Increasing tax threshold will cost budget PLN 8.72 bln

A draft law, presented by PiS, on increasing the personal tax threshold to PLN 8,000 would cost public finances PLN 15.58 billion and would burden the budget with PLN 8.72 billion. The draft law said, however, that the increase would be balanced to some extent by higher revenues from retail sale taxes caused by increased domestic demand. A law on the personal income tax threshold has been ruled unconstitutional by the Constitutional Tribunal and its validity expires on November 30, 2016. According to the Tribunal, the law doesn't include a mechanism that would automatically increase the tax threshold to a level corresponding to the poverty line. Currently, the tax threshold is set at PLN 3,089 a year, while the poverty line, below which it is impossible to survive stands at PLN 6,504. The income tax threshold was increased in 2006 for the last time. Since March 2008 to March 2014, prices have grown by 17.9 percent.