On 25 September 2026, self-employed people got this text message from the Israel Tax Authority:
שלום, לפי תובענה ייצוגית ת"צ 24341-06-17, הינך זכאי להשבה. פרטים באזור האישי באתר רשות המסים, בנושא "מיצוי זכויות".
In English: "Hello, under class action 24341-06-17 you are entitled to restitution. Details are in the personal area on the Tax Authority website, under 'exhausting rights'." The same day, money landed in their bank accounts. It repays tax the Authority collected, with no legal basis, on refunds they had received from National Insurance (Bituach Leumi).
A self-employed person pays National Insurance in monthly advances and deducts 52% of what they paid from the income they are taxed on. When the year closes, National Insurance recalculates against the real income. Anyone who paid too much gets a refund, sometimes a year or two later, with inflation linkage and interest added.
Until 2021 the Tax Authority did two things with that refund. In the year the money arrived, it cut the person's deduction by the amount of the refund, so the tax they paid that year went up. And it charged ordinary income tax on the linkage and interest National Insurance had added.
Two cases, one argument
The first case was brought by tax adviser Menachem Kirshblum. The Central District Court ruled for him in 2019, and the Supreme Court dismissed the appeals on 1 May 2022. The Tax Authority was ordered to repay about ₪10.3 million on the refunds themselves and about ₪1.85 million on the linkage and interest. It worked out each taxpayer's amount from its own data.
The second case, 24341-06-17, was filed by Yosef Avigdor Weissenstern in June 2017. His lawyer, Savir Rabin, also represented Kirshblum. On 13 August 2024 Judge Shmuel Bornstein certified it as a class action, with the Tax Authority's consent. What remained in dispute was the size of the class and the period, and on both the judge sided with the Authority. In the same decision he allowed it to start paying. Weissenstern appealed, and the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal on 7 July 2025.
Who gets paid
The class covers individuals who received a refund of overpaid National Insurance contributions that the Tax Authority counted in the year it arrived, between 12 June 2015 and the end of tax year 2021.
For the refund itself, only people who ended up paying more tax than they would have if the refund had been assigned to the year they paid the advances are included. For the linkage and interest the test is simpler: anyone who paid tax on them.
The Authority dropped the practice from 2022. From tax year 2025, amendment 266 to the Income Tax Ordinance allows it by law, so the case does not cover refunds arriving today.
Checking without a link
The money goes to the account the Tax Authority already has on file, with no application and no form. The breakdown is in the personal area on the Tax Authority website, and the bank statement shows a credit from the Authority.
The Authority's message has no link. It sends people to the personal area, which you reach by typing the address yourself. A sender name like "Tax Authority" can be faked, and the case number appears in public notices. A message about this case that carries a link, or asks for bank details, a code or a payment to release the refund, did not come from the Authority.
Anyone who was self-employed in those years, got a National Insurance refund and sees no credit can ask their accountant whether their 2015 to 2021 assessments cut the deduction in the year the refund arrived.