Salome Odisharia, founder of audit and consulting company Lino, said the proposed changes to pension-related fines are a positive development, but warned that amnesties can disadvantage businesses that paid penalties on time.
According to Odisharia, it is welcome that small businesses could be relieved of fines that in some cases reached GEL 15,000-20,000. She also highlighted the planned use of RS.ge and SMS notifications to promptly inform companies about potential violations.
At the same time, Odisharia said businesses that had already paid fines for minor technical or timing errors could be left at a disadvantage. She suggested identifying companies fined for small discrepancies, such as differences of only a few tetri, and crediting the amounts they paid back to their pension balances.
Under the proposed amendments to the Funded Pension Law, the standard GEL 500 penalty would be reduced to GEL 300, while the doubling mechanism would be abolished. A 10-day grace period would also be introduced for correcting technical or minor errors without penalties. Currently, more than 4,000 employers have over GEL 13 million in outstanding fines, which would be written off or reduced under the proposed changes.
