PiS to impose blanket retail tax in Poland

Indeed. Tesco in the UK is a fantastic example of this - they did nothing wrong as such, just a slight change in consumer habits caused them to lose an astronomical amount of money. The typical short-sighted PiS thinking is that if a business is profitable today, it will be profitable tomorrow and so can be taxed to pay for short sighted policies. The pathological hatred that PiS have towards large private companies is also very very clear.


PiS have no interest in encouraging the Polish entrepreneur. It goes against what they stand for, which is centralised planning and control over society.

A a for-profit company is an entity not a human being, its remit is to maximise return for owner/shareholders within the bounds of the law under which it operates.

Hahaha 30% loss of pension hehehe, you calculated that? In a long run this tax increase is better than debt to UE without which there would be no need for this tax in the first place.

It's the Putin model, say patriotic things will impoverishing people and being belligerent and they'll love you (I think Poles will wake up faster than Russians have but it's no secret why the PiS stronghold is the more Russian influenced East.


No matter what the government does.... magic thinking at it's most destructive.


here's a nice radio story that shows how companies work and how slight hiccups can have huge consequences

thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/365/another-frightening-show-about-the-economy?act=1#play

Why don't you stick to building models rather than post some nonsense on line.

And what has the PO/Petru/KOD clique done or what are they ever likely to do to build a viable Polish business class, comepetitive Polish corporations feisty enough to gradually edge foreign interests off the Polish market? Oto jest pytanie! In 8 years of Platformerdom, during Petru's year-long ego trip and KOD's several-month fling there hasn't been a peep on the subject. There has only been PiS-bashing on the one hand and faithful service to foreign banks and interest groups on the other.

Young Poles over the last decade have become more westernised and have learnt how to play the business game. Look at Czarnecki and Getin Bank. Yes its struggling a bit now as are most smaller banks but its a Polish bank built from nothing by a Polish man. There will be more of these but you have to stay integrated with the UK. Just like the Chinese did, they watched, they learned and they made billions.

True, but they are, as Poles say, "rodzynki w cieście" (the few raisins in a coffee cake) or exceptions that prove the rule. Yes there are the SKOK Sparkasse, Marcpol, Polskie Jadło and a few more but in how many decades if not centuries will they be able to compete with Deutsche Bank, Citybank, Santander, Tesco, Biedronka, McDonald's and KFC? The worst is that no-one is really pursuing that theme. Polish business schools effectively teach how to rip off Poland in cahoots with foreign interest groups, although they natrually couch it all in high-sounding "market-friendly" euphemisms. Deputy PM Murawiecki is about the only one who has hinted about the need for Polish entrepreneurship and brands.

Spot on, and in very much in their electoral interest that people remain poor. This tax will just add to that since retailers will recoup it in either prices, staff T&Cs or more likely both.

It's the question maybe for the 1970s, back when Polak potrafi was a slogan. It's irrelevant for the modern world. Building a real business class takes generations and can't be rushed or helped by trying to run foreign run businesses out of the country (who will then prevent Polish companies from entering their market). You create favorable conditions for smaller businesses to take chances and grow but taxing everything in sight to pay for kiełbasa wyborcza will not do that.


That's vulgar Marxism. Why is a supposed anti-communist parroting basic Marxism?


I think that would be great too, I thought it was great when I saw Lech beer for sale in Berlin (in a Turkish run kebab place). But it can't be done by mandate. Yelling at the seedlings and keeping the forest mowed down is not going to help any trees grow faster, it'll just keep any new trees from growing at all...

Only the name is Polish, but like nearly all brewesies in Poland it is foreign owned (SABMiller) thanks to the Balcerowicz scheme. Back before the EU strait-jacket was imposed, Poland was free to give domestic entrepreneurs preferential treatment. The early 1990s was the time to launch a major Polish capital offensive, a massive educational programme, extensive credits, tax breaks and other incentives for Polish business startups plus the necessary PR backup. That's how the COP was built in pre-war Poland, with lots of promotion and enthusiasm. Instead Balzer ordered: privatse, privatise, privatise everything in sight, meaning cheaply sell off Poland's industrial assets and throw people out of work. That created a huge pool of cheap manpower for foreign "investors". And now, a quarter of a century on we find 90% of the supermarket goods of non-Polish origin (or produced by foreign concnerns in cheap-manpower), not a single Polish designed and owned major appliance, not a single indigenous make of car or TV set...

Morawiecki was the CEO of BZWBK, owned and streamlined by Santander of Spain and he learned much from there expertise. Not the largest, but one of the fastest moving well run banks in Poland. Santander has a history of picking up solid but badly run banks and getting them into shape.

Another Polish entrepreneur, Switalski was responsible for starting both Biedronka and Zabka, he then made the choice to sell them on to foreign companies. Those companies then took those businesses further. The problem isnt that its not possible, its the genrally mentality of people in Poland, they tend to be cautious. It took years to convince many of the idea of home ownership via mortgage rather than rent. You still have a large proportion of people living in cramped conditions because they fear taking on a 20-30 year loan.

Could we ask for the source of that particular factoid?


Poland now makes more than double the number of cars now than it made during commie times and those cars are of far far higher quality than the rubbish that was made before.

Marxism was internationalist, globalist and pushing for a world-wide proletarian revolution. Indigenous entreprenership is national, patrtioic, sovereign and liberating from excessive foreign contriol.
You have no idea how many ordinary Poles, not the "warszawski salon" types of course, complain: "Why are we always under sombeody's boot. Yesterday it was Moscow, now it is Brussels. They include the vast majrotiy who in general support Poland's EU membership, but wonder whether it has to be so interfering and so pro-foreign interests.

A certain type of person, regardless of what country they are in, will always say that. It doesn't mean they are right; in fact they never are.


See above. On a level with the comments field in the Daily Mail.


Not just the "vast majrotiy" (sic) but pretty well everyone has benefitted hugely from Poland choosing to be part of the single market.


I doubt we'll get much of an answer, however the answer is obvious. It comes from his imagination, like so many other 'factoids' in this thread.

The fact (and it is a fact not a factoid) is that most people here oppose the new retail tax, the tax that will cause so much damage to an already ailing economy.

Everyone has benefited from being able to observe aisles of glittery goods in fancy packaging they cnanot afford. The roundtable elites moved straight from PRL to III RP, whilst the bulk of society are still in PRL. They still have no real say in anything, its the bureacrats, local councils and, EU directives and other decision-makers that have the last word and do what they want. Protests, open letters and petitions even for good causes (that excludes the KOD ranting) rarely achieve anything. The protest against building the Krasiński street bridge in Warsaw will most likely fail to stop it.

"Syty głodnego nie zrozumie" is something you should rush to Google to translate and then make it your life's motto. If you take it to heart It should help de-snobbify you a bit.

In what way does that relate to the unpopular retail tax?


You mean the badly needed new bridge across the river fairly near ul. Krasinskiego? One would hope that letters from the "not in my back yard" residents of the area, including yourself certainly don't stop it. Nothing to do with the hugely unpopular and economically incompetent new retail tax though, a tax that will force up prices and lead to job losses.


Still waiting...

Still waiting for a source for that claim.


No, far more people can afford far more than they used to. Of course, there are now some people who can't afford the goods which they used to be able to buy but the man in the street couldn't buy because he had no access to the hard currency shops; it's entirely undertandable that those people long for a return to what to them were the good old days of Polish retailing.

Probably the same place he heard about cashiers having to wear pampers (which he would still be repeating if he hadn't been called on it).

Some folks are just way too ..... gullible.

It relates to your claim to everybody has benefited. To some extent that is true. The have-nots are now free to admire many more high-shelf goods than there ever were in Pewex and also to migrate and perform menial jobs in the UK and the Fourth Reich. But average people still feel at the mercy of the powers that be -- bureaucrats, public offices, corporations, bailiffs and Warsaw mayors that have obstructed parking with their post obsession, (Wonder whose brother-in-law made a killing manufacturing, selling and/or installing those black metre-high posts at every turn of the way.

???


To every extent. Joining the single market is the best thing that has ever happened to Poland, who are by far the largest net beneficiary of infrastructure funding. The EU as a whole also provides a check on excesses by the regime.

hard to say though how this relates to the disastrous and unpopular proposal for retail tax that will cause prices to rise and jobs to be lost.


Still waiting, Po, still waiting...

It's an old article, but I can't imagine things have changed that much.


warsawvoice/WVpage/pages/articlePrint.php/13879/article

Actually they dont do a bad job of keeping prices on the shelves low either. Bad end of last year Wawel tried to raise its prices given the large mark-up in cocoa prices but Biedronka threatened to pull the pull on their deal. Wawels share price collapsed and that got them to reach an agreement. Biedronka is as tough as they come, they hold no prisoners and will dump one brand for another to keep products at the prices they want.

Yep. Now, if 95% of suppliers are Polish, that means Biedronka are going to find savings through the suppliers instead. Doesn't take a genius to work this one out...

And so it begins.


money/gospodarka/wiadomosci/artykul/podatek-od-marketow-protestuja-handlowcy-i,224,0,2012128.html

As I said all along, this tax will hurt Polish businesses and Polish consumers. Where's the Party spokesman when you need him to defend job losses and bankruptcies?

Polonius seems to have gone rather silent lately, so just to show what retail thinks about the tax :

gospodarka.dziennik.pl/news/artykuly/512700,handlowcy-podatek-obrotowy-podatek-handlowy-ministerstwa-protesty.html


As predicted, this tax will do nothing but harm Polish customers and Polish businesses. PiS couldn't care less, as they couldn't be bothered to even meet the retailers. Why would they care, when they only care about themselves and their very high paid government jobs?

Retailers achieving a lower turnover are exempted, unless the conception has changed in the meantime.

The problem is that those that are part of a network, such as Żabka, will be forced to pay on the basis of the turnover of the entire network, not just their individual shop. The end result is that the biggest retailers such as Tesco and Auchan will force their suppliers to accept less, while the smaller shops (with no negotiation power) will simply have to close.

That's good. Let chain retailers beware! They have already sucked Poland dry with their profit transfers. The main thing is that what are known as mom & pop shops will get preferential boost. And that's what this pro-Polish law was all about. I'd even suggest official price setting so Tesco and Biedronka would have to pay the same price for oranges and dog food as mom & pop.

"Price-fixing, that's a PRL thing," you may rant and fume the way you always boringly do. But in times of crisis or emergency even the US and UK had ration cards and fixed many prices. In today's Poland that is also justified. Being constnatly crushed by foreign biggies is a state of crisis and emregncy which should be dealt with by all available means.

As we keep telling you, those shops won't get a boost: the big chains can use this tax to tell their suppliers to either cut the wholesale prices or get lost. Those suppliers will then pass that extra cost onto the small players, who will have to pay that and the insane new tax, and who will then no doubt pass the cost straight on to their customers.


Jesus wept. You're really trying to compare the situation after the best decade in the history of Poland to the dark days of WWII? Seriously?


If Poland is so desperate for money, it can tell the RCC to pay tax like everybody else does.

Polonius, Poland does not exist in a... oh bugger it, what's the point...

Good for who, Polonius? I'm sure the PiS appointed puppets in endless state jobs where they earn ridiculous salaries for doing nothing (like those in Macierewicz's commission who are getting 25k a month!) won't mind paying a bit extra, but for the ordinary Pole, they aren't so privileged.


They won't. They're already protesting, because if suppliers are forced to cut their margins to supply the supermarkets, it means they're going to increase their margins to the wholesalers and small local shops.


Indeed. Make them pay tax and cut religion in schools and that's a huge amount of extra revenue.

It's worth pointing out that government forecasts have the retail tax earning 2 billion złoty this year. We pay 1.3 billion to the RCC to provide religion in schools.