Social Security in the General State Budgets for 2018

Abstract

Although delayed, as a result of the extension, as of January 1, 2018, of the 2017 Budgets, contained in Law 3/2017, of June 27, the July 4, 2018, the Law 6/2018, of July 3, has been published, through which the Law of General State Budgets for 2018 is approved.
According to the provisions of article 31 of Law 47/2003, of November 26, General Budgetary, the General Budgets of the State constitute the coded, joint and systematic expression of the rights and obligations to be liquidated during the year by each of the bodies and entities that are part of the public sector. Based on this, Law 6/2018 contains authorizations of expenses and income forecasts, whose fundamental components, in the field of Social Security, are, on the part of expenditures, those corresponding to pensions, while The main source of financial coverage is constituted by the contributions.
In virtue of this, Title IV of Law 6/2018 is dedicated to the revaluation of benefits, while Title VIII contains the bases, types and other specialties related to the Social Security contribution, if well, while in this section –the social contributions– the novelties that the Law of General State Budgets incorporates for 2018 are scarce, since the determination of most of the components of the contributions had already been approved previously, through of the Order ESS/55/2018, of January 26, on the contrary and regarding the revaluation of pensions, the Law of Budgets contemplates a substantial improvement of the same, breaking of this form the rigid application of the denominated «index of revaluation», regulated in article 58 of the General Law of Social Security, and which had meant a revaluation of 0,25 %, during the economic years 2014-2017.
In addition, and as usual, the Law on General State Budgets for 2018 is not limited to the establishment of the expenditure authorizations or the income forecasts, but, as a result of its character as material law, regulates other issues related to the Social Security, in the areas of the protective action, the management, the program of the universal social card or the regulation of certain special regimes, items all of which are analyzed in this paper.