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Published: 06/20/2018
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A work book is the main document containing information about a citizen’s work activity. According to the legislation of the Russian Federation, the main functions of this document are limited to reflecting the actual length of service, reasons for dismissal from each place of work, as well as information about education, qualifications and the presence of labor incentives or penalties.
- Work book: practical purpose and maintenance procedure
- The employee has two work books. Deliberate concealment of the fact of having a valid work book.
- Loss of work record
- Work abroad
A work book is created when a citizen is first officially employed, after which it accompanies him throughout his working career. All operations for maintaining and storing these documents are carried out by employees of the personnel services of employing organizations in accordance with the legally approved Rules for maintaining and storing work books.
No formal ban
To date, the labor legislation of the Russian Federation does not provide for the imposition of sanctions against an employee who has two work books. Experts note that the fact of owning two employment forms is not considered a violation of the law, but an abuse of right.
In Soviet legislation, there was a law “On Labor Books of Workers and Employees,” according to which persons using a counterfeit or forged book had to be held accountable for violations. Today, a correctly completed second work report, which contains reliable information, does not provide for punishment from the authorities.
Having reached retirement age, a person can independently decide which form of work book he can present to confirm his work experience. If several working periods coincide in time, the pension will be accrued only according to the one chosen by the citizen.
Part-time workers can abuse the possession of two work books. Since a collective agreement or internal regulations of an organization may provide benefits for part-time work, the part-time worker himself is able to take advantage of this for his own purposes, violating the local order. In this case, punishment for this violation is also provided in accordance with the internal procedure of the enterprise.
Actions in case of erroneous certification of the second document
A second work book is created if the original was lost and a duplicate, for some reason, cannot be obtained. It is formalized by the enterprise in accordance with all the rules. But if the document is subsequently found, then the person has two valid options in his hands. In this case, it is necessary to contact the employer with a written statement, in which to report the finding and ask to take into account the length of service when calculating bonuses and compensation for sick leave. You cannot use the book to get a part-time job.
Is the employment document properly formatted?
The work record book is the main confirmation of the employee’s work experience. It is issued at the first enterprise where a citizen is employed. After dismissal and entry to the next place of work, the same employment form is provided to the HR department.
The reasons why you have to draw up a new work book may be different. The most common is the loss of the form and its subsequent discovery. In some cases, the employee wants to hide some facts about his work activity indicated in the document.
The main reason why the second work book cannot be called false is that it was filled out correctly (in the event that false information was not indicated in it). The accuracy of the information is confirmed by the signatures of personnel employees and the corresponding seals.
However, there is a nuance in which the registration of a second work book may occur with violations. For example, an employee can report to the HR department that his form is missing and write an application for a new one. If it was really lost, then there will be no problems in this case. If the book has not disappeared, and the employee provided false information during employment, then for 2 work books, liability is provided in the form of dismissal.
Two labor and tax deductions
Another issue related to the fact that an employee has two work books is a tax deduction. Usually it is carried out at the main place of work, but this issue is not spelled out in the legislation. In order for the deduction to be carried out by the tax agent at the choice of the employee’s place of work, it is necessary to draw up an application, attaching the relevant documents to it.
The issue of tax deduction is also important for the enterprise where the employee is employed. An employer whose subordinate is registered in his organization as the main place of employment will be able to reduce the amount of tax paid.
To ensure that owners of two or more work books do not have problems with the law, they should not claim tax deductions at two enterprises at the same time. Otherwise, if such a fact is revealed, the employer has the right to recover the deduction amount from the subordinate. The same applies to other guarantees that are provided at the main place of employment. For example, if an employee takes study leave at his main place of work, then here it will be registered as paid, and at an additional place of work it will be taken “at his own expense.”
Responsibility for owning two work books
In accordance with the above, there is no direct prohibition in the legislation on one citizen owning more than one work book. The consequence of this circumstance is the absence of direct administrative or criminal liability for the possession of two (or more) work books.
However, simultaneous possession and use of more than one work book is fraught with significant negative consequences, since it indirectly violates a number of legislative requirements.
In practice, the most common situations are in which, upon employment, an employee provides the employer with a second (not created at the first official place of work) work book. Such actions may be regarded by the employer as the provision of false documents, which, in turn, is punishable by dismissal in accordance with clause 11, part 1, art. 81 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation.
In addition, an attempt by one individual to apply for certain benefits (including unemployment benefits) on the basis of two (or more) work books can be classified as fraud (Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). The degree of responsibility in this case depends on the established elements of the crime and ranges from the imposition of a significant fine to a long prison sentence.
Registration of pension
The introduction of a system such as personalized accounting leads to the fact that the work book may lose its significance as a document recording work experience. In addition, reforms in pension legislation lead to the fact that the size of the pension will be based not only on length of service, but also on the basis of financial receipts to the personal account of citizens in the Pension Fund.
Today, it is impossible to register a pension without submitting a work book to the fund. Moreover, not only its copy, but the original must be presented. According to the current legislation, pensions are calculated only for one book, and not for both. Therefore, the citizen must choose the form that is more beneficial to him and attach this document to the application.
Registration of a pension if you have two work books
Registration of pension
Owners of work books in duplicate when applying for a pension, submitting documents to the Pension Fund, tried to submit both books with a package of documents in order to increase the total length of service. However, pension fund employees do not accept multiple work records. Only one copy can be provided to the Pension Fund.
In the near future, they plan to abolish the requirement for workers to have a work book. With the introduction of personalized accounting in pension insurance, the meaning of the book as a storage device for recording work experience was lost. Individual records for each employee in the pension fund include all information about the length of service of the future pensioner. In addition, after the pension reform, the amount of the pension is also affected by contributions to an individual PF account.
Therefore, people with several work books need to keep in mind that they can only attach one “profitable” book to their pension application.
Two work books for part-time work
According to the Labor Code, a citizen can find employment in two organizations at once. The phenomenon of working simultaneously in two places of official employment is called part-time work. In addition, part-time work can be arranged in the same organization where the citizen already works.
Registering a part-time job involves maintaining a work book at one of the enterprises. In the second, an employment contract is drawn up. As stated in the Labor Code, the employee is obliged to notify his employer that he has an additional source of income. Therefore, it is assumed that when applying for an additional job, a part-time worker does not provide a work book, but documents that prove his identity, and, if necessary, information about his education.
As practice shows, it is often more convenient for an employer to register a new employee using a work book. In this case, the question of the legality of issuing the second employment form concerns not only the individual employee, but also the employer, who requires part-time employees to submit this document to their HR department.
What is a work book?
A work book is a document that records an employee’s length of service and the nature of his work. Before the introduction of personalized pension accounting, the book also served as confirmation of the insurance period for assigning a pension. Since today information about the length of service of working citizens is formed in the Pension Fund of Russia on the basis of data from the employer, the work book no longer plays such an important role in the procedure for confirming the duration of work.
Officials plan to abolish work books from 2021 - it is assumed that before this, all employers will check their existing employee books and submit them to the Pension Fund. This will probably be the end of the almost century-long history of the work book (this document was introduced in 1918).
Regulate the procedure for maintaining and filling out work books, Art. 66 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation “On work books” dated April 16, 2003 No. 225, Decree of the Ministry of Labor of the Russian Federation “On approval of instructions for filling out work books” dated October 10, 2003 No. 69.
The work book contains the employee’s personal data, information about each place of work, information about education, advanced training or retraining completed, and professional awards. A work record book is created for a citizen at his first place of work, and the employer keeps it at home. Upon dismissal, the employment certificate is given to the employee against receipt. Upon subsequent employment, the citizen provides a work book to the new manager.
Entries in the work book are made at the main place of work. Information about part-time employment can be included in the document at the request of the employee.
For complete information about what entries the employer is required to make in the employee’s work book, read the article “Procedure for filling out a work book - sample 2015–2016.”
The work record book is very often of interest to the employer and before concluding an employment contract - the job candidate during the interview confirms his experience and qualifications, including data from the work record book. In this regard, some citizens prefer to hide their previous places of work and create another work book. For example, young people who fear that working part-time as a loader or at McDonald’s during their student years may negatively affect their future employment.
Responsibility for violations
In some cases, the use of two work books may be clearly fraudulent. For example, if a woman who is currently on leave to care for a child, draws up a new form of work book and gets a new job using it. Receiving an official salary through such a scheme is illegal.
In addition, many try to evade payments to the tax service by filling out a second form of work book. If an employee has two work books, then liability for a number of such violations is not too serious, but in some cases the owner will have to pay a fine.
How is length of service calculated for two work books?
What should an accountant do if an employee brings two work books? According to the laws, the presentation of two documents cannot be grounds for refusal to accept them. If the periods in the work books coincide in time, then one of them is selected at the employee’s choice. If an on-site inspection is carried out, the employer must present the originals of both documents. If a desk audit is carried out, you must provide copies of work records.
How to calculate experience? The accountant may ask the employee to provide additional documents confirming his work activity:
- Employment contracts.
- Certificates from previous places of work.
- Copies of orders for hiring and dismissal.
It is recommended to do exactly this way. If additional documents are not provided, errors in the calculation of length of service may occur. Is it possible to take into account, when calculating the length of service, data from the work record book, which was shown to the employer after employment? The legislation does not provide a precise answer to this question. In practice, the length of service indicated in both work books is counted.
Calculation of benefits
Most often, benefits are paid for reasons such as temporary disability or pregnancy and subsequent childbirth. The amount of payments depends on the employee’s insurance length. Information about this experience and all the nuances associated with it are displayed in the work book. The insurance experience includes:
- municipal service}
- civil service}
- civil service}
- work under an employment contract}
- periods during which the employee was subject to compulsory insurance.
Each owner of two work books should be aware of the choice of one of the periods counted in his insurance record. Cash payments related to pregnancy and the postpartum period or illness are accrued only for one official place of employment. If this condition is not adhered to, the employer may decide that accrual on both work books is a desire for illegal enrichment at the expense of one or another enterprise.
A pregnant woman must understand that, having two books at the same time, she will receive benefits on the basis of the sick leave certificate issued to her, which indicates for which place of work this document is presented. In accordance with current legislation, there can be only one such sheet - the issuance of two or more sick leave sheets at different official places of employment is prohibited.
Registration of the second labor
When hiring a new employee, the HR department employee checks the authenticity of the work book. The information is compared with the information specified in the applicant’s personal documents. If inconsistencies or false data are found, the personnel officer refuses to make a new entry in this work book.
The second work book is prepared in the same way as the first. The title page contains information about the employee, the stamp of the organization where it is issued, and the signature of the employer. If the previous entry is not closed, the next one about hiring is not made (except in cases where this is a part-time activity).
All entries must be made in the appropriate columns and sections. The personnel officer cannot record information about hiring or dismissal in the section reserved for indicating awards. Another work book upon completion of the previous one is not issued to the employee. Instead, the new employer must issue an insert. It is filled out in the same order as the employment form. If an employee finds a previous book that was lost due to his fault, then the entries made in it are not entered into the new form.
If the loss occurred at the current workplace, the employer is obliged to issue the employee a new book, and include in it all the entries that were made in the previous document. Information about work is entered on the basis of documents provided from previous places of employment.
