‘The economic growth, in the current and upcoming year, will be built upon consumption, therefore the last thing we can do is to raise taxes’ – said the Minister of Finances, Tadeusz Kościński in ‘Polsat News’ on Monday. He added that the valorisation of disability benefits and pensions is planned at the level of 3.84%.
Kościński stressed that the draft budget for 2021 has money earmarked for ‘500 plus’ (a program dedicated to polish families) and for ‘13th and 14th pension’ program.
As he said, the government is not going to raise taxes. ‘This is the last thing which we would do because, in this case, companies and taxpayers have less money. I can assure you that the government does not plan any works concerning raising of taxes’ – he added. As he explained, it would be illogical as far as consumption drives economic growth.
Moreover, the Head of the Ministry of Finances added that ‘GDP not only depends on consumption but also on export, and our exporters have just found, even during the pandemic, new markets e.g. in Asia and South America.
Kościński assured that public finances are ‘in a good shape’ and despite the deficit, there are no problems with financing the health sector. ‘We included 82.3 billion PLN of deficit in a draft budget for 2021. This is the maximal deficit which we cannot exceed. We have 125 billion PLN in budget accounts’ – he said.
‘We can place our treasury bonds with negative profitability, which means that investors believe in what happens in the economy and are willing to locate their money in our bonds’ – he added.
In Kościński’s assessment, remote working has changed our consumption patterns. ‘We will spend less on transport and in shopping malls, but more on IT and online’ – he explained.
He stressed, that Poles have work. He said that the unemployment rate was estimated as a double-digit score, but in fact, it is at the level of 6%.