Failure to pay social security withholdings: appeal against injunction orders
The legislative decree 15 January 2016, n. 8, bearing “Provisions on decriminalization, pursuant to Article 2, paragraph 2, of the law of 28 April 2014, n. 67 “, which entered into force on February 6, 2016, decreed the decriminalization of numerous offenses relating to work and compulsory social security, providing for their transformation into administrative offenses.
Among the offenses affected by the regulatory intervention is that of failure to pay the social security withholdings made by the employer referred to in Article 2, paragraph 1-bis, of the decree-law 12 September 1983, n. 463, converted, with modifications, by the law 11 November 1983, n. 638, which was replaced by Article 3, paragraph 6, of Legislative Decree no. 8/2016.
The new regulatory framework, therefore, has partially decriminalized the crime in question, introducing two different types of sanctions linked to the amount of the omission. As a result of this legislative intervention, the penal sanction of imprisonment up to three years, together with the fine of up to € 1,032, applies only to the omitted payments of an amount exceeding € 10,000 per year, while if the omitted amount is below the aforementioned threshold a pecuniary administrative sanction from € 10,000 to € 50,000 is applied.
It follows that, in the event that the employer omits the payment of the sums due by way of social security withholdings for even very low amounts (for example € .1,000.00 or even lower), the minimum applicable penalty will be €. 10,000.00 and will be imposed by injunction order.
The firm has analyzed the issue and, through the lawyer Andrea Loro, has studied the principles and the most recent jurisprudence in depth in order to develop effective protection tools for the company and the entrepreneur, by challenging the aforementioned injunction orders.
