On 19 July 2021 representatives Russell Bedford Poland participated in a meeting of entrepreneurs associated with RIG Katowice with Deputy Prime Minister Jarosław Gowin. The theme of the meeting was tax changes introduced under the concept of "Polish Deal”.
The participants exchanged views on the planned changes, including critical voices, in particular on the revision of the rules on the establishment and settlement of health contributions.
According to the current change, the health premium for single-person businesses will no longer be flat-rate but will depend on income and be based on the rate 9%. According to the project's authors, this is a solution that removes the imbalance in the burden of health insurance between employees and entrepreneurs.
In the meantime, entrepreneurs pointed out that, in order to fully illustrate the changes in the burden, it should also be pointed out that the possibility of deducting the health contribution from the payable tax would be removed, which in practice represents a further significant increase in the burden.
Given that health contributions apply to virtually every employee and every employer, these changes are of great importance for all sectors of the economy, although participants claimed that they could be the most severe for micro-entrepreneurs.
This in practice means that these consequences apply to a strongly dominant group of entrepreneurs (according to statistical data, the entire SME sector is in Poland 99.8% number of entrepreneurs, among them 96% are micro-enterprises).
The Deputy Prime Minister attending the meeting assured that he was aware of all aspects raised by entrepreneurs and his team were taking action to implement appropriate adjustments
In many cases, the actual effect of the introduced tax change package will be to fully offset the positive financial impact of other solutions, such as the increase in the tax-free amount (the new amount is to be free 30,000 PLN). The participants at the meeting indicated that their initial calculations showed that at best the degree of tax burden would not change, and at worst it could rise until about 15%.
As indicated at the meeting, a particularly worrying phenomenon is, first of all, the very fast pace of making changes so important for all entrepreneurs, the lack of precise transitional rules, while at the same time a very short time to implement these changes.
Entrepreneurs pointed out that the predictability of the tax burden was a very important aspect of their vision. Many entrepreneurs carry out long-term contracts for which budgets were developed many months ago and the change of budget during the implementation of the project is either impossible or at best very cumbersome.
The Deputy Prime Minister involved in the meeting ensured that he was aware of all aspects raised by entrepreneurs and their team were taking action to implement appropriate project adjustments and to spread them over time and minimise the effects of the changes implemented.
one with the ideas currently under discussion is the introduction of a threshold of 250,000 PLN revenue per year below which the health contribution would be fixed as a lump sum of 9% the average wage rate. Above this income threshold, the contribution would be set in proportion to the surplus or as multiple basic contributions. Possible solutions are still being negotiated between government representatives.
During the meeting, a cooperation agreement was signed between RIG Katowice and the Ministry of Development, Labour and Technology.