Today is the 14th anniversary of the 3 year increase in VAT from 22% to 23%

Mr Michał Wawer.

Today we celebrate the 14th anniversary of the increase in VAT for 3 years from 22% to 23%. On November 26, 2010, the majority of the Po-PSL parliament smuggled this “temporary” increase in the budget bill, i.e. in specified a peculiar government bill to pass things without anyone noticing. This year's budget bill I commented a week ago from the Parliamentary Speakership. 2 days later, the bill was passed by the compatible votes of the government coalition. perceive to the numbers the government has prepared for us this time.

Today we celebrate the 14th anniversary of the increase in VAT for 3 years from 22% to 23%.

On November 26, 2010, the majority of the Po-PSL parliament smuggled this "temporary" rise in the budget bill, i.e. in specified a peculiar government bill to pass things so that no one... pic.twitter.com/frSpHSTyTo

Statement by Mr Michał Waver in the Parliament on the budget bill.

– What is the budget bill? It's specified a mysterious animal. fewer people know what it's all about. And the simple fact is, The budget bill is simply a peculiar bill by which the Minister of Finance creates specified gates to circumvent uncomfortable restrictions.

Because the Minister of Finance has many uncomfortable restrictions – he has the discipline of public finances, he has democratic control, he has various regulations that make him spend money on those things that this money is meant for. This is very uncomfortable due to the fact that the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister of Government would like to spend as much money as they want, for the purposes for which they want, and not to have their hands restrained by all the restrictions that the Sejm here makes carelessly, maliciously. And that's where the budget bill comes in.

This is simply a bill passed in the shadow of a budget bill, to which the Minister of Finance puts in himself various exceptions to let these restrictions not to be so restrained.

A model example in this year's budget bill is Article 17, the penultimate article of the Act, specified a tiny article that changes only 1 number: from 2024 to 2025. If individual reads the bill itself, then absolutely no of it will understand, and he can even look through this article without noticing it. And this is simply a very crucial recipe. It's about the Reprivatization Fund. This is specified a fat state bank account, in which there are many billions of zlotys, and these billions are intended to compensate citizens whose communists after planet War II took their assets. According to the first assumptions of the Reprivatisation Fund Act, only this money should be used.

It's terribly annoying for the finance minister and for the prime minister that they couldn't usage that money for something else to do any buying they're about to do. But they cannot change the law itself, due to the fact that if they wrote that the Reprivatisation Fund could be spent on various another things, they would have articles in the newspapers that the government was robbing the Reprivatization Fund. So they do it smarter.

It was invented, if I am correct, by the Prime Minister or then by the Minister of Finance Mateusz Morawiecki. In COVID times, he wrote that the Reprivatisation Fund was of course utilized to pay these compensations, but due to the fact that there was specified a hard situation at the time, there was COVID, so in 2019 and 2020 the money could be spent on something else. And they spent them in those years, and then year after year it was extended: for 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024. And now we have a change in the budget bill. Another government, another prime minister, another finance minister, but beyond that everything remained the same.

We're changing the budget bill so that this reprivatisation fund can be spent on another things. If you ask the minister, he'll say it's the last time, that there will never be specified a detour again, that specified a gate will never be opened. We'll live, we'll see.

Next year, we will most likely find the same provision in the budget-circumstance bill that in 2026 we will besides be able to spend funds from the reprivatisation fund, as you wish. There are several, possibly even several, in this bill.

There is simply a provision that allows to spend PLN 6 billion from the Capital Investment Fund.. The justification for the bill suggests that there may be expenses in the arms sector, but this is not enshrined in the bill. So if the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance decide to spend it on e.g. to buy any company that is not related to the armory and which is not essential to the Polish state at all, but is needed by the Prime Minister to hire a colleague there, then these 6 billion PLN will be able to pay for this
A partnership to spend.

There are PLN 2 billion for state legal entities, besides without defined purpose, limitations, any limits. It's just that the finance minister can, after considering it, subsidize an office. There are specified reservations that spending on European agricultural policy does not request to be shown in the manner prescribed by the Public Finance Act, due to the fact that individual else would find something interesting there. These are just specified different reliefs in the dense life of the finance minister.

You see, there are almost quite a few specified very cumbersome regulations in Poland, which are highly disturbing the Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance. This is what the budget bill is for, to facilitate their lives, to relieve them, to open specified gates, so that they do not gotta worry so much about these provisions of Polish law.

The Confederacy will vote against beginning doors for the Minister of Finance.