Thousands of advisors want to collapse the Treasury, Social Security and SEPE with a historic protest

Business advisors from all over Spain, a group that includes more than 70,000 social graduates, lawyers, economists, accountants and administrative managers who help companies develop all their tax and labor procedures, are preparing to start this Thursday March 14 their mobilizations against the ‘abuses’ of electronic administration. They will do so with a historic protest that could mean a serious headache for Social Security, the Tax Agency and the SEPE.

These professionals, mostly independent workers who provide services to the self-employed and small businesses, report that since the outbreak of the pandemic these organizations have imposed an unaffordable workload on them and that on many occasions It forces them to carry out “unpaid” tasks that correspond to civil servants.

The key to the problem is that these advisors are considered by the administration as external “collaborators” who manage all their clients’ information on their behalf. This puts them on the front line of electronic procedures with the administration that for their clients They are extremely complex.

But since March 14, 2020, their situation has become unsustainable. That day it was declared State of Alarm due to the pandemic and started an uninterrupted flow of emergency measures to counteract the economic and labor effects of an unprecedented health crisis. For the advisors it was only the beginning of a bureaucratic ‘nightmare’ that continues to this day. A chaos in which they are exposed to sanctions if they cannot comply withwith deadlines that do not include holidaysweekends, holidays or the minimum right to digital disconnection.

Attack on bureaucracy

This is the first coordinated protest by these professionals. The method of protest chosen is also unprecedented and reveals a deep knowledge of the procedures and limits of electronic administration, which many of them They do not hesitate to describe it as “sloppy”. The idea is that between 8:00 and 11:00 a.m.advisors from all over Spain make a “massive and individual” shipment of a letter of appearance and memorandum with their complaints to the service channel of the RED System that Social Security uses for its electronic procedures, to the National Institute of Social Security (INSS), to the Tax Agency and to the SEPE.

In said letter, which will require an “acknowledgment of receipt” by each of these organizations, it is requested that ““in person” to the sender “in order to be able to resolve the necessary issues” to resolve their “petitions, requests and claims”, according to the drafts to which elEconomista.es has had access. If there was sufficient echo among all the digital ‘collaborators’ of the administrations, we would be talking about tens of thousands of writings in just three hours that administrations will have to attend in person and one by one.

These ‘memorandums’ will also be presented to the different professional associations to which each of the professionals belong, to business organizations of experts in labor relations, accountants, tax managers and others, as well as to the CEOE employers’ association. ANDThe objective is to achieve the maximum echo for your demands.

The strategy that will be followed next will depend on the success of this ‘demonstration of force’. Although they rule out calling strikes because they would harm their clients, one of the demands they want to convey is that their “right to strike“, so that the administrations cannot sanction them if they fail to comply with the deadlines decreed due to these mobilizations.

Escrivá’s ‘slaves’

Although the work to organize the mobilization began just a few weeks ago through social networks, its power of convocation is growing at full speed, in part because it reflects and expands the spirit of previous protests, such as the one undertaken a year ago by the graduates. that a year ago they accused the then Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, José Luis Escrivá, of treat them as “digital slaves”. Today, Escrivá occupies the position of Digital Transformation and Public Function, and is, therefore, the maximum political person responsible for the situation that the rest of the advisors now also denounce fiscal and labor.

Although the problems of electronic administration come from a long time ago before the arrival of Escrivá and Pedro Sánchez to the Government, The pandemic was what caused an unacceptable situation. From ERTEs to bonuses in contributions and reductions in benefits, the avalanche of procedures and procedures that far exceeded the capacities of organizations such as public employment services or Social Security offices. What’s more, youeverything had to be done remotely It posed an additional problem for companies, which found themselves with almost “incomprehensible” forms and countless computer errors.

In this exceptional and chaotic scenario, the role of advisors was key to supporting their clients, but also the administrations themselves with which they ‘collaborated’. Even though he supposed he had to consult the BOE at eleven at night or finding that the telematic systems notified them on a Sunday of the obligation to review all the information on a company’s workforce retroactively for a new bonus or tax aid.

The real problem came when the pandemic and the extraordinary measures began to subside; however, their workload remains. The tax and labor measures approved starting in 2021, from the creation of new taxes on companies to labor and pension reforms, together with their legislative developments, have placed these advisors in a situation in which they consider that ““They work more for the administrations than for their own clients.”

One of the most criticized cases is that of the latest increases in the SMI, which occurred months after the beginning of the year. This not only affects the lowest salaries, but also has an impact on the contribution bases and tax incentives for everyone else, forcing the payrolls of thousands of workers to be reviewed retroactively.

In recent weeks, furthermore, the efforts associated with employment plans introduced in the second phase of the pension reform. The advisors denounce the problems caused by the plan included in the construction agreement and warn of what will happen with the next one, the metal one.