WARSAW; Poland’s main opposition party Law and Justice (PiS) expects PLN 5 billion annual receipts from a non-progressive 0.39% tax on banking assets to be introduced indefinitely, PiS deputy leader and PM candidate Beata Szydlo said Tuesday.
“We proposed taxation of bank assets and we estimated the budget receipts at around PLN 5 billion,” Szydlo told reporters, adding that the tax would measure 0.39%. “The tax we are proposing would be permanent, not temporary,” she told PAP Polish news agency. “It would be fixed on the same level for all banks at 0.39%.” Asked if any other institutions would be burdened with the prospective levy, Szydlo told reporters it would be “first of all banks.”
In her view, competition in the sector would prevent banks from passing on the costs of the tax onto clients. “Banks will have to deal with lower profits,” she said. According to financial market regulator KNF head Andrzej Jakubiak, banks and other financial institutions potentially affected by a prospective tax on assets would likely try to compensate for the costs of the levy by raising prices of their services, Jakubiak told PAP earlier on Tuesday.
“It’s worth considering how such a potential tax on assets would affect the cost of credit and the prices of other financial services,” Jakubiak said. “You shouldn’t expect banks and other financial institutions not to try to compensate for the tax cost somehow.” At the same time, until the tax proposal materializes as a bill, it should be treated as “presentation of ideas in the pre-election period,” he said.
Szydlo already mentioned the tax during the party’s convention on July 3-5. PM Ewa Kopacz retorted that the new levy would translate into higher credit prices as well as higher fees on bank accounts and all transactions.
