Nice attempt a trying to deflect from the late president's pardoning of a crook linked to his son in law.
How can you link raising the VAT for babyware by Tusk with Kaczynski pardoning a crook
is beyond me. I see no connection between the two at all. I am not a PiS supporter (and
never was.) I am merely reporting anti-Polish, anti-family policies of Der Generalgouverneur
Tusk.
I agree with the policy if you are on welfare, you should not be subsidized to have children.
It's nothing to do with being on welfare. It's about general anti-family approach and policies
of the current government.
The VAT for babyware in Great Britain is
0%. In Luxembourg, it's
3%. The VAT tax
in general is higher only in two EU countries - in Sweden and Denmark it's 25%.
In Luxembourg and Spain it's 15%, in the UK - 17.5%.
Poland - one of the poorest
countries in the EU, has one of the highest VAT rates.As far as helping families is concerned, Poland spends 0.76% of GDP for it, Germany
and France spend 9% and 4% respectively. Young mothers in Czech Republic and Hungary
receive much more help from the state than Polish mothers.
We have to ask ourselves, why is having children viewed as beneficial for society in all
other EU countries, and is encouraged and supported by them, whilst in Poland it is viewed
as luxurious consumption, and taxed accordingly.
can only be opposed by a leftist.
Interesting. I always had the impression that protesting against excessively high tax rates
is characteristic for the "rightists" and not the "leftists". Oh, well - one learns something new
every day :)
It is also worth bearing in mind that although they have increased the VAT rate on other things, thy have lowered VAT on food.
Erm... the 7% VAT rate for food was
increased to 8%, and the 22% rate was
increased to 23%.
There is one lowered VAT rate of 5% for fresh bakery products (which have expiration date
shorter than 14 days.)
Why do the Polish public let them get away with it?
Polish public is stupified by the government-controlled media and manipulated by primitive
sociotechnics: if you are with PO - you are intelligent, modern, educated, true European;
if you are against PO - you are xenophobic, anti-semite, backwards disgrace and you should
be ashamed of yourself. Primitive sociotechnics, but it works on a society stupified by Gazeta
Wyborcza, TVN and other mainstream media.
Was it better under Russian rule ?
Do you mean under the Russian partition 1795-1918? I really couldn't say, as I don't know too
much about the social history of Poland in that particular period. However, if you meant the
period of 1945-1989 when Poland was not under "Russian rule", but under Soviet domination,
then the opinions are divided and I feel that it is beyond the subject of this thread to discuss
those opinions.
Poland was allowed to maintain the exception for baby clothes until now by the EU
Interestingly enough, other countries like, for example, Great Britain or Luxembourg are still
allowed to maintain the low VAT rates (0% and 3% respectively.)
As I always say - accept the EU decision, or leave. Poland's choice
If it was like that - all the member countries who ever opposed any EU decission would have
left the union by now. Opposing EU decisions doesn't mean leaving the union for any other
country, and I don't see why it should be different for Poland.
it's not something that can be blamed on Tusk or indeed the current Government at all
Yes, it is. Even if this was overlooked in negotiations before, there has been discussion about
it for the last 3-4 years and the government had enough time to negotiate the maintaining
of lower rates (as it's been done by other EU members, in many other matters in the past,
re-negotiation of terms is nothing extraordinary or new in the European Union.)