PHILIPSBURG, St. Maarten — Social & Health Insurances SZV has seen a slight increase in employers who are proactively requesting payment arrangements via the Employer Portal for their outstanding premium amounts.
This is good news; however not good enough, as most of these companies do not follow up with SZV to finalize the process. SZV continues to urge employers that compliance with the law and the payment of social security premiums is not optional. Company directors are personally liable for the payment of outstanding social & health insurance premiums.
SZV Director Glen A. Carty commented, “In every business sector on the island, there is a trend of scattered willingness to pay SZV premiums. An obligation we all have, which pays for our health care system. SZV will be tackling those employers who are withholding employee premiums, but not paying them to SZV.”
SZV and ATS have collaborated to carry out business compliance controls in recent months. The controls are in place to remind employers of their obligations to have an updated company and employee registry at SZV. In addition, wage audits and collection audits are conducted, and employers are obliged to provide SZV and ATS with the requested documentation. In many cases, companies fail to follow up with the agreements made during the controls, triggering escalated collection measures by SZV.
“Companies are getting more creative in the ways how they can avoid paying their fair share of social premiums. We know that there are ‘ghost’ companies being registered and different types of tax diversion is happening to evade the tax collection process. Company directors seem to be fearless about the consequences of not paying their outstanding premiums, forgetting they are personally liable and that SZV can enforce collection through different legal collection measures. SZV would rather not go the extra mile to collect these monies through, third-party attachments and auctions, but we will if we have to.” – SZV Director, Mr. Glen A. Carty
By law, SZV is authorized to enforce collection measures for outstanding social & health insurance premiums. In turn, employers are obligated, by law, to comply with SZV instructions for requested information. Enforced collection measures include; lien and public auction of moveable and immovable goods, third-party lien with the right to redress, lien on salary, a lien on bank accounts, lien on main contractors, and the director’s liability.
Employers are encouraged to access their SZV Employer Portal account to see if they have an outstanding and act right away either by executing a lumpsum payment or by requesting a payment arrangement via the Portal. Not following the instructions through the Portal after submission of a request, will result in collection measures being taken to enforce collection.
