The National Insurance Institute has begun transferring tens of millions of NIS to independent reserve servicemen, who will have them in their bank accounts as of Sunday (23.2.25) and over the coming weeks
The payments are a refund of reserve duty debts to 5,800 independent reservists who, as a result of the war, had income changes and tax assessment differences that caused a debt under the old law - which has been amended.
As a reminder, the law that existed until recently stipulated that reserve service benefits must be paid at the end of the service period and not every month. In addition, the calculation of benefits for self-employed workers is based on advances that they report to the National Insurance Institute.
The bill, recommended by the National Insurance Institute, proposed to change the existing law and determine payment based on advances reported by self-employed workers by October 2024, or based on the tax assessment - whichever is higher.
The legislation also sought to provide a "retroactive solution" for those who incurred a debt for the year 2023 and repaid it.
With the passage of the law - a reservist who repaid a debt will receive automatically a full refund from the National Insurance Institute directly to his bank account.
In addition, the new wording of the law will also provide a solution for the year 2024 for which no debt has yet been incurred (since the income tax assessment is received in mid-to-late 2025).
Following the advancement of legislation - the National Insurance Institute was able to freeze the debts for this time, for a total of NIS 65 million. Now, after the introduction of legislative changes to the National Insurance systems, the transfer of payments to the independent reservists who paid the debt has begun, and they will see the refund in their bank accounts starting Sunday and during the coming month.