Law / KRUS - Farmer's Insurance Question and Help [10]

Hi,

I have been living in Poland for 6 years and hold legal citizenship, a Polish passport, and a Dowód Osobisty. I own a farm which contains over 4 hectares of arable land and I am legally a farmer here. Both the "Księgi wieczyste" (Official Title / Deed Registry for Property Ownership) and my contract show that my property is a farm.

Question: I wish to start making payments to KRUS (the Agricultural Social Insurance Fund) starting in 2009. Each quarterly payment consists of two parts - insurance and pension. The average quarterly payment for a single farmer with no spouse or children comes out to be about 260 zloty. I have owned my farm since 2002 and have never made any payments to KRUS since, for it is voluntary. I also have never benefited from KRUS in any way, not using it for any medical reasons (dentist or doctor). Some of my friends who are farmers have given me two different versions of my required payment if I wish to start making payments to KRUS in 2009: (1) Start making regular quarterly payments from 2009, (2) I am required to pay from the first day I owned my farm (2002 in this case), so payments in arrears must be made.

What is the correct law on this? If I wish to start making payments to KRUS, am I required only to make payments from 2009 (the day I wish to start insurance and medical benefits), or am I required to make payments from the first day I owned my farm (in 2002) ? Is anyone familiar with this? I appreciate your opinion and response. Thanks.

History / Responsibility for Murder of Catholic Poles during WWII ? [172]

I was recently invited to a neighbor's house for a cup of tea. As the hours progressed, three of us got into a historical debate. During World War II, from the beginning to the end, who was responsible for the death of most Catholic Poles...Germans, Russians, or Various Others? My answer to this question, in order, was: Germans, Russians, and Various Others. The two guests with me surprisingly stated: Russians, Germans, Various Others. Any opinions and numbers to support your statements? Thanks.

News / Poles Ranks First in Computer Coding [47]

It's nice to see that Poland, a mid-size country in Europe, ranks #1 world-wide in computer programming. According to "TopCoder", not only does Poland have the best information technology graduates...Warsaw University is the top school for this field in the world as well. Some statistics from the "TopCoder" website:

Handle Rating

1 Poland 2916.64
2 Russian Federation 2912.06
3 China 2765.70
4 Ukraine 2517.32
5 Canada 2485.28
6 Japan 2395.92
7 United States 2284.77
8 Netherlands 2251.81
9 South Korea 2250.53
10 Slovakia 2219.14

Another area where Poles excel is in the highly intuitive card game of Bridge. Poles rank tops when it comes to Bridge competitions. It doesn't surprise me then that it is the Poles that cracked the Enigma code during WWII for the Allied cause. Congratulations Poles!

Life / Can an American in Poland renew American Passport here? [18]

If an individual currently lives in Poland and has been living here for the past several years, holds both American and Polsh citizenship and passports and dowod osobisty, can he/she renew an American passport at the US embassy in either Krakow or Warszawa without having to go back to the USA to do it?

News / EU Hypocrisy Regarding Polish Shipyards [30]

"The European Commission has announced that state aid granted to the Szczecin and Gdynia shipyards as illegal and must be repaid, but it also gave Poland until the end of May 2009 to sell-off the yards in a move to save jobs and production."

Sure, it's ok when entire banks operating within the EU are on the verge of bankruptcy and governments are bailing them out. Just look at Iceland, a non-EU member which is going bust as well. Iceland has just been approved to receive a $6 billion IMF loan along with a consortium of European countries contributing to the package. Poland recently stated it's portion of the loan to Iceland will consist of $200 million. Wait a minute...all of these banks and an entire country (Iceland) are being prevented from going bankrupt, however, the shipyards in Poland must face it's destiny, to either survive or go bankrupt. This sounds like hypocrisy.

Life / Disability Law and Payments in Poland - Questions [6]

Hi,

I've been living in Poland in a farming village for over 6 years now and have come to respect how hard Poles work. What taints this reputation of hard work is when I see individuals here, both young and old, applying for and receiving disability payments (Renta) when they obviously aren't qualified for it. This was a common occurrence in New York City as well, especially with employees of the Long Island Railroad who after retiring with a decent pension, applied for and were entitled to lifetime disability payments in addition to their pensions. The New York Times (read article entitled, "nytimes.com/2008/09/21/nyregion/21lirr.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=disability% 20long%20island%20railroad&st=cse&oref=slogin - A Disability Epidemic Among a Railroad’s Retirees") interviewed several of those disability recipients at a Long Island Golf course swinging their clubs away. Imagine that? (Note: In the USA, when one recieves disability, you are not allowed by law to do anything physically demanding, otherwise, this defeats the purpose of disability and the payments for being disabled).

Similar to those individuals who cheat the disability system in the USA, I find this to be a very common practice in Poland as well. I see those who are getting disability payments because they are allegedly physically (or mentally) impaired in one way or another, and yet, they are out on the farm performing physically demanding work Also, they often spend a lot of their income on some drinking and smoking. I spoke to one neighbor about this asking, "Those individuals on disability, are they allowed to work on the farm, navigating their tractor, and harvesting food, etc?" My neighbor replied, "Those with farm disablity are NOT allowed to continue doing farm work and other demanding tasks, however, those with disability from a private or state company ARE allowed to."

Does anyone know the correct law on this? This seems to be an enormous drain on public funding and finances, in both Poland and the USA. Imagine the savings if disability laws were tougher and those receiving it were monitored more carefully. What is your opinion?