Court of Cassation: amounts due by the employer in compliance with a settlement agreement are subject to social security contributions (Il Sole 24 Ore, April 24, 2014, page 42)

Court of Cassation, with judgment no. 9180 of April 23, 2014, moving away from a previous case law guidance (judgments no. 49/1997 and no. 6923/1996), stated that amounts paid by the employer are not exempted from social security contributions just because paid in compliance with a settlement agreement. In particular, the Court clarified that the character of settlement conventionally set by the parties does not prevent the payment of social security contributions to INPS. The assertion of the Court is based on the provision of art. 12 Law no. 153/1969 which includes in the contributive income every amount paid to the employee in connection with the employment relationship. According to the Court, the concept of compensation from a contributive standpoint does not correspond to the one given by the Civil Code in the art. 2099: thus because the first one supersedes the concept of “consideration”, including also amounts which are not necessarily connected to the employment relationship. Moreover, Court stated that amounts paid by the employer for a cause which is not connected to the employment relationship, in addition to those listed in art. 12 Law no. 153/1969, are exempted from the payment of social security contributions to the Institute.