The latest changes in the construction of personal income tax in Poland

Abstract

The subject of the paper is an analysis and evaluation of new laws regarding personal income tax implemented from the 1st January 2015 as well as proposals rejected by the Polish Parliament including reasons for the rejection. Due to that, the expected range of change was significantly narrowed, focusing on family tax relief measures only that can be used for 2014 tax settlements. The main change will affect only large families. Therefore, it is not possible to consider this expected reform of the whole personal income tax law, that has already been partially modified over 200 times. The introduced changes are indeed necessary and beneficial for the society, however, they were introduced too late. It was significantly unfair that families with low income and a lot of children were not allowed to benefit form family tax relief for so long. The problem with the personal tax law – too small tax-free threshold still remains in place and in practice it means taxing income necessary for biological survival of a taxpayer.