Getting SSS Coverage For An I-Café

I had already written an article about the Social Security System (SSS) coverage of a café business a year ago but I found a need to blog again about it because of the questions that get asked every now and then on web forums frequented by i-café owners. While it is really the SSS that has the answers to questions, what I have below are my personal knowledge of some of the policies and that the agency imposes on a business like i-café. I had some discussions in the past with SSS regarding its coverage of an i-café when I was still an officer of a local internet café association and here are some pertinent matters about the subject.

The owner of an i-café can be registered either as an employer or a self-employed individual depending on how he runs the business. If he manages and operates his i-café all by himself, he can be covered as a self-employed individual but some factors like the number of computers in his shop has to be considered before he gets approved as such. I remembered that the SSS branch in my area agreed to my suggestion before that if an i-café has below sixteen (16) workstations, the owner of the business may qualify as self-employed. Over and above that figure, the i-café owner has to be classified as an employer because tending a shop with more than fifteen (15) seats for customers will be hard for only one (1) man to do.

I know that many of you would contest the above and say that you can manage to operate an i-café by yourself even if it has thirty (30) workstations. That is a contention that will be very difficult for SSS to accept. There has got to be a reasonable number of workstations that we must agree with SSS as to when does an i-café owner be considered as self=employed individual.  Above that number of workstations, we must accept that you need to be registered with SSS as an employer because you need to hire other person(s) to help you manage your i-café.