What happens if my company discounted the AFP, but did not make the deposit?

Every month, companies retain 10% of the remuneration of the worker to later be transferred to his individual capitalization account of the Pension Fund Administrator (AFP) to which he is affiliated. This amount is key, because it will ultimately be a savings that will later be destined for retirement at the end of your work stage. However, on some occasions, despite having been deducted from our salary, the employer does not make the pension contribution. What to do in these cases? In this note we tell you.

According to Association of Private Pension Fund Administrators (AAFP), As of February 2023, there are 151,017 companies that have not made the deposit of their workers’ contributions to their pension fund. Of this universe, a total of 92,510 are employers with active status RUC. Thus, the current pension debt amounts to S/18,433 million, which affects 1,202,028 affiliates.

What happens if my employer did not make the payment to my AFP?

To make sure that the employer has not made the pension payment, the affiliate can see the record of his contributions in his Account statuswhich is accessed on the AFP website or this information can be requested through another service channel such as the Administrator’s telephone line.

Thus, in the event that it is detected that the employer did not make the payment of social security contributions within the first five days of the month, the AFP will send a letter to the company to notify it of the non-payment. After that, the Administrator will initiate a collection process.

“The AFP realizes that the employer has not contributed and if the company has not declared that the worker has been terminated, is in perfect suspension of work or some other justified reason for not paying the contribution, the AFP is going to issue a collection order and if the employer does not pay, a trial will begin, where the company must demonstrate whether or not it paid. And if you did not pay, the judge will order that you pay the AFP. If you don’t pay, you can be seized,” labor lawyer Ricardo Herrera told La República.

Can they fine the company for not paying the AFP?

The affected worker could also file criminal complaints against the employer for the crime of illegal appropriation of social security contributions.which would cause the company to pay immediately, Ivan Parédez, senior attorney at Philippi, Prietocarrizosa, Ferrero DU & Uría, told this outlet.

Likewise, Parédez Neyra specified that non-payment of pension contributions to the AFP by the employer is considered a very serious offense by Sunafil, for which the fines are the highest.

“For example, the fines for each affected worker amount to S/13,018.50 (for companies not Mypes), S/3,811.50 (for small businesses) and S/1,138.50 (for Microenterprises)”, concluded the worker.

It is important to mention that the current legislation of the Private Pension System (SPP) establishes that social security contributions are mandatory and must be declared, retained and paid by the employer, so that the amount of contributions to the AFPs not paid, within the period established in the relevant regulations, will generate an interest equivalent to the default interest rate provided for tax obligations.