“Do not believe this brazen fraud, which Confederation in particular is trying to convince us of—that we raised taxes,” Law and Justice (PiS) chairman Jarosław Kaczyński appealed today. “(The increase in budget revenues) is the best proof that we simply did not allow the state to be robbed,” he said in response to Sławomir Mentzen.
During a meeting with voters in Łódź, Kaczyński addressed the Confederation’s attacks and recalled the reality from several years ago—multi-billion-zloty holes in the state budget.
“When we began governing in 2015, there were powerful forces profiting from the looting of Poland’s public funds. On the other hand, the whole undertaking was relatively simple. We knew that huge schemes were being run on VAT. We knew that the losses amounted to tens, even hundreds of billions of zlotys. The same thing happened with excise taxes, especially on fuel, but also with other taxes. All it took was to restructure the bureaucratic apparatus, establish the National Revenue Administration, and issue a very firm directive that taxes must be collected in accordance with the law. And then the money started flowing in—more and more of it,” Kaczyński explained.
“We achieved these gains, this great surplus compared to what was before, not by raising taxes, but by lowering them,” he stressed.
“Do not believe this brazen fraud, which Confederation in particular is trying to convince us of—that we raised taxes,” he repeated.
He admitted: “Yes—some minor taxes, such as the sugar tax, were increased. But all the fundamental ones—apart from VAT—were reduced. In many cases, very significantly. The tax-free allowance was also clearly raised to 30,000 zł.”
“In short—it worked back then. Thanks to that, we reached a situation where nominal GDP grew by more than 70 percent over eight years, while the amount of money collected by the state in taxes and other public levies was more than twice as high,” Kaczyński recalled.
He directly accused Confederation co-leader Sławomir Mentzen of lying: “Recently, Mentzen wrote that this is the best proof that we raised taxes. No, ladies and gentlemen. It is the best proof that we simply did not allow the state to be robbed.”