Polish President Andrzej Duda last week signed into law a plan by the country’s governing conservatives to make people under 26 exempt from paying personal income tax.
Under the new rules, Poles under 26 who make less than PLN 85,528 (EUR 19,937) a year will be exempt from the country's 18-percent income tax, CNN reported.
“Being young and Polish has never been this lucrative,” CNN’s Ivana Kottasová said in an article published on the broadcaster’s website on Tuesday.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said last month that the move aimed to encourage young people to stay in Poland and to improve their prospects.
Kottasová said the tax exemption was an attempt by the Polish government "to stop the dramatic brain drain Poland has experienced since it joined the European Union 15 years ago.”
Many young and educated Poles left abroad in search of better paid jobs as Western labor markets opened up to them after the country joined the EU in 2004.
CNN quoted Morawiecki as saying that 1.7 million people left Poland since 2004. “It's as if the entire city of Warsaw left ... it's a gigantic loss,” he said, according to the US broadcaster.
"This must end, young people must stay in Poland," Morawiecki added.
The new tax rules, which come into effect on August 1, were overwhelmingly approved by both houses of Poland’s parliament this month.
The change in tax rules is part of a string of spending pledges announced by the Polish government earlier this year.
(jh/gs)
Source: CNN