PiS to impose blanket retail tax in Poland

Standard and Poor's are not influenced by a mere demonstration unless there's a million people outside parliament for a month. They base their assessment on hard politics and the expertise of their analysts. They see a downward trajectory in Polish democracy (and not only they see it) and this new rating reflects that. S & P doesn't really care about ordinary people; they care about markets. Markets don't like unpredictable governments. If PiS want to alienate international commerce, they are going the right way about it.

Remind us, is it PO or PiS that want to impose a blanket 2% retail tax?

And international markets and comemrce do not care about normal, ordinary people but only about maximum profits by hook or by crook. And that's why they, not poor Poland, should be kept under close scrutiny and surveillance by impartial international authorities. But do any exist?

Sure they do and when they see the risk of government being overthrown there it goes - "political instability".

If some powerful entity tried to trigger off something similar in Germany, they would easily succeed. Actually that's what happening in Germany, however they "democrats" just send the riot police against protesters and censor the media, so it's all "stable".

What does the S&P rating have to do with democracy?

Neither do PiS, given that they want to destroy small Polish retailers and hand a nice boost to large international ones.

They were downgraded due to the whole noise about "lack of freedom and democracy" in Poland. No kidding, lack of "political stability" (weather the reasons behind it are true or not) is one of negative factors for investors.

Lack of "political stability" (real or not) is not the same as country being democratic or not; BTW, democracies are usually less stable in a short run than tyrannies. Is their's then a short term rating?

You don't have to tell me that but unfortunately markets don't care about that. Just like when Ukraine was under attack with "hard power" from the east, "markets" made their currency, ratings etc. collapse. Now when Poland is attacked with "soft power" from the west, "markets" again don't give a damn what is right or wrong. They just see "political instability" and reacts.

...still wondering when someone is going to explain how a blanket 2% tax on retailers is going to help small Polish businesses and consumers.

It depends how it is going to be implemented.

You can't win elections by announcing taxation on retailers. To fulfill other promises you need money and you can't tax international institutions - banks, corporations and hypermarkets. To do so, the Polish government should have much more power than it has.

Money can be raised by making the RCC pay tax like everybody else.

Maybe. I'm not an expert.

The downgrade is because of the attack on the Constitution. One part of which specifies the limit of borrowing, which is already very close to its maximum.

The Polish government has announced that they will exceed the borrowing limits (the 500 PLN per child bill is largely responsible) and the Constitutional Court cannot stop them.

The borrowing limit is also a %age of GDP, so reducing the GDP with increased taxes (shop tax), and anti-business and anti investment strategy's (bank tax, anti Foreign investment) will increase the 'debt burden'.

The downgrade will also increase the rate that Poland pays to borrow all this money and reduce the money that could be spent investing in Poland.

Its remarkable how much damage economic idiots can do to an economy in the space of a few weeks. Poland will be paying for this for a decade.


You would expect them to tax the rich or those that could afford it (maybe the banks).

Taxing food hits the poor most because its a much bigger part of their spending (VAT is another disgrace, why don't they simply increase it) .

There must be a reason for avoiding taxing the rich.

Indeed. But PiS have consistently shown since the election that they couldn't care less about the poor. Look at Polonius on here - all of the policies that are hurting the poor and he hasn't uttered a single word about them. Even the bank tax is going to hurt PKO the most - who in turn will pass the costs to their clients, who tend to be the poorer in society because of the extensive reach of the PKO network vs other banks.

Still, PiS lovers couldn't care less. It's TKM, after all.

Unintended consequences, who could possibly have foreseen them (besides all the people that foresaw them).


You can fight economic realities, but economic realities will win every. single. time.

nonsense, as usual.

You mean you believe the fantasy budget that involves finding an extra 7 billion in VAT? :D

The hole in VAT is easily 30-40 billion.

If it was, then PiS would have thrown all their efforts at closing that hole to allow them to meet more of their manifesto promises. Looks like the PISed up economics have been found out. The fact that they only budgeted for 7 billion suggests that the hole doesn't actually exist.


Well, I'm about to switch my bank (from ING) because of the fees introduced - 2.50zł on every withdrawal from non-ING machines as well as a ridiculous 6% loading on foreign currency withdrawals. It doesn't bother me, because I can pick from any bank I want, but Jan Kowalski living in some village is not going to be able to avoid the fees charged by PKO to cover their huge losses, especially as he's unlikely to be able to take advantage of internet banking.

That one of your problems. You are totally clueless about what's going on here.

Wow: that's nearly as stupid as a 2% sales tax on Polish shops! I pay nothing on any withdrawal from any Euronet machine and no monthly fees at all, plus load-free withdrawals from machines anywhere in the EU.

Thinking about it, I'm surprised the PISed-up haven't proposed a 2% tax on ATM withdrawals.

Some banks have already increased charges and by february will be increasing margins on new and current mortgages. It might means only a 50zl/m increase for most people but it will add 5% to the value of the loan over its life.

As for financing costs, for every 1% move in bond yields it costs 1,000,000zl more in interest on every 1 billion in bonds outstanding. When you consider there are hundreds of billions outstanding, it amounts to a lot. Money that this free spending government cant afford to lose. The bond market has really reacted yet in such a drastic manner, but it has decoupled from germany bonds since october and has been underperforming hungarian bonds (often seen as the anti europe side to CEE). Here is a chart below showing the last 5 months.

stooq.pl/q/?s=10ply.b&d=20160115&c=5m&t=l&a=ln&b=0&r=10huy.b+10dey.b

If that's true, it only means PiS lawmakers have failed to produce an air-tight measure protecting people from exploitative bloodsuckers. The plutiocrats who are already filthy rich can afford to shave their margin a bit and extend a helping hand to the hero of this story, the ordinary Pole. If they don't do so willingly, they should land behind bars!

Most banks didnt charge very much for running accounts, nor ATM fees, until the new government started to threaten bank taxes.
Polonius3 I am interested on your view on Dudas announcement or friday regarding the bailing out of swiss franc loan homeowners who are generally regarded as being better off than the average zloty based loan home owner. I fail to see how they are helping out the average Pole here as it seems they are doing the opposite, as people with zloty based loans and who paid a much higher rate of interest of the so far duration of their loans are getting no help at all and in fact, by the higher margins to be introduced by banks, will be subsidising the swiss franc loan home owners.

This is not an area of great itnerest ot me so I won't pretend I know much about it. The bottom line in my view is that the banks should also sacrifice to rectify this problem, as should the credit-takers. Some fair compromsie should be reached.

But neither the franc homeowners nor the złoty ones are aynmroe as well off as the bankers!

I do not know if this is true about economic policy of U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne. Who can confirm or deny the information? Any British following the situation in his/her country?

The government is insisting on taking billions of Pounds out of the economy through its austerity program, yet at the very same time it is pumping billion of Pounds into the economy through Quantitative Easing, the equivalent of 24,000 Pounds for every family in Britain.

But it gets even more confusing, because the Bank of England has admitted that those billions of Pounds are not going where they are supposed to. A vast majority of that money has actually found its way into the hands of the wealthiest five percent in Britain. It has been described as the biggest transfer of wealth to the rich in recent documented history.

It could be a huge scandal, comparable to the greedy oligarchs in Russia. A ruthless elite, siphoning off billions in public money. But nobody seems to know.

Except PKO Bank Polski, which is controlled by the government, has also increased fees :

pkobp.pl/aktualnosci/ogolnokrajowe/zmiana-oprocentowania-kredytow-i-pozyczek-przeterminowanych/

Point 7 onwards show how fees have increased by quite a bit.

What do you think should be done about PiS increasing fees for the users of a bank controlled by the government?

[Moved from]: State controlled bank PKO Bank Polski increases fees and percentages due to new bank tax

It's being brought up in the thread about retail, but I think it's better here.

It turns out that after Duda signed the new law providing for a hefty tax on banks, Poland's biggest bank PKO Bank Polski has significantly increased their fees for their clients. A list of increases can be seen here : pkobp.pl/aktualnosci/ogolnokrajowe/zmiana-oprocentowania-kredytow-i-pozyczek-przeterminowanych/

PiS, far from being interested in "good change" have actually managed to hammer hard working ordinary Polish citizens with increased bank charges at the biggest bank which is also controlled by the government.