ZUS:
From May 6 this year, facilities providing care for the youngest children may open. However, this is an option, not an obligation. It will be an individual decision of the founding authority, made in cooperation with district sanitary services, after analysing the epidemiological situation in the area and consulting parents.
– If the facility attended by a child is open but cannot provide care for all children, the parents of those children may still apply for the additional childcare allowance – explains Iwona Kowalska-Matis, ZUS regional press spokesperson in Lower Silesia. – Similarly, if, despite the facility being open, parents decide not to send their child there because of the state of the epidemic, they will still be entitled to the additional childcare allowance.
What documents are needed?
ZUS:
An employee or contractor submits a statement that they wish to take childcare leave directly to their contribution payer, such as their employer or contracting party. An employee working for a small company (up to 20 people) may also submit an application directly to ZUS, but this considerably extends the procedure, because we then ask the employer to send us form Z-3 if the person is employed under an employment contract, or Z-3a if it is a contract of mandate.
If the application is submitted directly to the employer, the employer sends it to ZUS immediately after attaching the appropriate form to the benefit application. Faster, simpler, with fewer procedures and less work for ZUS, the employee and the employer.
People conducting non-agricultural business activities and people cooperating with them submit the statement to ZUS. Application Z-15A and the contribution payer’s Z-3b certificate are not required.
More information, a statement template and completion instructions are available at: https://www.zus.pl/o-zus/aktualnosci/-/publisher/aktualnosc/1/zmiany-w-dodatkowym-zasilku-opiekunczym/2551095.
When is the allowance paid to parents?
I. Kowalska-Matis:
It depends on who pays the allowance. If the employee receives the money from their employer, the payment is certainly faster than in the case of self-employed people who submit such an application directly to ZUS.
Payment from ZUS does not happen automatically when an application reaches us – we check whether the applicant is covered by sickness insurance (because the payment comes from this fund), meaning that they either paid the contribution for March or submitted an application for exemption from contributions or for deferral of payment. Unfortunately, this takes time; I should add that by law the application is ALWAYS considered only after the period for which the allowance is requested has ended (and this was also the case previously, as nothing has changed here).
Unfortunately, a problem arises when neither a contribution nor any application, whether for deferral or exemption from paying the contribution, has reached ZUS. Let me remind you that under the regulations, an entrepreneur technically has until the end of June to do this, but in this situation it is better to act as soon as possible.
More information about the additional childcare allowance: https://www.zus.pl/o-zus/aktualnosci/-/publisher/aktualnosc/1/zmiany-w-dodatkowym-zasilku-opiekunczym/2551095.