Within ‘Polish Deal” The government predicted a new benefit of up to 12,000 PLN parents second and another child between 12 a 36 the month of the child's life. Family care capital is intended to reduce the burden on young parents related to raising and caring for children and consequently to reverse the unfavourable demographic trend.
On 30 August 2021 The draft law on "Family Care Capital" was sent to the Lower House of Parliament.
The proposed law forms part of the so-called ‘Polish Deal” and provides in particular for the introduction of a new type of benefit for parents of children aged between twelfth a thirty sixth month of life i.e. Family welfare capital.
However, on the margins it can be pointed out that the project also involves investments related to the creation of childcare facilities for children under the age of 3 i.e.
the possibility to support the creation and maintenance of company-run care facilities and provides for grants to municipalities wishing to build nursery facilities on their territory.
Remediation on the Demographic Crisis
Family care capital is expected to be another government response to the growing demographic problem in Poland, the new provision is intended to encourage young Poles to have more children, as well as to increase the migration of young people into the country.
Family care capital, just like the educational provision from the “Family” programme 500+”, will be granted to citizens of the Republic of Poland and foreigners in question under Article 1(2) Act dated 11 February 2016 on State aid in child rearing (Journal of Laws of 2019, item 2407, as amended).
It should be stressed that the benefit is due to the mother or father, second and any subsequent child in the family if the child resides together and remains dependent on the mother or father, and therefore will not be entitled to capital first child in the family, as it happened in first years of application of the Family Programme 500+”.
Capital due from the first day of the month the child completed twelfth month of age, until the last day of the month preceding the month in which the child is completed thirty sixth month of age.
According to the draft law, the purpose of the family care capital is to partially cover the expenses associated with raising the child, including the care and satisfaction of his life needs. However, the payment and the establishment of the right to a certificate are not dependent on the applicant's income, so it will be paid both to those parents for whom the benefit will be a significant relief in the cost of living of the child and to those for whom the benefit will only constitute another – not always significant – impact on the home budget.
Conditions for using the tool
The most important information for beneficiaries of the new benefit is its amount, as indicated in the draft law, of capital in the amount 500 PLN either 1,000 PLN a month per child in the family and it is up to the parent to decide on the amount of capital to be paid. It is important that the amount of capital paid must not exceed the amount 12,000 PLN. Therefore, the benefit will in principle be paid from 12 to 24 months until the capital pool is exhausted.
It should be noted that the bill also provides for three situations where parental care capital will not be available to parents, namely:
- the child is placed in foster care;
- the parent of the child has been deprived of parental power;
A family member shall be entitled to a similar benefit to capital abroad unless the provisions on the coordination of social security systems or bilateral international social security agreements provide otherwise.
It is also worth noting that parents cannot, in principle, freely hold the capital transferred to them because where a mother or father wastes the capital paid to them or the educational provision or spends it wrongly, the capital due in full or in part is transferred to them by the head of the social assistance centre or the director of the social service centre in kind or in the form of payment of services respectively. These deficiencies in the spending of the benefit can be determined by means of a family curatorial interview conducted at the request of the Social Insurance Institution.
The benefit will not be paid ex officio only at the request of the rightholder. The application to establish the right to capital and its payment shall be made upon application one My parents. Importantly, applications and annexes may only be submitted in electronic form and the allocation of capital by the Social Insurance Institution does not require a decision. The decision shall be taken in the event of a refusal to grant capital, the repeal or amendment of the right to capital and the unduly acquired capital.
As regards the time limit for submitting an application, it is related to the age of the child, as the application is made between first date third month preceding the month of completion by the child twelfth months of age and last day first month following the month of completion of the child twelfth months of age. Where an application is submitted after the expiry of the abovementioned period, the capital shall be due from the month of submission of the application.
The Social Insurance Institution will be obliged to establish the right to capital during the period two months from the date of submission of the application together with the documents. As regards the payment itself, it will be paid in non-cash form no earlier than the month from which the right to capital is due. Note that in the case of alternate care, each parent will receive half of the benefit.
It is worth noting that caring capital will be free from execution, as will other benefits to the family.
The question is whether a post-pandemic state budget can afford a new universal benefit for the family. It should be stressed that family-run care capital will be a considerable burden on the pandemic-stricken state budget. In the first of the year of its application, the costs associated with the introduction of family care capital will be up to 3,152,500 PLN (which, anyway, represents a much smaller amount than 40,000,000,000 PLN, which costs the family programme annually 500+”).