A pensioner will have to return 7,630.19 euros to the National Social Security Institute after it was discovered that the regulatory basis for his total permanent disability pension was calculated using false contributions. Although the affected person tried to get rid of the payment by alleging that the debt had expired due to the passage of time, the Supreme Court explains and confirms that Social Security acted within the legal period.
As the ruling explains, when this man was granted a total permanent disability pension in 2012 (which allows him to be compatible with another job), for which contributions from previous years are taken into account. After a while, Social Security did a review and discovered that the man was contributing to two associations without providing services.”
After it was discovered that the job registrations were simulated and there was no real job, Social Security annulled those periods and requested that it return the amounts improperly collected, the total amount of which was 7,630.19 euros.
Not only that, but he also saw how the amount was reduced, since by not taking those contributions into account, it could not be taken into account, so the pension fell from the initial 1,662.54 euros to 1,458.40 euros per month when those gaps were filled with the minimum contribution bases in force at that time.
Fraud in labor contributions
The man was not satisfied and decided to go to court alleging that Social Security had arrived late to demand the money back, that is, that the debt had expired. Article 55 of the General Law of Social Security (I consulted in this BOE) clearly establishes that the obligation to repay the amount of benefits received unduly expires after four years. The pensioner defended in his appeal that this time had already elapsed since he was granted disability in 2012.
Despite this, justice does not agree with him and the Supreme Court supports the criterion previously adopted by the Superior Court of Justice of Andalusia and explains that the four-year period did not begin to count when the original disability resolution was issued in 2012. The time legally started on August 9, 2018, which is the exact date on which Social Security received an official letter communicating the discharge periods canceled to the worker by the Treasury.
As the lawsuit to claim the debt was filed on June 6, 2019, the agency’s legal action was fully in force and far from statute of limitations. In this way, the High Court declares the inadmissibility of the co-defendant’s appeal and confirms that workers and other people who have improperly received benefits are obliged to return their amount to the public treasury to restore the economic damage caused to the system.