“The budget belongs to the Poles, not to the VAT mafia, and this is how we will shape the public finance system”, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said during a visit to the Lublin Customs and Tax Office in Biała Podlaska.

The government on Tuesday adopted a draft budget law for 2023. The draft stipulates that in 2023, expenditure will amount to PLN 669 billion, revenue to PLN 604.4 billion and the deficit to approx. PLN 65 billion.

Prime Minister Morawiecki reminded that since 2015, the government’s successful actions have led to a reduction of the VAT gap. As a result, the state’s social and investment policy capabilities have been increased.

“That is why these revenues of the Polish state are stable, that is why we can allocate them to the coal allowance, the allowance for other raw materials: pellets, LPG, firewood, heating oil, as well as to all measures that protect Poles from the effects of inflation”, said the head of the Polish government.

The Prime Minister accused the previous government of “failing to deal with the basic functions of the state, watching money is thrown around. There were no funds neither for social programmes, nor for a strong army, nor for new roads”, Morawiecki said.

As the Prime Minister’s Office emphasises, the increasing monitoring and sealing of the system means that the duration of the VAT carousel is getting shorter, it brings less and less benefit, and the funds from crime are increasingly difficult to legalise as honestly earned money.

“In 2015, the VAT gap was 24.1 percent, and in 2021 it was 4.3 percent, which is a significant decrease due to the effective policy of implementing sealing tools, as well as the actions of the National Tax Administration”, reports the Prime Minister’s Office.

Since 2017, systemic solutions have been emerging that have commenced to bring lasting effects. They include the split payment mechanism, the list of VAT taxpayers and electronic reporting.

Adrian Andrzejewski