Area: Finance
Competent authority: MF, MJU, MZ, ZZZS
EZU URL: .nan
Initiative ID: 1042
Initiative accepted and completed: '2020-06-23'
Initiative classified in EZU: .nan
Initiative forwarded in response: '2020-06-10'
Initiative published: '2020-06-10'
Initiative submitted: '2020-06-09'
Response from the competent authority: 'Reply from the Ministry of Finance:With regard
  to your petition concerning the difficulties in submitting monthly claims for reimbursement
  of sickness absence allowances, namely the rejection of claims due to an inadequate
  basis for the worker, you state that when establishing the basis for reimbursement,
  you do not receive comprehensive information from the workers at the time of recruitment
  (whether they do not have it, do not know where to obtain it, only bring it from
  their last employer, were self-employed, etc.). An incorrect basis means that the
  claim is rejected and the reimbursement received is delayed. When establishing the
  basis, you will be informed by the clerks of the Health Insurance Institute of Slovenia
  (hereinafter: ZZZS) that they have the amount of the basis, but that they are not
  entitled to tell you. In some cases, ZZZS also does not have complete information.
  In view of all the above, you suggest that, in the above procedures, appropriate
  communication between the public services should be established and that the employer
  should be provided with the relevant base for the employee for whom a claim is being
  made (this could be part of the submission of a claim on e-VEM).With regard to the
  initiative to establish appropriate communication between the public services and
  the employer to whom the appropriate basis for the employee for whom a claim for
  reimbursement of wage compensation for sickness absence is to be submitted, the
  Ministry of Finance explains:The Tax Procedure Act (Official Gazette of the Republic
  of Slovenia, No. 13/11 - Official consolidated text, 32/12, 94/12, 101/13 - ZDavNepr,
  111/13, 22/14 - Decree of the European Parliament and of the Council, 25/14 - ZFU,
  40/14 - ZIN-B, 90/14, 91/15, 63/16, 69/17, 13/18 - ZJF-H, 36/19 and 66/19; hereinafter
  referred to as: ZDavP-2) in 15. Article 15 provides that the tax authority must
  protect as confidential the information provided by the taxpayer to the tax authority
  in the tax proceedings and other information in the tax authority''s possession
  relating to the tax liability of taxpayers. The tax authority may disclose information
  that is tax secret to third parties on the basis of the written consent of the taxpayer
  or if so provided for by this Act.The Financial Administration of the Republic of
  Slovenia (hereinafter referred to as the "FURS") may disclose certain information
  about an individual taxpayer to authorised third parties under the conditions provided
  for by law. The tax authority may disclose individual data (including, for example,
  data on the payment of social security contributions) only in the cases, under the
  conditions and in the manner defined in Article 19 ZDavTP-2. The issuance of disclosures
  to eligible (third) parties and the definition of eligible persons for disclosure
  of data are defined in more detail in Articles 18 to 25 of the ITA-2. With regard
  to eligible persons, the ITA-2 does not provide that an employer may obtain from
  the tax authority information on wages paid and the contribution base of other (previous)
  employers in respect of its employees.In cases where the employer requests from
  the ZZZS the reimbursement of wage compensation, the calculation of which is based
  on data from previous periods, and the employer proves that it was not possible
  to obtain this data from the employee or from the former employer, the ZZZS may
  provide the employer with this data. 2016, on the basis of Article 9(4) of the Personal
  Data Protection Act (Official Journal of the RS, no. 94/07 - official consolidated
  text; hereinafter: ZVOP-1)), the ZZZS shall communicate to the current employer
  the information on the correct basis for the calculation of the wage allowance charged
  to the health insurance, namely the total of all remunerations (not by individual
  payers) in cases where the current employer claims from the ZZZS the reimbursement
  of the wage allowance, the calculation of which is based on data from previous periods,
  which are available only to the former employer or the FURS. In any event, in the
  opinion of the Information Commissioner of the RS, Article 9(4) ZVOP-1 cannot constitute
  a legal basis for allowing direct, automatic electronic access to such personal
  data by the employer through ZZZS or FURS.Reply from the Health Insurance Institute
  of Slovenia:With regard to the proposal, we would like to point out that the Health
  Insurance Institute of Slovenia (hereinafter ZZZS) does not have access to the FURS
  data on payments before submitting a claim for reimbursement, as it has no legal
  basis for access to this information, which is a tax secret. Thus, ZZZS cannot enable
  the checking of the basis itself already at the time of the preparation of the claim
  on the SPOT portal.ZZZS only later, after the submission of the claim for reimbursement,
  in the process of checking the correctness of the billing data, obtains the data
  on the payments in a specific period for a specific insured person from FURS, but
  it is not entitled to automatically transmit this data to the employer either. According
  to the existing legislation, the employer must obtain the information on the basis
  from the insured person, which the employer obtains from the previous employer or
  from the FURS (e.g. income tax decision, other certificates). On the basis of the
  opinion of the Information Commissioner, the ZZZS may only do so in individual cases
  where it is necessary (if the employer is not able to obtain the information in
  any way and also duly proves it with evidence - e.g. However, not separately by
  individual payers, otherwise the provision of the above information by ZZZS to employers
  is not allowed under the applicable legislation.[1] A few years ago, the Regulation
  on Forms and Documents for the Implementation of Compulsory Health Insurance provided
  that the employer had to issue a completed form ER-28 to the employee upon termination
  of employment. Nowadays, the Regulations no longer provide for this obligation,
  but in practice this practice has been maintained, and many employers issue a completed
  form Report of Absence and Personal Income, which has replaced the ER-28, to the
  employee on termination of the employment relationship. It contains information
  on gross salary and hours worked, and is necessary for the calculation of the sickness
  benefit in the event of sickness absence of more than 30 days, where the data of
  the previous year are taken into account. The worker may also subsequently request
  this information from his former employer.'
Text file: 1042.txt
Title: Claims for reimbursement of sick pay - establishing the basis
URL: https://www.stopbirokraciji.gov.si/pobuda/?st=1042
