Balmori Software Inc.

[ Article ]

Photo: Clockwise from top left: Myriams-Fotos, Mariann Szoke, Sabine van Erp, Harli Marten

Hello again, and best wishes for the new year.

The new year greets us all with good news and bad news for our pay slips.

Or maybe pseudo-good news and bad news.

Bad news from the SSS, pseudo-good news from Philhealth.

A second SSS whammy in less than a month. To get straight to the point, there's been yet another change in the SSS deduction table, two weeks after a recent one. This marks a second change to SSS contribution rules in fifteen days.

The first whammy was in a circular dated 2020 December 7th. SSS Circular 2020-033 made a major change to the SSS contribution schedules. It added a new type of salary deduction to what employees are already enduring. SSS called it the Mandatory Provident Fund.

We outlined the nature of that change in a Balmori Software Bulletin dated 2020 December 11th.

On December 22 (ie, 15 days later), the SSS announced a "refinement" through SSS Circular 2020-033b.

The changes in this follow-up circular are not trivial:

- additional income brackets appended to the Mandatory Provident Fund provision, with commensurate mandatory contributions (didn't we say this was going to be bad news?); and

- a revision of the treatment of the bottom income bracket such that now, nobody is exempt from contributions, regardless even if their income is as low as PhP1.00 for a given pay period. The two-weeks-earlier version exempted workers earning less than PhP1000. (Is this merely bad news, or does it edge into cruel? Because, theoretically, a poor hypothetical schmuck making a hypothetical PhP1.00 next payday will still have to cough up the PhP135 minimum mandated contribution. Really.)

SURE! PayMaster users, you're covered. Balmori Software assures its customers that SURE! PayMaster has yet again (just two weeks later) been adjusted, this time to respond to SSS Circular 2020-033b.

If you have already obtained the upgrade in response to the original SSS Circular 2020-033 (it's SURE! PayMaster Ver. 7.10.4.), we will ensure that you get the latest version that addresses the amendments wrought by Circular 2020-033b.

There will be no additional charge.

Philhealth pseudo-good news. The politically titillating news from Philhealth is: an "emergency" - or ad hoc - pause in the implementation of a previously scheduled increase in contribution rates.

In February 2019, Congress passed RA 11223 (the Universal Health Care Law), which mandated a half-percentage-point increase in Philhealth contributions every year from 2020 until 2025.

Read our original article on our software adjustments to RA 11223, here.

The contribution rate in 2020 was 3% of income. Starting January 2021, this was to have gone up to 3.5%. But certain developments, and the resulting intense public concern, arose in the meantime.

In response to widespread public outrage, the result was a holding of 2021 deduction rates to 2020 levels.

So, like we said earlier, pseudo-good news. Somewhat good news in that we all get to take home 0.5% more of our income this year. But not really good news when you consider that what brought on that tiny, temporary relief is corrupt hanky-panky that caused large-scale compromising of the national health care system's viability.

And if you're the type to look beyond surface appearances, here's a relevant question: So, corruption has hobbled Philhealth's financial capability; and so now we solve that situation... how? By further reducing its funds intake through this reduction in expected member contributions? Think about it.

SURE! PayMaster users, you're covered on this as well. We've created a fix within SURE! PayMaster that will cause the app to hold Philhealth deductions at 2020 levels.

The fix involves introducing a certain file into the folder/subdirectory where your license of SURE! PayMaster resides. We shall be ensuring that all our users who have already upgraded to Version 7.10.4 get a copy of this file, complete with clear instructions on how to install it in your SURE! PayMaster setup.

This PHIC fix is added on to the latest SURE! PayMaster Ver. 7.10.4. For users who recently upgraded to Ver. 7.10.4 before this PHIC change was promulgated, this PHIC fix will be sent to you free of charge.

Reach out to us by phone or email if you qualify for either or both of the two upgrades described in the preceding.



###



Share on

                                                                


<<< Back to top >>>