Citizens retiring often face the problem of confirming their work experience for the 90s of the last century. Enterprises changed owners, many closed and new ones opened. There were situations when employers disappeared along with all the documentation of the enterprise, leaving their employees without the opportunity to confirm the length of service and earnings that are required to grant a pension. What should a person do if the work book is lost, the enterprise is liquidated, and there is practically no chance of finding documents in the archives?
Consultations on these issues were given by Evgenia Ochertarova, chief specialist-expert of the department for assessing the pension rights of insured persons of the OPFR in Buryatia.
Work book and ILS
What periods of work are included in the insurance period when assigning a pension? Is a work record really that important today?
Since 2015, when assigning a pension, periods of work both before and after registration of a citizen in the compulsory pension insurance system are established according to the information of the individual personal account of the insured person. All information is stored in the Federal Pension Fund database. Before the registration date, information about the length of service was submitted by employers in the SZV-K form for all working citizens.
According to the law, periods of work and (or) other activities performed by a citizen are included in the insurance period, provided that insurance contributions were paid to the Pension Fund for these periods. Contributions to state social insurance until 1991, payment of unified social tax and UTII until 2002 are equal to the payment of insurance premiums.
Thus, citizens can see and check the completeness of the information provided about periods of work and the amount of insurance premiums paid for each period of work in the extract from the ILS in the Personal Account on the Pension Fund website.
If a person understands that the extract contains incomplete information about work activity, how can the gaps be restored?
If the statement contains incomplete information about periods of work or there is no information about individual periods of work before registering a citizen as an insured person, then they can be entered on the basis of supporting documents.
In this case, the work book is taken into account, which is a document confirming periods of work before the date of registration in the OPS system.
If all the entries in it are completed correctly, in accordance with the Instructions for filling out work books, then no problems with taking into account the length of service will arise.
In the absence of a work book, as well as in cases where the work book contains incorrect and inaccurate entries or there are no records about individual periods of work, certificates from the employer or from an archival institution are accepted to confirm the length of service.
These may be extracts from orders, personal accounts and payroll statements, certificates, written employment contracts and agreements with notes on their execution and other documents containing information about periods of work.
It should be noted that it makes sense to start searching for lost documents about a certain period of your work only if you know for sure that during this period you received a “white” salary. Because with a “gray” salary, common in the nineties, the employer did not pay mandatory insurance payments to the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation, which means you do not have an insurance work history for this period. Such circumstances may lead to a pension being awarded in a smaller amount than the one the applicant expected.
Therefore, it is very important not to wait until retirement age, but to prepare for retirement in advance, before the right to retire. In accordance with current legislation, the obligation to provide documents necessary for the assignment and recalculation of a pension is assigned to the citizen.
Can the Pension Fund take away a pensioner’s work book?
Messages have appeared on the Internet that the Pension Fund is allegedly confiscating work books from people.
I came across stories from people on social networks that employees of the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation are violating the current legislation and taking away work books from citizens. This happens when receiving a pension recalculation: the Pension Fund asks the citizen to provide the fund with the original work record book for inclusion in the file. And after receiving the recalculation, he does not give back the work record, citing the fact that the book is needed in the payment case. And most often we are talking about non-working pensioners. This is understandable: working citizens must return their wages to their employer.
Naturally, when discussing this issue on social networks, people are already making assumptions that the confiscation of labor is happening for a reason, but to control people so that they do not get a job.
Let's figure it out: can the Pension Fund even take away a pensioner's work book and not return it?
So, a work book is required when assigning an old-age insurance pension. The future pensioner can provide either it or a notarized copy of the work document. If at the time of assignment of a pension he is working, and the work record is with the employer, the latter is obliged to provide it for the citizen’s use for the time required to calculate the pension. Then the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation returns the labor report back to transfer it to management.
Comment from an employee of the regional branch of the Pension Fund of the Oryol Region on the question of whether the Pension Fund can confiscate or take away a citizen’s work record without returning it:
This seizure measure is illegal. All original documents are returned to their owner after the old-age insurance payment has been assigned. All measures to confiscate a work book are illegal.
So, as you already understand, it is impossible to take away your work and is against the law. On social networks, people recommend others not to give the Pension Fund a labor document at all, but only a certified copy of it. But I think it shouldn't be done.
Three years ago I had my passport notarized and spent almost 800 rubles on it. Why spend your money on certification of labor if you are still required to return it?
An employee of the Pension Fund told me that she does not know of a single case where a document was not returned to its owner. Therefore, I urge you - do not believe all those “scarecrows” that are on the Internet. All these calls to make notarized copies of the work report are also not true. How do you know, maybe these messages have another motive - to increase the income of notaries, for example.
And remember that you can always go to the source - the Pension Fund branch and find out all the information you need.
Where to get a certificate
Where can I apply for a certificate if the company is located in another region or has been liquidated?
If the enterprise is located in another region, there is no need to go to the place where the organization was located to obtain a certificate of periods of work. Pension Fund specialists will provide you with assistance in requesting the necessary documents on length of service or salary certificates, if necessary. To do this, you need to contact customer service with a statement.
If the enterprise is liquidated, but it still has a legal successor, certificates of experience and earnings must be issued by the legal successor.
If there is no successor, then the necessary documents must be searched in the archives. Which archive should you contact? Pension Fund specialists will also provide you with this information.
When contacting an archival institution, the applicant receives a response in the form of an archival certificate, less often an archival extract or a copy of a document. The archival certificate confirming work experience includes data for the time for which information is available in the archive documents: the exact name of the position held by the citizen and the period of his work are given. Orders on personnel, on main activities, personal accounts and other documents are used as documents confirming insurance experience.
Witnesses
What to do if an organization is liquidated and there are no documents of this enterprise in the archives?
In this situation, your period of work at this enterprise can only be confirmed by testimony. Information about wages is not confirmed by witness testimony.
According to the rules, if the archives of an enterprise are lost through no fault of the employee, the periods of work of a citizen at this enterprise can be established on the basis of the testimony of at least two witnesses who know the citizen from working together during this period.
Witnesses must have documents confirming their work with this employer during the period of joint work with the citizen for whom they are witnessing. To do this, a citizen must write an application to the Pension Fund of Russia at his place of residence with a request to establish a period of work based on witness testimony, indicating the full name and address of the witnesses. Attach to the application a certificate from the archive stating that they do not have documents from the liquidated enterprise where the citizen worked. At the same time, the length of the citizen’s period of work at the enterprise, established on the basis of witness testimony, cannot be more than half of the insurance period required for the citizen to receive a pension.
Witness testimony can only confirm periods of work on the territory of the Russian Federation that occurred only before the citizen was registered as an insured person. Therefore, to confirm other periods (for example: military service, the period of caring for a disabled child, the period of residence of spouses of military personnel, etc.) this method is not applicable.
How to apply for a pension if you have lost your work book?
In such a situation, there are few options for solving the problem. In the absence of a work book that would confirm the work experience, a person will not be able to receive pension insurance.
If there is no work book, the person is automatically classified as a citizen who has never officially worked.
Such people have the right to apply only for social benefits. Its value is determined by the minimum wage. To assign a social pension to the Pension Fund, it is enough to provide identification documents and write an application requesting the assignment of a social benefit.
How to restore a work record?
When it turns out that the work book has been lost, all that remains is to restore what was lost. But it is impossible to restore the work book, since the newly completed card will be marked “duplicate”.
To completely fill out a duplicate, a person needs to visit all the places where he worked.
If you discover a loss, it is recommended to contact your last place of work and write a statement about the loss. Within 15 days, the citizen will receive a duplicate of the work book. All information about the last place of work is entered into it.
Court
Often, the archives cannot help future pensioners, because, in particular, commercial organizations simply did not transfer documents to the archives. In such cases, what is the point of going to court?
Unfortunately, this situation occurs quite often. It was during the period from 1986 to 1995 that documents on the length of service and earnings of employees of commercial organizations were most often not transferred to the archives.
The situation is aggravated by the fact that there are no legislative acts on what an employee should do if there are no documents about earnings in the archives.
Only procedures for confirming insurance experience are provided. But how to confirm the amount of earnings - there are no regulatory documents on this. The Pension Fund of the Russian Federation takes a firm position that the necessary information about wages must be provided by the employer or archival institution on the basis of personal account data, pay slips, etc.
Solving this problem is quite difficult. But in some cases, a citizen is recommended to file a claim in court to demand compensation for damage caused to an official (employer) who failed to fulfill his obligations to transfer documents to the archive during the liquidation of the enterprise.
Documents to confirm your experience
Citizens without a work record are treated like persons without work experience and cannot receive an insurance pension; in this case, they are entitled to a social pension, the amount of which is significantly lower. If the document is lost or some entries are missing, the following documents are allowed to be presented when applying for a pension:
- employment contracts;
- certificates from enterprises;
- books of collective farmers;
- extracts from archives;
- pay slips.
Periods when the book was not entered can only be confirmed by contracts for the performance of work (including social and labor contracts). In this case, you must also present a certificate from the employer that the latter made mandatory payments in the form of insurance contributions to the Pension Fund. If it is impossible to document the length of service, the Pension Fund establishes its duration based on the testimony of several witnesses and colleagues of the insured person.
The pension fund may refuse to process pension payments if it discovers an error, typo or missing information in an official document. In this case, to restore his right to a pension, a citizen can go to court.
More detailed information on what to do in the event of a refusal can be found in the article “How to challenge the Pension Fund’s refusal to grant an insurance pension?”
