Poland: Automatic enrolment for retirement plans – employee capital plans came into force on 1 January 2019

January 3, 2019

The Employee Capital Plan (PPK), a long-term savings programme to give employees additional security in retirement, generally involves new obligations for employers. The programme, which came into force on 1 January 2019, will also incur additional costs that should be taken into consideration when planning budgets.

PPK was stablished in cooperation between the Polish government, the Polish Development Fund, employers’ organisations and trade unions, regulated by the Act of 4 October 2019.

The programme, targeted at over 11 million employees, automatically includes all employees between the ages of 18 to 54 who the employer currently pays pensions contributions to. It is financed predominantly by employers, employees and the state.

What action is required, and by when?

While the Act came into force on 1 January 2019, the obligation to create a PPK will be introduced gradually. This will be in four stages, depending on the number of eligible persons in a given unit:

The new system is universal. Alongside enrolling employees into PPK, employers are obligated to enrol:

This is provided that these persons are over 18 years of age, and are subject to mandatory retirement and disability insurance in the Republic of Poland in the above-mentioned respects.

In order to implement and operate PPK, the employer is obligated to conclude:

What penalties apply for non-compliance?

Pursuant to the Act, the employer’s failure to fulfil its statutory obligations (including a failure to create a PPK or inducing employees to opt out of saving in a PPK) constitutes an offence subject to a fine of up to PLN 1,000,000 (approximately EUR 25,000). Alternatively, some limited cases specified in the Act, an amount up to 1.5% of the given employing entity’s total payroll in the financial year preceding the commission of the offence.

Resources:

https://skslegal.pl/en/publikacje/pracownicze-plany-kapitalowe-podsumowanie/

http://prawo.sejm.gov.pl/isap.nsf/DocDetails.xsp?id=WDU20180002215

For further information or to discuss any of the issues raised, please contact Karolina Kanclerz (karolina.kanclerz@skslegal.pl) on +48 71 346 7705 at Sołtysiński Kawecki & Szlęzak – www.skslegal.pl.

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