WITH the Sostegni-bis Decree (Legislative Decree no.73 / 2021), the income of last resort can also be paid to freelancers with disabilities who have suffered damage from the coronavirus pandemic and who had so far been excluded from this economic providence. Below we publish the letter from FAVO – Italian Federation of Voluntary Associations in Oncology.
“The Income of last resort (also called Bonus 600 Euro) was introduced in March 2020 by the ‘Cura Italia’ Decree (Article 44 of Legislative Decree no. 18/2020, implemented by the Ministerial Decree of March 28, 2020 and May 29, 2020) and by the ‘August’ Decree (DL n.104 / 2020) to financially support self-employed workers and freelancers in difficulty – because they are forced to reduce, suspend or cease their activity due to the COVID-19 emergency – in two accruals from € 600.00 each for the months of March and April 2020 and a further payment of € 1,000.00 for May 2020. However, disabled professionals were excluded from these allowances, due to the accumulation with the invalidity pension pension – which concurs and does not replace self-employment income. Immediately, the unacceptable discrimination against workers with disabilities was contested by FAVO together with FISH, AIL, FAND and UNIAMO – Federation of rare diseases, with a letter to the Conte government, so that sse the rule in order to recognize the Bonus to all self-employed workers and freelancers who have suffered economic damage from Coronavirus, without excluding those with disabilities and therefore in conditions of greater fragility.
More precisely, on the basis of the first legislation in force in March 2020, healthy workers and those who received the civil invalidity allowance of a welfare nature provided by INPS could access the Bonus, but not workers (always in a condition of disability) enrolled in the separate INPS management or in the social security funds, as holders of an ordinary ‘check’ or ‘pension’ of social security type invalidity, to which they are entitled by virtue of the contributions paid and a condition of serious disability compatible with the continuation of work.
In May 2020, thanks to the pressing action of cancer patients’ organizations together with those of rare patients and the disabled, the unjust exclusion was only partially corrected, since in the conversion of the first decree the compatibility of income was foreseen of ‘last resort’ with ‘the ordinary disability allowance referred to in the law of 12 June 1984, no. 222ì which are owned, among disabled freelancers, those enrolled in the separate INPS management, leaving out those enrolled in the social security funds. In this way, the discrimination between healthy self-employed persons, admitted to the Bonus, and disabled, excluded, had turned into an even more absurd discrimination between disabled professionals who are INPS taxpayers, admitted to the Bonus as healthy people, and disabled freelancers enrolled in the social security funds. , to which the Bonus continued to be denied due to the different name ‘pension’ rather than ‘check’ of the social security benefit provided by the ordinistic funds, even though it was an economic providence for invalidity entirely similar to that provided for by Law 2222/1984.
It took more than a year to remedy an absurd and obviously unconstitutional situation that had created a clear and unacceptable form of discrimination among disabled self-employed workers, almost without social safety nets, some of whom had been denied economic support. recognized to their healthy colleagues. The corrective provision contained in Article 37 of the ‘Sostegni-bis’ Decree equates the benefits provided, for the same purpose, by the social security institutions to which the freelancers.
The clarification therefore involves the extension of the ‘Income of last resort’ (so-called Bonus 600 Euro) to persons with disabilities, hitherto excluded from the audience of beneficiaries who must submit a specific application to their respective pension funds by 31 July 2021, in order to obtain the tranches of € 600.00 in March and April 2020 and € 1,000.00 in May 2020. The indemnity is recognized to those who:
– have received, in the 2018 tax period, a total income not exceeding 35,000 euros and declare that they have suffered a limitation of activity due to the restrictive measures issued as a result of the COVID-19 emergency;
– as well as to those who have received, in the year 2018, a total income between 35,000 and 50,000 euros, but have also found an income reduction of at least 33% in the first quarter of 2020, compared to the same period of 2019 or alternatively have closed the VAT number in the period between 23 February 2020 and 31 March 2020 (term extended to 30 April 2020 and 31 May 2020 for the allowances for the months of April and May 2020 respectively) “.
.