Finance Ministry's plans for energy excise tax unchanged despite warning

The Finance Ministry says it will not back down on its plans for an excise tax on energy, despite a warning from the Energy Regulation Office (URE) claiming that the proposed tax on electricity could cause prices to go up as much as 10%. The Ministry wants power producers to add a zl. 0.02 excise tax to each kilowatt hour of energy sold. The new tax will not be the only additional burden on the energy sector to be introduced next year, as municipal taxes will also go up significantly. On top of that, the National Grid (PSE) is seeking to raise its tariff for transmission of energy by at least 15%. The URE will play a key role in deciding whether the costs of the new tax will be borne by electricity producers, which could lead to financial difficulties for them, or end users, which would likely result in lower demand. (Puls Biznesu, p. 7) T.J.