Irina Shumakova
HR specialist
In 2020, HR specialists have a new report, which, without exaggeration, has assumed a major role and appears in their work almost on a daily basis. This refers to the form of the “Employment history of a registered person” (abbreviated in Russian as SZV-TD), which the employer sends to the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation. Irina Shumakova, Acsour’s HR specialist, studied the problem and made a list of the most common errors for “Raschet” magazine.
Employment history constitutes basic information about an employee’s activity and length of employment stored in electronic form on an individual personal account of a registered person with the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation. It includes information about the employee’s place of work, job function, transfers to another permanent job, or leaving employment, indicating the grounds and reasons for termination of the labour contract, as well as other information. Employment history is also called an “electronic employment book”, since the information it contains is almost identical to the data in the employment book.
The introduction of the SZV-TD form in HR document flow is associated with the transition of employees to “electronic employment books” instead of maintaining paper ones. During 2020, the employee can make a choice: to continue having their labour activities recorded in the paper employment book or to refuse to do so. But whatever the result is, the “electronic employment book” will be maintained in the Pension Fund for all employees under a labour contract. For those who start their labour activities after January 1, 2021, a paper version of the employment book will not be issued. Labour activities will only be recorded in electronic format.
Each employer participates in the formation of the employee’s “electronic employment book” by sending the SZV-TD form to the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation. Therefore, it is undoubtedly important that the information submitted by the employer should be meticulously accurate and correct. The main documents that the employer should be guided by when filling in and submitting the SZV-TD form are Federal law No. 27-FZ “On individual (personalized) accounting in the compulsory pension insurance system” dated April 1, 1996 and Resolution No. 730r of the Board of the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation dated December 25, 2019 “On approval of the form and format of the employment history of a registered person, as well as the procedure for filling in the forms of the specified information”.
Despite the established procedure for drawing up the SZV-TD form, many employers commit inaccuracies at the stages of filling it in and sending it. Let us look at a number of errors that lead to the risk of violations and the corresponding administrative liability.
Error 1. Not to submit the SZV-TD form for an employee who is not subject to compulsory pension insurance and is not registered in the individual (personalized) accounting system.
Let us say you have an employee who is not subject to compulsory pension insurance and does not have a personal insurance policy number (referred to by the Russian acronym SNILS). For example, a foreign citizen is a highly qualified specialist (HQS) temporarily staying in the Russian Federation. Despite the fact that he or she is not subject to compulsory pension insurance, starting from 2020, the employer is required to submit the SZV-TD form for this category of employees to the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation, since Employment history is formed for all employees under a labour contract.
In addition, in the law on personalized accounting, the concepts of an insured person and a registered person differ. A registered but uninsured person will only have the part of the individual personal account filled in that contains information about labour activities, while an insured person will also have information about insurance premiums and his or her pension insurance record stored in the individual personal account. Please note that uninsured employees still do not need to be included in the SZV-M and SZV-STAZH reports, and nor do insurance premiums need to be accrued in relation to their salary.
An employment history cannot be generated without registering an employee in the individual (personalized) accounting system and having a SNILS issued. Therefore, do not wait for your employee to have an HR event that requires to be reflected in the SZV-TD form, but issue a SNILS for the employee in advance. This will help you to avoid the risk of violating the deadline for submitting the SZV-TD owing to late registration in the individual personalized accounting system.
Error 2. To employ an employee without a SNILS.
It would seem that this is not an error, because the legislation provides for the procedure for the employer to issue a SNILS. A citizen can submit an application form of a registered person through the policyholder. But in this case, there is a risk of violating the deadline for submitting the SZV-TD form: the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation registers the citizen in the individual (personalized) accounting system and assigns an insurance policy number, within five working days. The SZV-TD form with information about the employment needs to be submitted not later than the next working day after the order for employment is issued. By the time you submit the insured person’s application form to the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation and wait for the employee’s SNILS, the deadline for submitting the SZV-TD report will have passed. To avoid this error, we recommend that you ask the employee to have a SNILS issued independently before employment by contacting the local authority of the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation or the Multifunctional centre where state services are offered to the public.
Error 3. To submit the SZV-TD form on the day when employment ends, and not on the day when the order terminating employment is issued (or on the next working day).
Many employers have faced a similar situation. The Labour Code of the Russian Federation does not prohibit the issuing of an order to terminate a labour contract in advance, for example, a week before the date of dismissal. This is often necessary for the employer in order to have time to make all the settlements and to prepare the payment of all amounts due and payable to the employee on time (this may be especially relevant for publicly funded organizations). However, when the employer submits the SZV-TD form within the prescribed time limit (not later than the working day following the day on which the order for dismissal is issued), it receives from the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation a protocol on accepting the report with the warnings “The Event date cannot be later than the current date” and “The Event date cannot be later than the Date when the form was filled in”. In addition, if an employee resigns through his or her own free will, he or she has the right to withdraw the letter of resignation up to and including the date of resignation. In this case, it will be necessary to submit a corrective SZV-TD form, with the cancellation of the HR event (resignation). Many employers who have personally experienced such warnings and the procedure for withdrawing the letter of resignation decide to submit the SZV-TD form on the day when employment ends or even on the working day following such date. Unfortunately, this will be a violation of the deadline for submitting the SZV-TD form. Submit the SZV-TD within the prescribed time limit – not later than the working day following the day on which the order terminating employment is issued. If the employee withdraws his or her letter of resignation, submit the SZV-TD form recording the cancellation of the HR event. Another solution is, if possible, to make sure that the date of the order terminating employment and the termination date coincide.
Error 4. To include in the SZV-TD form an employee’s statement with regard to providing information about labour activities in electronic form or with regard to continuing to maintain the employment book later than the prescribed time limit.
The employee wrote a statement, for example, in June and put the corresponding date in it, but delivered it to the employer on July 16 or later. The employer includes the statement with a June date in the SZV-TD form and violates the deadline for submitting the report. The prescribed time limit for submitting an SZV-TD form is before the 15th day of the month following the reporting one. This means that the employee’s statement with a June date should be included in the report for June and submitted not later than July 15. There are two solutions in this situation. In the first case, the employee should rewrite the statement with the current date, and the employer should submit the SZV-TD form to the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation in a timely manner. In the second case, if the first solution is not suitable for some reason or if the employee refuses to rewrite the statement, it is necessary to perform registration of statements in the log of registration of incoming documents or in a specially established log. On the statement itself, place the date of its submission by the employee together with the number of the entry in the log. In the SZV-TD form, include the statement submission date confirmed by an entry in the registration log.
Error 5. Not to include an HR event as of January 1, 2020 in the SZV-TD form, or only include employment before January 1, 2020 without including a transfer to another job before January 1, 2020.
In all cases, except for employment in 2020, the SZV-TD form should include HR events for the reporting month, as well as the event valid for January 1, 2020. This may be employment or a transfer to a job until 2020. We recommend that when submitting each report, you should double-check whether the form on the employee with the included event as of January 1, 2020 was already sent in 2020. In addition, do not forget that if an employee did not have any HR events during the entire year of 2020, and the SZV-TD form was not submitted, it is necessary to submit a report on this employee by February 15, 2021, which will contain the HR event as of January 1, 2020. When including an HR event as of January 1, 2020, it is important not to miss a transfer to another job. It is not necessary to include employment if there was a transfer after such employment but before January 1, 2020. If there were several transfers, it is necessary to include in the form the one closest to the date of January 1, 2020.
Error 6. Not to submit the SZV-TD form for secondary job employees.
Despite the fact that Employment history is largely identical to the content of classic paper employment books, there are some significant differences. In the paper employment book, information about secondary employment is indicated by the employer at the main place of work at the request of the employee. Employment history for secondary job employees is provided by the employer without fail where the employee’s work is as a second job. When submitting information about a secondary job employee, the form is completed in exactly the same way as about a direct employee, but be sure to specify “as a second job” or “is a secondary job employee” in field 4 of the form.
Error 7. Not to submit the SZV-TD form for remote employees who do not have an employment book maintained by agreement of the employee and the employer.
When concluding a labour contract for remote work, the parties to labour relationships may reach an agreement that the employee’s employment book is not maintained. However, the Employment history for remote employees is submitted under the same procedure as for other employees. The SZV-TD form does not provide an indication that the employee is working remotely.
Error 8. To use acronyms or changes in wordings when writing the reasons for the termination of employment.
If the employer writes in the SZV-TD in the field about the reason for the termination of employment, for example: “own free will, clause 3 of article 77 of the Labour Code of the Russian Federation”, this information will be considered incomplete or inaccurate. The reason for the termination of the labour contract, the clause, part of the article, and article of the Labour Code of the Russian Federation or other Federal law are specified without acronyms and in accordance with the wording specified in the law. As you know, the same rule is applied when filling in paper employment books. This is explicitly stipulated in the Procedure of filling in the SZV-TD form; therefore, deviations from this rule will be a violation. In the described example, the following should be specified: “Termination of a labour contract at the employee’s initiative, clause 3 of part 1 of article 77 of the Labour Code of the Russian Federation”.
Error 9. Not to stipulate in writing the issuance of the STD-R form “Employment history provided to the employee by the employer” when employment terminates.
In addition to the SZV-TD form, which the employer sends to the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation, the employer is obliged to issue the Employment history to the employee upon application in the course of his or her work or on the day when the employment terminates. This obligation is established by the Labour Code of the Russian Federation; therefore, non-compliance with it can be classified as a violation of employment legislation entailing a risk of administrative liability for the employer. It is important to issue the STD-R form against signature on an identical copy that remains with the employer, or in the issue log. Otherwise, it will be difficult for the employer to prove that the document was issued. If the employee is absent on the day of dismissal or refuses to receive the document, it is necessary to send the STD-R form as a registered letter with return receipt and a list of enclosures. It should be noted that the STD-R form should only be issued upon termination of employment to employees who have submitted a statement with a refusal to maintain a paper employment book in favour of providing the employment history in electronic form, or to employees who have written a statement to have the employment history issued. The employer does not have to issue the STD-R form as a mandatory provision to employees for whom a paper employment book is maintained.
What does the making of these errors entail for employer?
During 2020, in accordance with the Federal law on individual (personalized) accounting, an untimely or incomplete and/or inaccurate SZV-TD form imposes administrative liability on the policyholder or its officer: according to part 1 of article 5.27 of the Administrative Code of the Russian Federation, for officers the penalty is a warning or a fine of between 1,000 and 5,000 rubles; and for legal entities it is a fine of between 30,000 and 50,000 rubles.
Starting from January 1, 2021, part 2 of article 15.33.2 of the Code of Administrative Offences of the Russian Federation will be brought into effect. Starting from the next calendar year, only officers will assume liability. They will face a warning or a fine of between 300 and 500 rubles for the same violation.
To avoid violations in the procedure of filling in and in the deadlines for submitting the SZV-TD form, you should adhere to certain rules:
HR specialist
