The procedure for replacing the billing period when calculating sick leave

Who is eligible for a replacement?

Women who received maternity leave, as well as persons who were on leave to care for a newborn, can change the years for calculating benefits.

If everything is clear with the first group of employees - only female employees - mothers of children - are included in it, then both women and men can be included in the second group. This is due to the fact that, according to the current legislation of the Russian Federation, a small child can be cared for by his mother, father or guardian (but only one).

When can I choose a calculation period for temporary disability benefits?

Some working citizens have the right to request in writing to change the years of the calculation period when calculating benefits for sick leave, as well as leave related to pregnancy or caring for a child up to one and a half years old.

Art. 14 of the Social Insurance Law specifically stipulates the conditions for replacing years necessary to calculate average income when calculating benefits:

1. During the billing period, the insured person was on maternity leave or childcare leave.
2. Changing years is really beneficial to the employee - the payment for temporary disability increases when choosing a different billing period.

Only the woman who is the mother of the baby has the right to take maternity leave. As for parental leave, even men, as well as grandmothers or other relatives, take it.

When changing periods, you need to pay attention to the income limits established for the corresponding years.

For example, in 2021 the law established a limit of 815 thousand rubles, in 2017 – 755 thousand rubles.

Income above this indicator is not subject to insurance contributions, including the social insurance fund, and therefore is not taken into account in calculating average income.

You can replace both years at once, or just one. Therefore, the calculation period may include years that are not consecutive.

For example, an employee provided sick leave in 2021, had maternity leave with a child in 2021 and 2017, and for benefits in 2021 he has the right to choose 2016 instead of 2017. Then, the accountant will take into account 2021 and 2018 non-consecutive years.

We offer to calculate sick leave benefits using an online calculator for free.

What documents are needed?

In order for the accountant to change the years when calculating sick leave benefits, the employee must fill out a special application - download a sample.

It is recommended to fill it out in two copies:

• one remains for the employer;
• on the second, the accountant will mark the acceptance and give it to the applicant.

Additionally, the employer does not require any documentation to replace years.

When an employee worked during a “beneficial” period for him with another employer, in order to transfer, he will need to request a certificate 182-N from his previous place of work.

It contains the earnings amounts needed to calculate benefits.

Also, if at that time he worked for several employers, it is necessary to obtain certificates from each of them - the procedure for paying sick leave when working part-time.

After maternity leave

If an employee goes on sick leave in 2021 due to his illness and has been on maternity leave for the last two years, then as a general rule, to calculate benefits, the calculator must take the employee’s income for 2017-2018.

In this case, the employee has every right to choose a different pay period - to write an application to replace the years from 2017-2018 to 2015-2016, if there was earnings during that period and the benefit amount will increase. It is possible to replace only one of the years in which the maternity leave falls.

For example, in this case, the employee can choose:

• 2015 and 2016;
• 2016 and 2017;
• 2016 and 2018;
• leave 2021 and 2021.

It is important that the employer is not obliged to offer the employee any options. The initiative must come from the employee.

If he wants to choose other years, he has the right to do so by declaring in writing.

The replacement is carried out only if the employee benefits from it, that is, the temporary disability payment will increase.

If choosing a different period would result in a reduction in benefits, the employer should not make the change.

In accordance with the law, the accountant’s task, after receiving an application from the employee, is to calculate the sick pay with and without replacement, then you need to choose the option that is more profitable for the employee.

Read more about paying sick leave after maternity leave here.

When is it not profitable to change?

One of the points for replacing years is the profitability of the procedure.

If the choice of years in the calculation period does not lead to an increase in the average daily earnings, and, accordingly, the amount of disability benefits, then the period cannot be changed.

For the employee, the replacement will not be beneficial if the person loses some amount of benefits from this action. This is possible if earnings were higher in the years before maternity leave.

Before writing an application and choosing other years, you need to figure out whether it is profitable or not.

It is recommended that you contact a payroll specialist with this question.

After all, in the calculations you also need to take into account what amounts can be taken according to the law. There are also periods excluded from such calculations.

It is difficult for a simple working person to figure out which amounts to take for calculation and which not.

Example for 2021

Let’s look at a specific example of what “replacing years is not profitable” means.

Initial data:

Ivanova Alevtina Konstantinovna falls ill in April 2021 and goes on sick leave for ten days.

She has 10 years of experience.

She was on maternity leave throughout 2021 and 2021.

Her earnings during these periods were only in the form of child care benefits. Such payments are not taken into account in calculating average earnings.

Therefore, the accountant will calculate the sick leave benefits for an employee from the minimum wage (from January 1, 2021, it is equal to 11,280 rubles).

In 2015 and 2021, the employee worked and had a total income of 200 thousand rubles.

Is it necessary to change the age of this employee?

Calculation:

Let's calculate the benefit based on 2 indicators in the form of a comparative table:

Comparing the obtained indicators, it becomes clear that choosing earlier years for calculating benefits will not be profitable. The employee will receive a smaller amount of benefits than the minimum for 2021.

Therefore, it makes no sense for her to write an application for changing the billing period.

Also, for example, it is not profitable to make a choice if during the billing period the average daily earnings were 450 rubles, and in 2015 and 2016 it was 440 rubles.

Why are these changes needed?

Russian legislation firmly guards the interests of employees. The transfer of years is one of the measures that follows this principle, since it is needed for the correct calculation of benefits for temporary disability, pregnancy and childbirth, and for caring for a child up to one and a half years of age.

By law, all these benefits are calculated taking into account the employee’s average earnings for the two years (according to the calendar) preceding the year in which the event covered by insurance occurred. Thus, if a person did not work for the reasons stated above, his insurance payment is significantly reduced, and recalculation with the replacement of years leads to a reasonable increase in the amount of benefits.

At the same time, the employer does not have the legal right to refuse an employee to receive an increased material payment, and if such a recalculation leads to its reduction, then this castling should not be carried out.

Conditions for postponing the period for calculating sick leave and employment benefits

The possibility of changing periods for calculating the SDZ is provided not only for the B&R benefit, but also for payments for disability and child care. The basis for replacing the years used to calculate SDZ is (clause 1 of Article 14 of Law No. 255-FZ):

• the employee is on leave for employment or child care in one or both years of the billing period;
• an increase in the benefit amount as a result of replacing a period (both periods) with earlier years.

You can only replace the year(s) in which labor or child care leave falls. Replacement is carried out by shifting by 1 or 2 calendar years preceding the billing period.

If in those years to which the period is shifted, there was also a vacation giving the right to replace years, the billing period can be shifted to even earlier years, but with mandatory observance of the sequence required for such a replacement (Letter of the Federal Social Insurance Fund of the Russian Federation dated November 30, 2015 No. 02-09-11/15-23247).

Since with ordinary disability the duration of the calculation period does not change (it is always equal to 730 days), its replacement does not entail changes in the formula for calculating the SDZ.

For the BiR benefit, the duration of the billing period may be different (Letter of the Federal Social Insurance Fund of the Russian Federation dated March 3, 2017 No. 02-08-01/22-04-1049l):

• 730 days - if both accounting years are non-leap years.
• 731 days - if one year of the billing period is a leap year;
• 732 days - if both calculation years are leap years.

When replacing the period, you must consider:

• the maximum base for contributions to the Social Insurance Fund, valid in the year used to calculate the benefit;
• periods of time excluded from the billing period.

These, in particular, include periods of temporary incapacity, leave for employment and child care, release from work without pay or with pay, if insurance contributions were not accrued on earnings (clause 3.1 of Article 14 of Law No. 255-FZ).

Periods that can be used when replacing years

As already mentioned, the replacement of years should not occur more than two years before the insured event occurs.

An employee of an organization can request either a replacement of one year taken for calculation, or two years at once (even if the second year included only a couple of days from the above-mentioned vacations).

Moreover, if leave for pregnancy and the birth of a baby or to care for a newborn fell on only one of them, it is impossible to ask for the replacement of both years for recalculation.

To complete the picture, let's give an example.

Let’s assume that an employee of the organization was on official maternity leave in 2015 and 2021, and she fell ill in 2021. Then the years 2015 and 2021 are not considered, and the years 2013-2014 are taken into account.

What years can I replace it with?

According to Russian legislation, it is allowed to replace one or two years of the billing period with previous ones. For example, a woman was on maternity leave in 2017 and 2021. In January 2021, she fell ill and went on sick leave.

The employee has the right to change the payroll period to include 2015 and 2021. Many employed citizens are interested in whether they can choose the years for replacement at their own request. Law No. 255 does not give an exact answer on this matter.

According to the definition of the Supreme Court No. 309-KG17-15902, it is allowed to use any years preceding the calculation year. It should also be noted that replacement by periods that do not follow one another is allowed: in the case of the above example, by 2009 and 2021.

But then, to determine the amount of the benefit, you need to take into account the number of days in the calendar year. For example, if the calculation period includes two leap years, then 732 days must be taken. If a replacement is carried out, it is necessary to take into account that the average daily earnings should not exceed the maximum daily wage.

If there is a need to change the calculation period for calculating benefits, then the employee needs to know how to correctly write an application. The decision of the enterprise management depends on this.

Features of the document, general points

If you are faced with the task of drawing up an application for replacement years to calculate temporary disability benefits, read the recommendations below - they will give you an accurate idea of ​​the document. Please also take a look at the application example below - you can easily draw up your own form based on it.

Let's start with general information. Today, there is no generally applicable, unified sample of such an application, so you can write it in free form, based on your own vision of this document or, if the employer provides your application template, according to its type.

When creating a form, it is important to ensure that its composition and content meet certain standards of business documentation. This means that the document must include three parts:

1. the beginning contains information about the employing company and the applicant;
2. the main section is the actual request to change the years;
3. the conclusion contains a list of attached documents (if any), a signature and date.

There are no special requirements for the design of the document, just like for its text, i.e. The application can be written in your own hand or typed on a computer. For a printed document, an ordinary blank sheet of paper of any convenient format (A4 or A5 are mainly used) and the company’s letterhead (if such a condition is stated by the employer) are suitable.

The application must be written in two copies , one of which should be given to the employer, the second should be kept with you, having previously secured a mark on it that a copy was received by a representative of the organization.

Sample application for replacing years when calculating sick leave

At the top of the document (right or left - it doesn’t matter) the position, full name of the manager, and the name of the company - employer are indicated. Then information about the applicant is entered in the same way: his position and full name are indicated. Below in the middle of the form, write the word “Application” and put a dot.

The main part of the application contains the actual request to change the years. Here you need to indicate the articles of the legislation of the Russian Federation justifying the replacement of years, as well as the years that are subject to replacement. If necessary, the application can be supplemented with other information (depending on individual circumstances).

Finally, the document is signed and dated.