Self-Employment Social Security Extended to Bus Drivers
25 January 2019
The Self-Employment Social Security Act 2017 which provides social security cover to certain categories of self-employed persons and requires such persons to make mandatory contributions to the self-employment social security fund established under the Act will been extended to bus drivers from 1 February 2019 pursuant to the
Self-Employment Social Security (Rates of Contribution for Bus Driver) Regulations 2019 (‘Regulations’) which were gazetted today.
The Regulations define a ‘bus driver’ as any self-employed person who –
- provides the service of carriage of passengers (i) by means of a public service vehicle or motor vehicle owned by a person, or managed, maintained or operated by a person, under any form of arrangement with the owner or lessor of the vehicle; and (ii) whether for hire or reward or other valuable consideration or money’s worth or otherwise;
- holds a valid driving licence issued under section 26 of the Road Transport Act 1987; and
- for the purposes of paragraph (a) above, has been issued with a valid vocational licence under section 56 of the Road Transport Act 1987.
With this extension, the Act (which came into force on 13 June 2017) will apply to three categories of self-employed persons, namely taxi drivers, e-hailing vehicle drivers and bus drivers. The rates of contribution are identical for each of these categories of self-employed persons.