PiS to impose blanket retail tax in Poland

Typical UK shopkeeper's mentality. They know the price of everything but the value of nothing!

You've said we need money, so there's 1.3 billion in something that can easily be provided in Sunday Schools like you and I attended.

Never attended Sunday school. That was for prostitutes.* Catholics attending public schools had catechism once a week after hours in the same public school.
I learnt my readin', writin', 'rithmetic and religion under the Good Ladies of the Cloth (Felicians and IHM); secondary school was under the Christian Brothers.

*Just a little joke. The nun was asking her 8th-grade girsl what they wanted to be in life and they said: nurse, stewardess, secretary, typist, waitress, homemaker, etc., but one girl said prostitute. The old nun fainted and when they brought her to with smelling salts she mumbled: "My child, what on earth did you say? Please repeat it slowly and clearly." So the girl said: "I want to be a prostitute!". The nun breathed a sigh of relief: "Thank God, I thought you had said Protestant!"

ah OK, that does explain a lot. A friend of mine in Ireland received a large sum of money in compensation after similar experiences, I wonder if the US govt is doing that as well. Surely you must be in line for some kind of payout after all that psychological damage!

Au contraire, I thank God for my good fortune in gaining a moral compass with which to travel through life. I must admit I did experience a several-year crisis fo faith while at uni, bombarded on all sided by godless, leftist professors, but Poland got me back on the straight nad narrow. Bogu niech będą dzięki! (Google if required!)

It gets even better. The latest suggestion is that foreign supermarkets might find gains in negotiating lower rents. Our pension funds tend to invest in owners of such properties, as it provides a steady long term income. Who loses? We do.

Foreign supermarkets, mon amour! And foreign banks and corporations and other biggies holding Poland by the throat in concert with the EU who have strait-jacketed Poland's economy -- that seems to be your theme song.

If the tax is raised, suppliers will raise prices and these will get passed on bla-bla-bla ad nauseum -- seems to be your sole line of reasoning.

Why is it that trmming overhead never crosses your mind? You seem to be constantly shedding tears over the "poor" foreign corperoaitons. Couldn't their filthy rich CEOs and board members stand to shave off some of their indecent earnings and drive a big Opel (if they need that bigness to prop up their egos) than a big BMW? There are many other ways to economise besides lowerng employee wages like moving a warehouse to lower-rent premises and using smaller light bulbs. And the ball should be mainly in the court of the biggies, the fat, rolling-in-dough mega-corporations!

You don't seem to get it, do you? These companies are not going to lose - they're big and strong enough to simply force savings with suppliers to cover the costs of the tax. It's the small Polish companies that lose out, because they haven't got the strength to negotiate. That's why retailers and suppliers in Poland are coming out against the retail tax, because they know that they're the ones going to lose badly with this tax. In fact, the general opinion is that the tax is a huge gift to the large foreign chains.


It is exactly what will happen. Combine it with the way that franchises are being taxed as if they were all owned by one company, and you've got a recipe for economic disaster. If Morawiecki is against it, doesn't it mean that something is quite wrong with it?


That's exactly what the large boys will do. They'll stop paying so much (most of the supermarkets pay more than minimum wage), they'll trim expenses by demanding bigger discounts from suppliers and so on. Trimming overheads is exactly what they're going to do, and it's Poles that will suffer as a result.


Try being one of them for a day, knowing that the big bosses elsewhere are constantly breathing down your neck for greater and greater results. There's a reason why they earn high salaries, because they deliver high results.


Smaller lightbulbs reminds me of that dreadful Carrefour in the basement of some centre in Warsaw. I don't remember where it was exactly, but it was close to the first McDonalds. Horrible, horrible place.

Always backing the biggies, the filthy rich CEOs and other executives. Never consider ways to trim them down to size?
The minimum-wage law prevents underpaying workers. Official prices would level the playing field. If someone could buy oranges at mom & pop for the same price as Tesco, he migth be better off just popping down to the corner shop rather than driving to the supermarket.

The existing anti-monopoly office should put the biggies (which you love and defend so fiercely) under close surveillance for signs of violations and clamp down accordingly. The PO regime had turned a blind eye to corproate shenanagins so the bloodsuckers had a field day in Poland.

Good luck with that. Let me give you an example: PIS issue a diktat that VIP lager can only be sold at a price of 2.89zl a half-litre can, so the supposed mom-and-pop shop (where you clearly do not shop yourself) can compete with the biggies. So Biedronka respond by introducing a 0.550l can and sell it at 1.49zl. PIS issue a diktat that VIP lager can only be sold at a price of 2.99zl a 0.55l can. So Biedronka respond by introducing a 0.525l can and sell it at 1.49zl. So PIS issue a diktat saying that VIP lager can only be sold in cans of 0.5000l cans and only for 2.89 a can. So Biedronka withdraw VIP lager from the market and introduce a new product Very VIP lager, which sells at 1.49zl per half litre can.

What are PIS going to do? Issue a diktat that all beer in Poland must be sold at the price of 2.89zl and only in 0.5000l cans?

And even if they were to be that mind-numbingly stupid, what is to stop online supermarkets delivering to Polish customers fron supply centres just over the border with Slovakia? Nothing.

Welcome to reality.

Which still wouldn't help matters, because Biedronka would simply force the suppliers to take less money and the money would be used to lure customers in the shop through promotions and giveaways.

Price controls work, but only if you want your country to resemble modern day Venezuela.

Your brain always functions in one direction: how to aid, abet, defend and encurage the corporate bloodsuckers to outfox the Polish nation by cirucmventing the law, finding loopholes, cjhangin can sizes and extracting their maximum greedy profits to transfer to their home countries. Why not turn things round, if even as an intellectual challenge (devil's advocate and suchlike) and try to think of ways the Polish nation can deal with their foreign corporate adversaries. What can the government do to stay two steps ahead of the foreign corporoate mafiosi and nip their evil designs in the bud? The biggies are indecently filthy rich already. It's better to back the underdog.

You forget that some PIS members (and their supporters) would love nothing more than that; they would be (again) the privileged few with access to the hard currency shops and their hated enemies, the people who have done well under capitalism, would be ground into dust.


Ah, so that's the problem you're having: you think that everybody who wants to make a profit is being greedy. But in reality profit is what people want in exchange for taking a risk. You're making the same exact mistake Karl Marx made.


Not being a bunch of utter morons would be a good start. However, it's more realistic to hope that they at least could stop seeing companies as evil blood-suckers and start trying to make partnerships instead of enemies.

Are you typing from Neverland? Poland according to Harry Pan lol!


Give them set of rules to follow is the way to go. Only in some African countries those regulations do not apply.

As was only to be predicted...

thenews.pl/1/12/Artykul/240306,Thousands-of-shopkeepers-protest-retail-tax-in-Warsaw


As we've been saying all along, this tax will destroy Polish retailers and allow the foreign-owned supermarkets to dominate the Polish retail landscape.

Predictably, you have reported a diagnosis but conveniently omitted a viable prognosis. The ever wise, prudent and socially sensitive PiS govt have moved to accommodate the retailer complaints and modify their tax plan. That is the latest story. The protest came and went. But for a blinkered, dyed-in-hte-wool PiS-basher only that story is highlihted which enables him to puruse his favourite pastime -- PiS-bashing. Delph's motto: truth, objectivity and common sense be damned!

Really? Could you possibly go into detail and provide sources? Surely you aren't making up the fact that since the demonstration yesterday afternoon PIS have change their minds yet again, are you?


That sounds very much like a 'news source' I'd better not name here.

That indeed is exactly what it is; a story

The tax of 2% is quite legitimate, the bigger companies will pay even more which is great and now the foreign companies will be paying and that is something that will help Polish economy.

Not a word about it online, so it looks like you've just made it up.


Hush, child. The Polish consumer and supplier will be paying the tax, not the supermarkets.

Of course, like Pol3 always says, foreign supermarkets and corporations do exploit Poland (otherwise they would not have come) but let's face it, has Poland not benefitted from them? If they have come to Poland, it was only at Polish government's invitation. They employ several hundreds of thousands of Poles on much higher salaries and on much better conditions, they pay tax and they provide Polish consumers with a wide range of goods and services Polish companies cannot and could not..

Without them, Poland would be at Albania's level so yes, Poland needs them. However, they should not do all they want ;)

The govt should do everything possible (massive education, traineeships abroad, incentives) to finally dynamaically promote home-grown Polish enetrepreneurship to create major Polish corporations and retail chains capable of competing with the foreign biggies. That way Poles would be provided with all the benefits you mentioned (goods and services, jobs) but with one difference: THE PROFITS WOULD STAY IN POLAND!


If I made it up, that would be a lie and true Catholics don't lie! On yesty's TVP1 7.30 news the leader of the shopkeepers' protest dissolved the demo saying agreement had been reached with the authroties. He said if nothing happened the protesters would be back.

Still waiting for your link to confirm that PiS are rethinking the retail tax after the last demonstration.

As for what you say - you've forgotten one cruical aspect : Polish companies also tend to relocate abroad when they start becoming successful on a European level. LPP (owned of Reserved and many other Polish brands) did just that recently.

Watching TVP1 news last night is the only link. Some people have actually got brains that go beyond URLs, bytes, pixels, Skypes, Shmypes and other Gatesian e-gadgetry.

There's a lot of evidence that very strongly shows the exact opposite. I've read articles in various 'news sources' about things such as invisible police attack dogs and micro-chipped babies which were written by a man who claims to be a good Catholic. Please do note that I'm not saying that you made up your story, I'm just asking you to provide evidence to support your claim.


I'm wondering what percentage of Polish online shops will be relocating their operations to Slovakia in order to not pay this insane tax and to also pay far lower VAT. I'm also wondering how many Allegro sellers will do the same.

The claim is that delivery companies will be forced to either charge 40zł to the receiver (plus their fees) or the seller will have to prove that the shipment is registered with the tax office in Poland.

However, it looks like the whole thing is falling apart. I found an article on wPolityce (a PiS mouthpiece) which claims that the tax-free amount is about to be raised considerably, the minimum tax rate will be raised considerably and the progressive nature of the tax will be dropped in favour of a single high rate above x złoty. The extra tax for opening at the weekend will also apparently be dropped.

I don't see the tax happening. The European Commisison already told Hungary that it wasn't on to charge a tax that was going to punish larger retailers only, so it's likely that the tax will simply not happen. Typical PiS incompetence.

wpolityce.pl/polityka/281415-rzad-beaty-szydlo-slucha-przedsiebiorcow


Notice how Polonius used exactly the same line about Szydło's government listening - which means that TVP1 and wPolityce repeated the Party line and nothing more. TVP, independent? Hahaha ;)

Does anybody at PIS have any clue at all about the fundamental points of EU law?!


Yep, they've managed to seriously annoy lots of people, lose lots of support, make it clear that they haven't got a clue what they're doing and they are still no nearer funding their bribe program. All in all an excellent performance really. I get the feeling that we'll just see VAT going up to 24% instead of this insane tax, which will just mean more businesses relocate to Slovakia, where VAT lower and going down, or just shifting all profits to Luxembourg, where it's 17%.

Nitpickery here, fault-finding there, anti-government rabble-rousing somewhere else plus constant efforts to keep Poland down -- that seems to be your permanent MO. One can't help but ask: How does it feel to be an alien, meddling outsider and unwelcome intruder constantly badmouthing the country that feeds him?

Perhaps you should tell us, given that you spent the entire 8 years of the PO government doing exactly that.

Anyway, the tax is dead. We can expect a rise in VAT.

Which is a tax that hits the poorest hardest. But I suppose the lovers of PIS will think poor people suffering is a fair price to pay for the Deat Leader Chairman Kaczynski's bribe program to come into being.

But with that said, given that the 500zl program even according to PIS will cost PLN 22 billion per year, will raising VAT to 24% be enough? And also, how much money will be lost due to companies relocating to Luxembourg so they can charge 17% VAT instead of 24%?