EFKA: Returning Money to Thousands – Who Goes to ATMs?

Good news for many people who will get their money back…

A decision was made to return funds from EFKA to a very large number of beneficiaries.

Why and who will see their bank account grow in the coming period?

Who does EFKA return the money to?

New intervention from the Board of Grievances regarding the problems faced by insured persons in the former Unified Self-Employed Fund (ETAA) with the use of the electronic service “Return of insurance contributions paid without justification”.

This service, which was activated on April 10, 2023, aims to recover credit balances for supplementary insurance subscriptions and lump sums for the 2019-2020 salary periods.

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In particular, it was reported that insured persons are either excluded by definition from accessing the service or face difficulties due to the tax awareness requirement for refunds of amounts exceeding EUR 1,500, a requirement not provided for by the relevant social security and tax provisions. The independent authority stressed that the use of the legal basis by e-EFKA is incorrect, since the refund of contributions is not considered a “guarantee payment” or a “clearance of a transfer” that requires tax awareness.

It was also emphasized that the electronic approval for tax awareness control has no legal purpose, as it cannot be used for the central clearing of refunded contributions with tax debts. For this reason, a meeting was held with the General Directorate of Contributions at eEFKA where it was asked to stop demanding tax awareness and to give priority to depositing the refundable amounts into the beneficiaries’ accounts.

The intervention of the Board of Grievances led to the questioning of the Directorate of Employee Contributions before the State Legal Council, which in its opinion No. 63/2024 fully supported the observations of the independent body. The State Legal Council decided that tax awareness is not required to return the contributions unjustly paid to the insured in the previous ETAAA.

After all this, the e-EFKA management accepted the opinion and the tax awareness verification requirement was removed from the e-service, allowing thousands of beneficiaries to complete their requests to recover their contributions.