
Article 1 

1. Member States shall submit data relating to the ESSPROS module on net social protection benefits to the Commission (Eurostat) annually. The reference period shall be the calendar year.
2. The deadline for the transmission of data for the year N, together with any revision of previous years’ data, shall be 31 December of the year N + 2.
3. The first reference year for which full data shall be collected on net social protection benefit shall be 2010.
Article 2 

1. The definitions to be applied to the module on net social protection benefits shall be as laid down in Annex I.
2. The detailed classifications to be used in the module on net social protection benefits shall be as laid down in Annex II.
3. The criteria for dissemination of the data relating to the module on net social benefits shall be as laid down in Annex III.
Article 3 
This Regulation shall enter into force on the 20th day following its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union.
This Regulation shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States.Done at Brussels, 17 March 2011.
For the Commission
The President
José Manuel BARROSO
ANNEX I
1. The definitions laid down in Article 2 of Regulation (EC) No 458/2007 shall apply.

2. The definitions laid down in point ‘1.3. Expenditure of social protection schemes’ of Annex I to Commission Regulation (EC) No 10/2008 shall apply.

3. 

3.1. ‘net social protection benefits — restricted approach’ means social benefits after the deduction of taxes and social contributions paid on cash social benefits by their recipient and after the addition of residual fiscal benefit, if any, according to the formula:
Net social benefits (restricted approach) = gross social protection benefits* (1-AITR-AISCR) + residual fiscal benefits
residual fiscal benefits should be introduced in the calculation of net social benefits only if they are not directly accounted for in AITR and/or AISCR;
3.2. ‘average itemised tax rate (AITR) for a benefit (or group of benefits)’ means the sum of taxes paid on that benefit by recipients divided by the total income from that benefit (i.e. gross benefits received);
3.3. ‘average itemised social contribution rate (AISCR) for a benefit (or group of benefits)’ means the sum of social contributions paid on that benefit by recipients, divided by the total income from that benefit (i.e. gross benefit received);
3.4. ‘residual fiscal benefit’ means the part of the total value of a fiscal benefit that relates to relief on levies applied to social benefits (as opposed to the part that relates to relief on levies applied to all other forms of income).

4. The detailed definitions to be used for applying this Regulation are laid down in the ESSPROS Manual produced by the Commission in cooperation with Member States.

ANNEX II
1. 

— social protection benefits,
— social protection benefits, non-means-tested,
— cash benefits, non-means-tested,
— periodic cash benefits, non-means-tested,
— lump sum cash benefits, non-means-tested,
— social protection benefits, means-tested,
— cash benefits, means-tested,
— periodic cash benefits, means-tested,
— lump sum cash benefits, means-tested.

2. 

— sickness/health care,
— disability,
— old age,
— survivors,
— family/children,
— unemployment,
— housing,
— social exclusion (not elsewhere classified).

ANNEX III
1. 

— total net social protection benefits,
— the proportion of social protection benefits liable to taxes and/or social contributions,
— net social protection benefits by function,
— means-tested versus non-means-tested.

2. The Commission (Eurostat) shall, on demand, disseminate detailed data broken down by scheme and by Member State to specific users (national authorities compiling ESSPROS data, Commission departments and international institutions).

3. If the Member State concerned agrees to full dissemination of the data, the specific users shall be authorised to publish data by scheme.

4. If the Member State concerned does not agree to full dissemination, the specific users shall be authorised to publish data aggregated across schemes. Aggregation across schemes shall comply with the dissemination rules laid down by the Member State concerned.
