Reimbursement of health contributions in the KPiR - how to book?

The following article presents the issues: health insurance refund, obligation to pay health insurance premium. Entrepreneurs running a non-agricultural business are required to pay health insurance contributions. The basis for the assessment is the declared amount, not lower than 75% of the average monthly salary in the enterprise sector in the fourth quarter of the previous year.

Obligation to pay health insurance contributions

If the entrepreneur carries out several activities, then he has to pay health insurance premiums for each of them. Thus, when running a business in the form of a civil law partnership and running a sole proprietorship, the taxpayer must pay health insurance premiums for both.

Attention! The act on the social insurance system shows that if a given person conducts several types of economic activity, he is compulsorily covered by social insurance for one selected type of activity. So if, for example, a person conducting a sole proprietorship becomes a partner in a civil partnership, he or she may still be covered by insurance in the case of an individual activity or choose to be covered by insurance as a partner in a civil partnership.

When is there no obligation to pay health insurance contributions?

However, it should be noted that there are groups of people who are not required to pay health insurance. This applies primarily to persons running a business with an established right to a retirement pension or disability pension, who meet additional conditions jointly, i.e .:

• the retirement or disability benefit does not exceed the amount of the minimum wage, and also
• the monthly income from the conducted activity does not exceed 50% of the minimum retirement pension or disability pension, or the entrepreneur settles the income tax with the use of a tax card.

Moreover, entrepreneurs who have a certificate of moderate or severe disability have been exempted from paying the health insurance premium. Additionally, such persons should achieve income from activity not exceeding 50% of the minimum pension amount. The health insurance contribution is also not paid by an entrepreneur who settles in the form of a tax card.

Important! It should be emphasized that such persons, who are exempt from the obligation to pay health insurance contributions, are still covered by health insurance (although they do not pay the premium), and thus can benefit from public benefits.

Health insurance refund - how can I claim an overpayment?

There are sometimes cases in which self-employed entrepreneurs pay health insurance contributions, although they are not obliged to do so under the regulations. It is therefore important to consider how they can get their health insurance reimbursement. In such a situation, they should apply to ZUS for a refund of the overpayment at any time, provided that the 5-year limitation period has not yet expired. Otherwise, ZUS will not refund the overpayment. However, he will be able to count the overpayment towards future contributions. When the overpaid contributions are returned, ZUS will have 30 days from the date of submitting the application.

Reimbursement of health contributions - overpayment and PIT

Pursuant to Art. 45 sec. 3a of the PIT Act, if the taxpayer, when calculating the tax due, made deductions from the income, the basis for calculating the tax or tax, and then received a refund of the deducted amounts (in whole or in part) in a tax return submitted for the tax year in which he received a refund of health insurance contributions , he adds the amounts previously deducted accordingly.

When analyzing the above-mentioned provision, it is stated that the entrepreneur, after receiving previously paid and deducted health insurance contributions, will be obliged to add to the tax amounts unduly deducted and prove this addition in the tax return submitted for the tax year in which the health insurance premiums were refunded. So if the entrepreneur receives a refund of health contributions that are overpaid in several years, it does not mean that he has to submit corrections of tax and insurance declarations for the periods in which the contributions were overpaid.

This is also the position of tax authorities. For example, the Director of the Tax Chamber in Katowice in the individual ruling of August 26, 2015 (BPB-2-1 / 4511-185 / 15 / MD) stated:

“(...) in the event of receiving a refund of previously paid and deducted health insurance contributions, the taxpayer is obliged to add to the tax the amounts previously deducted and prove this addition in the tax return submitted for the tax year in which the premium was returned.

(...) overpaid health insurance contributions were returned, which the Applicant deducted from the tax paid in the form of a tax card in the period from 2005 to 2014. Therefore, if the overpaid health insurance contributions were refunded to the Applicant in 2015, the Applicant will be obliged to add to the tax for this year the amounts of the contributions (previously deducted). "