Szczyrk too polluted to collect the spa tax
01:57
For the status of a spa to be officially granted, the city must meet specific conditions which are related to the location of healing places in a given city or reimbursement of treatment costs. Currently, there are 45 health resorts in Poland. In addition to them, the local tax is also collected by cities such as Szczyrk, Szklarska Poręba, or Zakopane. The local tax is collected per person for each day of stay in a given place. In a situation where the air is heavily polluted in a place with landscape or climate values, the legitimacy of charging such a fee may seem doubtful.
"The court has already upheld the lawsuit against the city of Szczyrk regarding the unlawful collection of local tax and ordered its return. The court's decision was issued on the basis that Szczyrk was in the air quality exceeded zone designated by the Chief Inspectorate for Environmental Protection. It is an interesting ruling due to the fact that there are many zones in Poland with exceedances of suspended dust concentrations – in fact, most of the country's territory is covered by such zones, which means that most Polish towns and cities that want to collect a local tax may have a problem with this in the near future," Piotr Siergiej, spokesman of the Polish Smog Alert, said.
