One of the basic obligations of employers who employ workers in Turkey in terms of Turkish Social Security Law is the payment of social security premiums of the insured employees. In Turkey, social insurance premiums are monitored and collected by the Social Security Institution, as the governing authority of the public social insurance and pensions system of the country.
Employers who employ insured people who are within the scope of subparagraph (a) of the first paragraph of the Article 4 of the Social Insurance and General Health Insurance Code No. 5510, deduct the premium amounts of the insured share, which will be calculated based on the premium-based earnings of the insured employees they employ within a month, from the wages of the insured, and collect the premium amounts corresponding to their own share. The employer must add these amounts and pay to the Social Security Institution by the end of the following month/period at the latest.
If the last day of the payment period falls on a public holiday or a weekend, the premium amounts must be paid to the Institution at the latest within the first business day following the end of the public holiday.
Delay Penalty and Delay Increase in Premium Debts
If the premiums and other receivables of the Social Security Institution are not paid within the due date and in full, the unpaid portion is increased by applying a 3% delay penalty for each month in the first three months from the date of expiry of the period.
Since the rate of this penalty, called “delay penalty”, is determined as 2%, effective from the beginning of the month following 28/4/2010, by the Article 1 of the Decision Annexed to the Council of Ministers Decision No. 2010/260 dated 1/3/2010, the rate is currently being applied as 2%. This has to be noted that, the President of Republic of Turkey is authorised to decrease this rate to 1% and to increase it to 6%.
In addition, late payment interest is calculated by applying the monthly average interest of the State Domestic Borrowing Securities issued at a discount in Turkish Liras for the previous month, which will be announced separately for each month by the Undersecretariat of Treasury, to these amounts for each month, on a compound basis, starting from the date of the end of the payment period until the debt is paid.
