ZUS contributions from income will hurt entrepreneurs. How much? Will entrepreneurs wake up before the ruling party finish them?
No hate scandal threatens PiS as much as what the government is preparing for small entrepreneurs. If someone believed that Poles would not defend free courts, but their own wallet, this is the moment. The prime minister and the president announced a plan to hit well over 2 million voters.
"ZUS contribution dependent on income" - I am convinced that many Poles, hearing this promise at the PiS convention at the weekend, did not realize what it was all about. If anything, their reaction was in line with the ruling party's line. I earn little, so I should pay less ZUS - they might have thought so. "To make it easier for those who have lower incomes" - this in turn is the justification presented by Prime Minister Morawiecki. It sounds good and noble.
It is only now that we are beginning to realize what a drastic change the PiS government is preparing for small entrepreneurs. And that it will not be as beautiful as promised by PiS politicians. On the contrary - what they are going to do with regard to the minimum wage (to increase to PLN 4,000 in a few years) and ZUS contributions will be a real nightmare. It is not about a handful of people, a narrow professional group, the richest "oligarchs" who have to be milked. All owners of small businesses are in the field of fire - up to 2.5 million Poles running sole proprietorships.
What is threatening them? It is worth showing it on specific sums, not equations, percentages or clichés about "the poorer will be better".
Income: PLN 5,000 ZUS today: PLN 1,317 ZUS after the change: PLN 2,154
Income: PLN 10,000 ZUS today: PLN 1,317 ZUS after the change: PLN 4,309
source: "Rzeczpospolita"
Of course, this is only a theoretical forecast, because PiS may still modify its promise, e.g. by introducing an income limit on which ZUS contributions will be calculated. But this is the state of the art today, and it is enough to make small entrepreneurs tremble at the future. Over 4,000 PLN in contributions to the Social Insurance Institution with an income of 10 thousand. - this is beyond the mind of many people.
Little? Let us add that an entrepreneur who earns 200,000 annually. PLN, will have to pay to the ZUS cash desk 55 thousand. instead of 16 thousand. zlotys (source: "GW"). It is almost three times more! This is something unimaginable. Entrepreneurs will just cry when these changes take effect.
They should cry now, because PiS treated them like a cow that can be milked to earn, for example, the payment of the fourteenth (!) Retirement pension in 2021. Someone will say: okay, the richest will lose, but the poorer will gain. Except it's bullshit. As tax advisor Przemysław Hinc said in "GW", only entrepreneurs with an income of up to PLN 2,800 per month will benefit. And they will pay contributions by a dozen or even several hundred zlotys lower. And the vast majority will cry and pay more.
Some people are already saying that ZUS will simply kill a small business under the new rules. It will cease to pay off. Those who are more enterprising will move companies abroad, where the system is more favorable, or, for example, change the legal form of business to a limited liability company (payment of salaries or dividends).
Everyone is furious today. This can be seen in the online comments. We haven't seen it for a long time. They could keep quiet when PiS attacked the courts, according to the logic: it does not apply to me (yet), I do my own thing, earn money, pay taxes. They could even be neutral, because this whole "defense of the Constitution" does not warm them. But now they'd be damned.
The question is what they will do with it. They probably won't go out to the streets, they don't even have their representation. But in a month they may appear at the urns. Before ZUS issues a bill to them, they can issue a PiS bill.
