FOR Communications

Government declares a good state of public finances but at the same time intensifies its search for new ways to drain the taxpayers’ pockets. The newest example is provided by the work currently in progress on lifting the upper limit on pension contributions. As a result, for earnings starting at about 6 thousand PLN net monthly, each additional zloty paid by the employer will be burdened with 52 groszes of taxes and premiums, and only 48 groszes will go to the employee.

Despite warnings, voiced for over a year by FOR and other organizations, the Parliament, with the votes of PiS (Law and Justice Party) and Kukiz '15, adopted Bill on Restrictions Related to Trade on Sundays, pushed through by "Solidarity," politically affiliated with PiS. The act comes into force on 1 March 2018. Until the end of 2018, the trade ban will not apply on the first and last Sunday of the month, from 2019 only on the last Sunday of the month, and in 2020 a total ban will be introduced.

Two years of the PiS’ (the Law and Justice party) government constituted an unprecedented attack on Polish institutions of the rule of law. In the economic sphere, the government acts in a way that increases what should fall - public debt, and decreases what should grow - the strength of the private sector. It places Poland on a dangerous turn of her history, and the economic prospects of our country start to look bleak, especially in the event of a downturn in the global economy.

Two years of the PiS’ (the Law and Justice party) government constituted an unprecedented attack on Polish institutions of the rule of law. In the economic sphere, the government acts in such a way that what should fall – increases, like the public debt, and what should grow – decreases, like the strength of the private sector. All this places Poland on a dangerous turn of her history, and the economic prospects of our country start to look bleak, especially in the event of a downturn in the global economy.

The European Commission has raised the forecast of economic growth in 2017 not only for Poland, but for all EU Member States except three (Luxembourg, Greece and Great Britain).

A fair assessment of the state of public finances requires regular access to current data. While the government declares that public finances are in excellent shape, the publications of budget implementation data are increasingly delayed and published irregularly, and VAT returns are being manipulated. This makes it difficult to assess the situation of the state budget, which accounts for half of public expenditure in Poland.

The project of the Ministry of Labor, planning to abolish the upper limit of mandatory social security contributions since the beginning of 2018, will increase the State's income by about PLN 5.5 billion. Seeking money in the taxpayers’ pockets is a clear proof that PiS government is in dire need of money to finance the costs of election promises. Their repeated assertions that election promises could be financed by sealing of the tax system were just lip service.

FOR Foundation managed, as the first, to get hold of the document, sent at the end of August 2017 by the foreign minister to the European Commission in response to their third recommendation, from July 2017, on the rule of law in Poland.

The ban on Sunday trading, forced by the Law and Justice party (PiS) and its associate, "Solidarity," will hamper the freedom of people as consumers, and threaten workers with redundancies. The declared goal of the latest version of the prohibition proposed by PiS - to provide two free Sundays to retail workers - can be achieved without causing harm, without restricting the freedom of consumers, and without creating the risk of redundancies.