：

© Image | Google

• Some companies declaredly refuse to pay social security fees, they attach so much attention to exploring profit-making strategies but the least to their employees’ legal rights. 

  直接不为员工购买社保，置员工的合法权益于不顾。

• Some companies seemingly have honored their promises to pay social security fees for their employees, however, they don’t pay full social security fees according to employees’ monthly salaries. 

  不根据员工的实际工资进行足额社保购买。

• Still, others craftily require employees to sign agreements which literally announce that employees willingly abandon their legal rights to enjoy the full social security. Actually,  agreements like that are invalid according to the related legal rules. 

  和员工签订自动放弃社保购买的协定。亦属违法行为。

Worries arise

恐慌何来？

The new rule is ready to go ahead. Late last month, many companies received a notification from local tax bureau that if they had not pay social security fees or had not pay the full social security fees for employees, they later should immediately make their wrongdoings right. 

That quickly aroused mountains of worries from companies. Technically, their worries come directly from the fee-recharging will greatly burden themselves because of the new social security fee-charging rule is about to carry out. 

Message sent by the TAX bureau

 

新规箭在弦上。而就在上个月下旬，很多企业收到了税务局的通知，要求他们要求补缴社保差额或者为员工补买社保。这引起很多企业的恐慌。他们的恐慌主要来自于，为员工补缴社保费用或者为员工购买社保将增加企业的负担。

Premier says 

总理发话

To ease the worries caused by the about-to-launch new rule and pacify anxious entrepreneurs, Chinese premier stressed on the executive meeting of the State Council, held on Sept 18th, that new burdens should not be further added to companies before the actual implementation of the new rule. 

针对很多企业对社保新规惶惶终日的现象，总理在9月18日的会议上特别强调不增加企业负担的总原则。

© Image | Google

Following are the premier’s five requirements

总理要求

• Local social security fee-charging rules should remain unchanged before the new rule in effect. 

  在社保征收机构改革到位前，各地要一律保持现有征收政策不变。

• Grassroots social security fee-levying departments are not allowed to arbitrarily adjust fee-levying rules or take one-stroke fee-charging measures. 

  绝不允许自行调整和集中清缴。

• Higher-level social security fee-levying departments should dispatch staffs to supervise the works of subordinate departments. 

  有关部门要派出督查人员督查地方工作。

• Any improper enforcement will be severely punished. 

  发现此类问题要坚决予以纠正，对有令不行、有禁不止等行为要严肃处理。

• The issue of reducing social security ratio should put on research schedule. The reduction of social security ratio will ease both employers and employees’ burdens.

  要求有关部门要抓紧研究社保征收机构改革到位后社保费率降低等问题。

Significance of reform

改革意义

The full implementation of the newly revised social security fee-levying rule has following three significance. 

新规的实行意义重大，主要如下：

© Image | Google

 

• Fee-levying management and efficiency will be improved, costs will be further lowered and service will be optimized. 

  有利于规范征缴管理，提高征缴效率，降低征收成本，优化缴费服务。

• To explore the new possibilities of deepening the reform in social security system.

  有利于进一步深化社会保险制度改革。

• To further stimulate the market players’ vitality. 

  有利于进一步激发市场主体活力。

Editor’s note 

编者按

After the actual implementation of the new social security rule, there may emerge the biggest change, that is the social security ratio will drop. However, China’s supervision of social security will not be relaxed. 

在社保征收机构改革到位后，各地的社保政策极可能有所改变，其中极有可能的改变是降低社保费率，但不会放松社保监管工作。

© Image | Google

The phase Ⅲ golden tax project is powerful enough to match social security declaration information with individual income tax (IIT) information, making it much easier for the supervision on social security. 

毕竟金税三期系统非常强大，能够把社保申报信息和个税申报信息对碰匹配，使得社保监管工作变得不再困难。

Thus, even the tax bureau takes no actions to recharge companies unpaid social security fees, the supervision over social security will gradually be put on schedule.

因此，即使2019年之后不对企业历史欠费进行集中清缴，社保监管工作也会慢慢提上日程。