Free online invoicing software
with KSeF support
No online-hate scandal threatens PiS as much as what the government is preparing for small entrepreneurs. If anyone thought Poles would defend their own wallets rather than independent courts, that moment has arrived. The prime minister and party leader announced a plan affecting well over two million voters.
“Making ZUS contributions depend on income” – I am convinced many Poles hearing this promise at the PiS convention over the weekend did not understand what it meant. If they did, their reaction may have followed the ruling party’s line: I earn little, so I should pay less ZUS. “To make things easier for people on lower incomes” was Prime Minister Morawiecki’s explanation. It sounds good and noble.
Only now are we beginning to realise how drastic the change planned for small entrepreneurs by the PiS government is. It will not be as wonderful as PiS politicians promise. On the contrary, their plans for the minimum wage (to rise to PLN 4,000 in a few years) and ZUS contributions will be a nightmare. This is not about a handful of people, a narrow occupation or the richest “oligarchs” to be milked. Every small-business owner is in the line of fire – as many as 2.5 million Poles running sole proprietorships.
Subscribe to our newsletter
Leave your email address and receive guides supporting your business’s growth once a week
What awaits them? Concrete amounts show it better than equations, percentages or clichés about “helping poorer people”.
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: PiS may still alter its promise, for example by introducing an income cap for calculating ZUS contributions. But this is what we know today, enough to make small entrepreneurs fear the future. More than PLN 4,000 in ZUS contributions on PLN 10,000 income is hard for many to imagine.
Not enough? An entrepreneur earning PLN 200,000 annually would have to pay PLN 55,000 to ZUS instead of PLN 16,000 (source: GW). Almost three times as much! It is unimaginable. Entrepreneurs will simply cry when the changes take effect.
They should cry already, because PiS has treated them like a cow to be milked to pay for, for example, a fourteenth (!) pension in 2021. Some will say: fine, the richest lose and the poor gain. But that is nonsense. As tax adviser Przemysław Hinc said in GW, only entrepreneurs earning up to about PLN 2,800 monthly will benefit. They will pay contributions lower by a dozen or even several hundred zlotys. The vast majority will cry and pay more.
Some already predict that ZUS under the new rules will simply kill small businesses. They will stop being viable. More enterprising owners will move companies abroad, where the system is more favourable, or change their legal form to a limited liability company, for example (paying salary or dividends).
Everyone is furious today, as online comments show. We have not seen this for a long time. They could stay quiet when PiS attacked the courts, thinking: this does not affect me (yet), I do my work, earn money and pay taxes. They could even remain neutral, unmoved by all this “defence of the Constitution”. But now they are enraged.
What will they do? They probably will not take to the streets; they do not even have their own representation. But in a month they can show up at the ballot box. Before ZUS presents them with a bill, they may present PiS with one.
If this article interested you, explore our accounting services and see how we can help:
Our specialists can help you put this knowledge into practice.
Interested in this article?
Enter your email address and once a week you will receive practical materials and tips to help you grow your business.
Book a free consultation
Grow your business with accounting combined with advisory services:
or
