The Minister of Finance has announced a plan to reduce the Belka tax, to come into effect on 1 January 2025. And although he has said that the groundwork is already being laid, he has not yet revealed all the details of the proposed changes.
The Belka tax explained
The Belka tax was introduced in 2002 during the government of Prime Minister Leszek Miller and was named after the then Minister of Finance, Marek Belka. Initially, the rate was 20% and applied to profits from savings on bank accounts and term deposits. After two years, the tax was extended to capital gains from stock market investments and reduced to 19%.
Put simply, the Belka tax is paid on income from bonds, securities and equity funds. The rate has remained at 19% since 2004.
Belka tax cut – the benefits for companies
The Ministry of Finance is working on the introduction of a tax-free amount for the tax on capital gains (the Belka tax), including gains from trading on the WSE, for investments of more than one year. In addition, the MoF is proposing to introduce a tax-free amount on income from deposits and bonds with a maturity of at least 12 months.
Thanks to the change in the Belka tax, individual investors will be able to save up to PLN 10,500, as the tax-free amount will be PLN 5,250 and will apply separately to interest on deposits and bonds and separately to capital gains.
The tax-free amount will be announced annually by the Ministry of Finance and calculated on the basis of the NBP deposit rate from the third quarter of the previous year. If this limit is exceeded, the remitting financial institution will withhold a flat-rate income tax of 19%, as is currently the case.
It is estimated that the changes to the so-called ‘Belka tax’ will reduce budget revenues by around PLN 1.5 billion in 2025 and around PLN 1.4 billion in the following two years.
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