Another potential tax idea that would be better would be something like in Ireland with the USC tax.
You could not suggest a more unpopular idea. It is detested by the Irish and all parties are committed to abolishing it.
I'd come up with a simple road tax where 1% of people's wages goes into that fund.
Ditto. And why should the unemployed drive for free. Or employees pay for their employer to use roads for work?
There are basically no big foreign supermarket chains operating in Germany and the laws in Germany make it hard for non-german supermarket chains to operate in Germany (no Tesco, no Carrefour etc).
There is nothing to stop either entering this market. The Germans are very price concious and have poor brand loyalty. Put simply, they are smarter than the rest. The mighty WalMart entered and then left with their tails between their legs. The discounter format is wiping the eye of the hypermarket. The Germans invented the discount format. Discounters have gone from 0 to 16% in Ireland in roughly the same number of years, just broke 10% in the UK. No sign of slowing either.
I think the Alma concept in particular could succeed.
They would want to make a profit for once in Poland before taking on expansion.
PiS are relying on people being ignorant. The tax will actually hurt consumers and suppliers, not the supermarkets.
+1. If Pis think they can solve an issue of competition by tax they are just proving themselves to be morons. The biggest issue hindering the independent grocery sector is competition, and in particular access to international brands for smaller wholesalers. Major manufacturers have a warped system here of selling huge volumes only (P&G do it globally). The massive players can buy directly from them, but everyone else must buy from agents. This creates layers of costs. There is extremely poor competition in the wholesale/cash&carry trade. I have often seen promotions where supermarkets were cheaper than wholesale. I'm not talking about loss leading either. Selgros, Makro and Eurocash (which is a franchise) are the only operators. In a country this size there should be hundreds of independent cash & carries. They can't get a foot on the ladder.
The simple reason there are almost no Polish chains is that cash was needed for the gold-rush of the 90's, no Polish company had it. The westerners did however.