The German Federal Pension Insurance (DRV) is increasingly narrowing the assessment of previously typical activities of self-employed persons. Most filmmakers are already employed on a temporary, project-related basis. The corresponding collective labour agreement is currently being negotiated. The assessment of this group of people is not straightforward, particularly with regard to social security status. Many special cases, such as various forms of unemployment, are included in the respective assessment. Experts and artists bill their services as self-employed and can therefore easily switch between different projects and companies. However, it is precisely these far too rare specialists, whose services regularly did not meet the DRV's previous employee criteria, who are increasingly being categorised as such by the DRV. The obvious attempt to acquire more contributors for the social security system is causing lasting, irrevocable damage to the film industry.
In emergency medicine and nursing care, the DRV has already created gaps in the provision of care, which even the social courts have been unable to prevent. Since then, emergency physicians have committed themselves to an ambulance service or only invest their free time to a limited extent due to the financial disadvantages of the new system, as they are left with numerous costs. For certain Specialists for filming, VFX and post-production, the status determinations are also becoming increasingly abstruse from year to year. The sad climax is the most recent development, Honorary (university) teachers to be categorised as dependent employees. While the clearing centre claims to follow laws and case law neutrally, politicians are apparently unaware of the consequences this will have for the location. Legislators are called upon to urgently create clarity here.
Self-employment is characterised by a number of key features. While employees are subject to the instructions of the company they work for in terms of how, where and when they provide their services, the self-employed have a great deal of responsibility and freedom of action and organisation. At the same time, the self-employed are responsible for looking after themselves, developing themselves further, organising the necessary work equipment themselves and, last but not least, investing a lot of unpaid time in fulfilling numerous documentation and administrative obligations, which are also constantly changing and whose changes must be monitored independently. The self-employed pay taxes and insurance contributions, sometimes even social security contributions, independently and on the basis of their net earnings. This makes switching between different clients simple, uncomplicated, quick and easy.
Only this type of employment relationship makes it possible to make specialists available to several companies. "Real" employees have to use the unattractive wage tax class 6 for several employers from the second employer onwards and taxes are calculated on the basis of gross pay. As they nevertheless take on many expenses that would otherwise be borne by a permanent employer, these costs cannot be accommodated within the normal tax-free allowances. As a result, these people pay significantly more tax and, due to the high tax bracket, also make massive advance payments to the state.
This has logical consequences:
- Specialists can only work for one company. The Expertise is bundled at the few large companies and small companies are not in a position to access such services.
- Specialised knowledge will migrate abroad. Many experts will not allow their freedom to be taken away and will move to other locations in the face of international competition.
- The affected industries, especially post-production and VFX, will have to adapt their local production capacities. A reduction in supply will lead to higher prices in the medium term. and a less attractive range of locations. This harms local clients and weakens the German creative industries as a whole.
- Training centres and universities will lose expertise. This will massively reduce the quality of training. Some It will no longer be possible to offer qualifications competitively in Germany in future.
Legislators and politicians are now called upon to quickly draw the necessary conclusions and change the legal framework. Awareness of these consequences must be communicated to those responsible throughout the industry.
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(Author: Markus Vogelbacher)
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