There are more than 31,000 self-employed workers who are receiving letters from their mutual insurance companies demanding the return of aid granted for cessation of activity during the pandemic. They represent 12% of the total of 261,000 files that were opened due to non-compliance with the conditions established to qualify for these subsidies that allowed self-employed workers to maintain their employment in those critical months.

A large part of these files could be corrected because with the allegations or the provision of additional documentation the case was closed and the original aid accepted. However, in the end there was a percentage of 12% of self-employed people who will have to return all or part of the aid granted for not meeting the required conditions, as indicated by sources close to Social Security.

The case begins in 2020, when measures had to be improvised to protect the self-employed, such as extraordinary benefits that included exemptions from Social Security contributions. They were measures that had to be deployed quickly and that helped a total of 1.5 million self-employed workers, no less than 44% of affiliates.

At that time, the mutual societies provisionally recognized these aid requests based on a simple responsible declaration presented in each case by the interested parties and a verification of the requirements that could be carried out at that time. Subsequently, the review of these cases came, with a forceful report from the Court of Auditors in December in which, although it recognized that the implementation of the measure was “effective”, it also described the management as “inefficient” because numerous incidents were observed. and inefficiencies.

Since September of last year, Social Security has been carrying out a review of the files, a task that has been developed in recent months until practically concluding with the identification of the 31,000 cases in which the refund of benefits is claimed. aid. There are still some files to be examined, but the sources consulted indicate that they are a small number that will not significantly change the total. These aid are part of the first core of benefits that were approved for the self-employed during the pandemic, those included in Royal Decree Law 8/2020, which came into force in March of that year.

In its December report, the Court of Auditors identified three large groups of incidents that amounted to a total amount of 550 million euros, and requested that the review process be initiated and that “when appropriate, benefits be reimbursed unduly.” received.” This is what Social Security is now doing. The court established three large groups of incidents. On the one hand, 125,000 beneficiaries who did not meet the requirements, such as not being registered with Social Security or not being up to date with the payment of contributions. A second group was made up of 156,000 self-employed workers whose activity had an associated CNAE code that was not included in the list of suspended activities. And finally, it detected 69,000 beneficiaries with incidents in the management of fee exemptions.

Given that there may be self-employed workers who are included in more than one group, the report did not allow us to calculate the exact number of people affected by the incidents.