Biznes Fakty
Tax on extraordinary profits for banks. The President of the Polish Bank Association speaks about the potential consequences
The implementation of an additional burden on banks through a windfall tax will further limit lending capabilities, stated Tadeusz Białek, president of the Polish Bank Association. Szymon Hołownia is among those advocating for the new tax. – Banks are already profiting immensely from these interest rates and margins, – the Speaker of the Sejm highlighted last week.
– Each new tax raises the cost of credit and reduces its accessibility, – Białek remarked at the conference. He noted that in the initial months following the bank tax’s introduction, interest rates on loans rose by 0.27 percentage points (with the reference rate set at 1.5 percent).
He evaluated that despite the elevated interest rates, the banking sector’s profitability remains low. He shared data on the Return on Assets (ROA) in selected sectors of the Warsaw Stock Exchange (as of the end of Q1 2025). The ROA for the banking sector stood at 1.68%, lower than in many other fields. He pointed out that the windfall tax was implemented where no other kind of fiscal bank tax existed, with Hungary being the only exception.
What prompted the discussion about a bank tax?
On Friday, June 6, the Speaker of the Sejm announced that a meeting would take place on Monday, during which Prime Minister Donald Tusk would present the coalition partners with a draft of his exposé. Hołownia mentioned that one of the proposals to demonstrate that the government is aligned with the public’s interests is the introduction of the so-called windfall tax, or tax on excess profits. – Banks are already reaping significant profits from these interest rates and margins, – stated the Speaker of the Sejm.
Marshal of the Sejm Szymon Hołownia.The profits of banks in 2024 reached PLN 42 billion, reflecting a 51.9 percent increase compared to the figures from 2023.
The Ministry is not pursuing the tax
At the end of May, the Ministry of Finance declared that it was not currently engaged in any analyses or consultations regarding the implementation of a tax on excess bank profits, emphasizing that its analytical efforts were focused on optimizing the effectiveness of the existing tax system solutions.
Read also: Tax on bank profits. The ministry responds
