ÖGK additional payment due to unannounced allowance - what to do?
Hello, I need some advice regarding a situation in Austria about a mini job (“geringfügig”) and the Austrian Health Insurance Fund (ÖGK).
I work as a substitute/jumper in childcare. I intentionally made sure to stay below the marginal employment income limit, so I only worked 33 hours.
Two days ago, I received a payment demand from ÖGK for €97.98 because I was apparently above the income limit.
The reason seems to be that my employer added a “pedagogical allowance” for 2 days, even though I normally work as a childcare substitute . I was never informed beforehand that this allowance would be added, so I had no way of knowing that my salary would become higher.
Important: I received the money before I received the payslip, so I could not check in advance how the payment was calculated or that this allowance was included.
My employer now says:
That they are obliged to always pay that, but they never did that just this one time. That it's my fault that I didn't pay attention to the border.( I didn’t notice it because in the same month they didn’t pay me to correct amount. They paid me less).
My problem is: How was I supposed to know that I would suddenly receive an extra allowance if I had never been informed about it and had not received it before for similar assignments?
What would you do in my situation?
• Pay and accept it?
• Contact the Chamber of Labour (Arbeiterkammer)?
• Call ÖGK?
• Is my employer legally right?