Morawiecki: bank tax would not hurt banks – Wyborcza.biz

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Development Mateusz Morawiecki was asked in a BBC about the effects of the introduction of a bank tax.

– I’m not worried about the stability of the sector, as banks in Poland are very well capitalized – he said. He added that “there is still an excess liquidity” and “enterprise is a lot of cash accounts.”

He also assured that “the bank tax will have no impact on the investment process.”

Morawiecki argued that the banks submit recently margins, not because of a bank tax, but because by low interest rates much they earn on deposits, so try to compensate themselves in other places and bring new charges.

– But they have no connection with the bank tax, because the tax will come only now, and this process takes place in the last months and years – said Deputy Prime Minister.

It is also important in his opinion, the high level of competition in the banking sector. “If only UOKiK will take care that no collusion price, I am not afraid of any violent raising prices, because the bank that wants to attract customers from other banks, there will be increased the prices”, – said Morawiecki.

A recent law on tax on certain financial institutions provides that from February 2016 rmin. banks, insurance companies, credit unions and loan companies will be levied on the so-called. bank tax ratio of 0.44 percent per annum. the value of their assets.

According to the Act taxes will be covered by the banks (domestic branches of foreign banks, branches of credit institutions), insurance and reinsurance, co-operative savings and credit unions and loan companies.

In the case of banks and cooperative savings and credit assets tax-free amounts to 4 billion zł. For insurers this is a 2 billion zł, and for companies borrowing – 200 million zł. Exempt bank was the Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego and possibly other state-owned banks that may arise in the future.

The Act envisages that insurance companies and loan will not be able to artificially divided to avoid the tax. Limit on assets (respectively 2 billion zł and 200 million zł), above which they will pay tax concerns not individual companies, but the whole group.

Premier Law and Justice deputy said recently that taxation of the financial sector is needed to It can be implemented pro-social projects of the government, such as 500 zł for a child, lowering the retirement age, increasing the tax-free amount. “We strike in financial corporations, because today the Poles are the most expensive bank charges, the most expensive margins, banking services are among the most expensive in Europe” – argued. She stressed, however, that the bank tax is a “tax used in most European countries.”

A critical opinions against certain articles of the law on bank tax expressed the European Central Bank.