Special tax regime for seasonal agricultural workers
The Rural Support Service (RSS) and the State Revenue Service (SRS) remind that the farmers employing agricultural workers in works of seasonal nature from 1 April to 30 November can pay 15% personal income tax on the wages of these workers, but not less than 0,70 euro per day of employment.
For registration of seasonal agricultural workers, the employers must use the RSS Electronic Application System (EAS) (the mentioned workers don’t have to be registered additionally with the SRS), registering the income gain date, the form of concluded contracts and the remuneration for work calculated for seasonal agricultural workers. The EPS provides farmers (employers) with a possibility to obtain all data entered during the month in an aggregated form and the calculated amount of tax, in order to submit them to the SRS in a standardized form once a month.
For the farmer to be able to apply the preferential tax regime to their seasonal workers, the farmer must meet the following conditions:
- the farmer owns, permanently uses or leases agricultural land used to grow fruit trees, berry bushed or vegetables;
- in 2021, the farmer has applied the land for the single area payment, following the procedure for granting the state and European Union aid to agriculture within the framework of direct support schemes;
- the farmer is not a micro enterprise tax payer.
In turn, in order to be able to apply 15% personal income tax rate to a seasonal agricultural worker’s income, the worker must meet the following three conditions:
- the person is employed in agricultural seasonal works for no more than 65 calendar days with one or more farmers in total;
- the person’s income gained from one or more farmers in total does not exceed 3000 euro;
- the person has not had an employment relationship or a contractor’s agreement concluded with the farmer during the four months prior to the start of the agricultural seasonal works for the benefit of the same farmer.
In case where a seasonal agricultural worker is employed in the same farm for 65 consecutive calendar days and his monthly income exceeds 3000 euro, such worker must be registered with the State Revenue Service as an employee, and thereafter the personal income tax and the mandatory state social insurance payments must be paid in full from his or her income.
Information source: Ministry of Finance, Rural Support Service