The President of Ukraine has signed Law “On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine Concerning Ensuring Equal Opportunities for Mothers and Fathers in Child Care” No. 1401-ІХ, which was adopted by the Verkhovna Rada on April 15, 2021.
The document is designed to provide equal opportunities for men and women to reconcile work with family responsibilities. In particular, legislative gaps restricting the right of a parent to children leave are eliminated.
Previously, such leave was granted to the child’s father, grandmother, grandfather or other relatives who actually care for the child, on the basis of a certificate from the place of work or education of the mother that she has returned to work before the expiration of her leave.
Thus, a discriminatory approach was established, according to which the right of a father or other relatives to children leave was derived from the mother’s right, ie only the mother could delegate the right to have a leave to others. Because of this, in cases where the child’s mother is, for example, a self-employed person or sole proprietor, the father also could not have childcare leave.
The law, signed by the Head of State, introduces a new type of leave – a one-time leave at the birth of a child lasting up to 14 calendar days, paid for by the employer.
Such leave will be granted to one person: the husband whose wife has given birth to a child; the child’s father, if he is not married to the child’s mother, but lives together; grandparents or other adult relatives of the child who actually cares for them.
The law also defines children leave until the child reaches the age of three as an equal right of each parent.
It also establishes the right of employees of both sexes who have children or an adult child with a childhood disability from subgroup A of group I, to additional leave.
This law will create the preconditions for strengthening the role of the father in the upbringing of children and the development of responsible parenthood in Ukraine.
The State Tax Service of Ukraine has explained the positive changes introduced by the consolidated reporting on personal income tax (hereinafter – PIT) and the single social contribution (hereinafter – SSC).
In compliance with the law, the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine approved a new form of tax calculation of amounts of income accrued (paid) in favor of taxpayers – individuals, and the amounts of tax withheld from them, as well as the amount of accrued single contribution (hereinafter – Calculation) and the Procedure for its filling in. The new form came into force on April 1, 2021.
The Calculation combines the usual developments in reporting from a single contribution on the form D4 and form No. 1DF, and in some cases simplifies the reporting process.
For example, in case of an error in relation to the insured person in the reporting form D4 before the deadline for submission to the insurer, it was necessary to completely re-form such a report for all insured persons. Instead, in the Calculation in a similar situation, a clear and familiar to tax agents procedure for correcting an error is used – outputting erroneous records/entering correct records.
That is, there is a unification of approaches to displaying information where the specifics of the data that are recorded in the register of insured persons of the State Register of Compulsory State Social Insurance and the State Register of Individuals – Taxpayers.
Therefore, in case of an error in relation to one or more insured persons before the deadline for submission, it is sufficient to form a calculation with the type “Reporting new”, filling in the necessary details, which are listed in section V of the Procedure, and in those annexes where adjustments need to be made exclude/include records directly in respect of those insured persons in respect of whom an error was made.
After the deadline for submission, the algorithm for making adjustments in case of correction of the details of the insured persons (TIN, name, etc.) will be identical as for the calculation with the type “Reporting new”.
This algorithm will differ only if you need to adjust the totals. Then the usual procedure for single contribution payers is applied to apply the appropriate types of charges. In the case of entering in the Calculation with the type “Clarifying” the missed record, a combination of methods is used, ie the inclusion of the missed record with the simultaneous indication of the required type of charges.
It should be reminded that the deadline for submitting the consolidated report expires on May 11.
The State Labor Service of Ukraine has explained what should the employer do if the employee refuses to go on vacation.
The main legislative acts regulating the procedure for granting leave are the Labor Code of Ukraine (hereinafter – the Labor Code) and Law of Ukraine “On Leave” No. 504/96-ВР of November 15, 1996 (hereinafter – Law No. 504).
According to Art. 74 of the Labor Code and Art. 2 of Law No. 504 every citizen of Ukraine who works at an enterprise, institution, organization of any form of ownership, type of activity and industry affiliation or an individual is entitled to annual leave. Foreign citizens and stateless persons working in Ukraine also have this right on an equal footing with citizens of Ukraine.
This right is provided by:
- guaranteed granting of leave of a certain duration established by Law No. 504;
- retention for the period of leave of the workplace (position) and salary (aid);
- ban on replacing leave with monetary compensation, except as provided in Art. 24 of Law No. 504.
The employee’s unwillingness to use full-time annual leave and the demand to provide monetary compensation are taken into account in Art. 24 of the Law on Leave.
Part 4 of this article states that at the request of the employee, part of the annual leave is quite legitimate to replace with monetary compensation. However, the duration of the part of the annual leave actually used by the employee may not be less than 24 calendar days.
If the employee has unused annual basic leave of 24 calendar days each, he/she will be able to receive compensation only in case of dismissal. This requirement is due to the fact that the leave is granted to the employee primarily for rest and health promotion, so the law prohibits the employer to compensate the money for unpaid leave.
It should be noted that persons under the age of 18 are not allowed to replace all types of leave with monetary compensation.
The employee can receive compensation only for annual leave, which is provided for in paragraph 1 of Part 1 of Art. 4 of the Law of Ukraine “On Leave”, and additional social leave for children in accordance with Art. 19 of this Law.
Such leave includes:
- annual basic leave;
- annual additional leave for work with harmful and difficult working conditions;
- annual additional leave for the special nature of work;
- other annual additional leave provided by law;
- additional social leave for employees who have children or an adult child with a disability from childhood of subgroup A of group I.
The legislation does not provide for the payment of compensation for unused leave days of:
- additional study leave;
- creative vacations;
- vacations for preparation and participation in competitions;
- additional leave for employees with the status of persons classified in 1 or 2 categories of victims of the Chornobyl disaster,
- additional leave for combatants.
With regard to liability for the employer and officials, the provisions of Part 5 of Art. 80 of the Labor Code and Part 5 of Art. 11 of Law No.504 are of importance. In particular, the following rules:
- it is prohibited not to grant full annual leave for two consecutive years;
- it is prohibited not to provide annual leave during the working year to persons under 18 years of age and employees who are entitled to additional annual leave for work in harmful and difficult conditions or with a special nature of work.
What to do if an employee, for example, refuses to use for the second year in a row the right to rest granted by the Constitution (Article 45) and Law No. 504 (annual leave)? The employer, taking into account that the obligation to provide leave rests with him, must take measures in accordance with the law:
- issue an administrative document on granting leave. Inform the employee in writing about the start date of the leave in accordance with the schedule no later than two weeks before the scheduled leave date (Part 5 of Art. 79 of the Labor Code, Part 11 of Article 10 of Law of Ukraine No. 504);
- pay salary to the employee for the period of leave no later than three days before its beginning (Art. 115 of the Labor Code, Part 1 of Art. 21 of Law of Ukraine No. 504).
According to Art. 139 of the Labor Code, employees are obliged to timely and accurately carry out the orders of the employer. For non-compliance, the employee may be subject to disciplinary action.
