Anyone who says you can optimize your net income by having your management company take charge of your social contributions is comparing apples to oranges. Let's look at this in some detail.
When you browse the Internet, you get conflicting answers. Some say that you can optimize your net income by having your management company pay your social security contributions. The answer is plain and simple: it makes no difference who pays the social contributions: you as a self-employed manager or your management company.
When you look at this from the perspective of cost neutrality, it makes no difference at all who pays the social contributions - you as a self-employed person or your management company. The perspective of cost neutrality is usually the perspective of the (management) company.
If the social contributions are borne by the management company, then those social contributions should be considered benefit in kind. That goes without saying. The social contributions are payable by the self-employed natural person, specifically you as the company manager. When your management company charges the social contributions, you thereby realize a benefit - in particular, a taxable benefit.
That taxable benefit in all nature is equal to the amount of the social contributions themselves. That too is obvious.
Finally, the benefit of all nature from social contributions is taxed at an identical tax rate as the gross management compensation you pay from your management company to yourself as a company director.
A mathematical example to make this clear.
As a manager, you pay yourself a manager's allowance of EUR 4 000 gross per month. For the time being, you pay your social contributions yourself(situation A). You want to have these social contributions taken over by your management company(situation B). However, the total cost for your management company may not increase.
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If the starting point is to keep the cost the same for the management company, then it does not matter who pays the social contributions.
Conclusion: so, from the perspective of cost neutrality, you do not optimize your net income at all by having your social contributions paid by your management company. This is a cloak-and-dagger operation.
Now let's take a different perspective, where we look at the question from net income and where cost neutrality is not a premise. Then you get a different story - at least seemingly.
Let's revisit the previous example. You want your management company to charge your social contributions on top of your current management fee. So your company pays EUR 663.30 in social contributions in your place.
The amount of social security contributions is added to your total gross taxable income. That's obvious. And as your gross taxable income has increased, so has the withholding tax.
But the increase in withholding tax is only EUR 245.21, compared to the EUR 663.30 in social contributions that your management company is taking charge of. In short, you seem to pay only 245.21 EUR for a benefit of 663.30 EUR.
That, however, is a misrepresentation. After all, the cost to the company has gone up (apples and oranges, you know).
For suppose you were nevertheless willing to increase the cost to your management company by having the amount of social contributions charged to it, then you might as well have decided to increase your gross management compensation by the amount of social contributions.
We saw that in the first calculation example. For an equal cost, having your management company take charge of your social contributions is a vest-pocket operation. Moreover, it adds complexity to your management company account, complexity that is not at all helpful. And why would you do it?
Whether you as an independent business owner or your management company pay the social contributions makes no difference at all.
Anyone who says you can optimize your net income by having your management company take charge of your social contributions is comparing apples to oranges.
Thus, we recommend that you pay your social contributions yourself as a natural person / manager of your management company.
And if you are willing to increase the expense on behalf of your management company, we suggest that you simply add that expense to your gross management compensation or assign a benefit in kind that is taxed favorably.
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