Put Leticia Lamb  – 21/04/2020

On April 2, 2020, Law 13,982 was published, establishing exceptional social protection measures to combat the pandemic caused by the coronavirus (Covid-19).

As an innovation, the aforementioned Law in its article 5 allows the deduction of the transfer of social security contributions for the first 15 (fifteen) days of absence of an employee infected by COVID-19, for this it is necessary that (i) the maximum limit of the contribution salary to the RGPS (General Social Security Regime) is observed and (ii) the absence is demonstrably due to contamination by coronavirus.

The Federal Government, through Guidance Note 2020.21 published on April 9, 2020, issued some guidelines for the deduction of social security contributions by companies in eSocial, which are: (i) the company must continue to record the amount corresponding to the first 15 (fifteen) days of absence in the usual heading and (ii) additionally, the employer must create a new information heading using the social security contribution incidence code = 51 (the same as family allowance) and the Heading Nature = 9933 (sickness benefit) and inform the amount of the heading (first fifteen days of absence due to Covid-19) up to the maximum limit of the contribution salary.

This way, there will be no taxation and the amount of this item will be sent to DCTFWeb (Declaração de Débitos e Créditos Tributários Federais Web) for deduction, together with other non-taxable social security contributions, if applicable. Thus, the Federal Revenue Service will distinguish the benefits according to the code in the item nature table.