Yes, Social Security contributions, although they are not presented to the general public as a tax, in practice, they work as such .
Therefore, they are totally mandatory and you cannot decide not to pay them. You have to pay both your own contributions and those of the workers you have in charge. Failure to do so exposes us to fines.
Do the self-employed pay more taxes than employees? This is a very common Belgium WhatsApp Number List question, too . The truth is that, with equal pay, the self-employed and workers paid by others pay more or less the same.

The difference is that the self-employed pay their taxes directly. That is to say, they do it themselves and they see how the money goes every month, every quarter and every year, something that the employed workers do not see. That is why it seems that the self-employed pay more. But, more or less, they pay the same.
What happens if I don't pay?
If you don't pay, nobody may notice . But, if they do find out, it is normal for them to demand the pending payment plus a surcharge .
In the event that you continue without paying, successive surcharges will be applied to you. If you continue without paying, your accounts will be seized and both what they demanded and the surcharges will be charged directly. And if, even so, it was not possible to collect it, you would have a debt with Social Security that, ultimately, could even lead to prison.
Does Social Security make sense?
Finally, we have the question of whether it makes sense for Social Security to exist . After all, if there is no direct consideration between what we pay and what we receive... Wouldn't it make more sense to pay taxes and that's it?
And the answer is yes. That would be logical. But it is necessary to maintain the appearance that the system is fair and that it works by itself outside of the General State Budget.
And we're done with this. As you will surely have noticed, Social Security is a somewhat complicated entity, which has many powers and its role has changed over time. That is why it is not surprising that people confuse what its role is, how it is financed and what it can do for us.
In any case, we hope that this brief article has helped you to clarify a bit of doubts about Social Security that you may have.
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