The first meeting of the emergency subcommittee for examining the civic draft bill on the change of the Personal Income Tax Act (form No. 2000) took place on the 22nd October 2009 and was wholly devoted to organizational matters. The representatives of the Polish Insurance Association also participated in the meeting, apart from the members of parliament and the representatives of the initiator – the Committee of the Civic Legislative Initiative TOGETHER.
The draft bill which is supported by the Association assumes the implementation of a tax relief for persons who voluntarily save for their future pensions. According to the Association, the only effective form of reactivation of the inefficient programme of the Idividual Pension Account (Polish Indywidualne Konto Emerytalne, thus the abbreviation IKE) and Workers’ Pension Programmes (Polish Pracownicze Programy Emerytalne, thus the abbreviation PPE) is the implementation of annual limitation of payments to the level where the resources will be exempted from the income tax or the specification of a maximal limitation of deduction from the amount of the income tax from natural persons. This demand was already submitted in January 2008 during the conference, organized by PIU, entitled “Rola rynku ubezpieczeniowego w realizacji reformy systemu emerytalnego (The role of the insurance market in the completion of the reform of the pension system). It was also submitted repeatedly in the correspondence with the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy.
During the meeting, the chairman informed those present that the members of the subcommittee must become acquainted with the sent documentation before the start of discussion. It primarily concerned the amendment proposed by the initiator which consisted in the implementation to the draft bill of many regulations previously included in the draft of the directive attached to the draft bill.
Additionally, the Bureau of Research was asked to send the opinions on whether the draft bill is constitutional and on the predicted consequences for the budget of the country and self-governments. Professor Marek Góra, the co-creator of the pension reform, was also asked for his opinion.
