It's baffling how many people here think they don't pay taxes AT ALL. While in reality they pay around 20% in prices of goods and around 1/3 of their pay at work goes to mediocre public health service and taxes.
I used to live in one of the richest counties in the US, and they had different tax rates in my city for eat-in, vs. takeout food. Also different tax rates for certain consumer staples. The solution was to carry an extra $20, not to do the math. And that gets abstracted away when you start using debit or credit all the time -- just lines on a statement.
Meanwhile, living in Australia, when I saw something in the store that said $5.50, I only had to make sure I had $5.50 in my pocket.
Who and where are these people? Reading through the comment section, I don't see them.
> While in reality they pay around 20% in prices of goods and around 1/3 of their pay at work goes to mediocre public health service and taxes.
Not sure about the rationale behind that jab towards public healthcare.
In real life. Let me show some context: Over half of voters in my country vote for a party that is giving away money specifically to it's low income voters. Money we don't have. Like we have that huge "500+" program that was a corner stone of ruling party's program. 500zł for each child, that can't be taken by repossession agents and so on. To burst child birth.
After several years child birth rate is the lowest since in between WWI and WWII, said voters more often choose not to work at all yet still complain that said 500zł is not worth as much as it used to be. People don't get consequences of inflation, even though it's not that long time ago when we faced hyperinflation. Surveys say 21% of citizens claim "they don't pay any taxes", while gross and net pays are different by 30-40%.
> Not sure about the rationale behind that jab towards public healthcare.
Don't get me wrong. Public healthcare is awesome and I think it should be kept even if not efficient. The USA example shows clearly how bad it can get without it. It's just that so many people think public healthcare is free, while it makes the biggest part of their net/gross pay difference. Especially for low income jobs. You cannot resign from that service and go all-private. I wrote a long complain on state of public healthcare here, at first, but deleted it - let's just say it's lacking and you still have to pay for private services. It's common for doctors and nurses to flee to Germany or further. Corona basically stopped most services, while national TV yells it's all fine while people die at homes.
There is a joke: a guy comes to a doctor with a nail in his head. Doctor says "oh, sure, we can operate you in half an hour!". "But I'd like to be paid by public healthcare", patient says. "Then I can slightly bend it with a hammer, so it won't bother you that much".
I'm just playing devil's advocate here, but depending on the wording of the question, people might assume they're talking about income tax, and 21% not paying income tax isn't really far fetched at all, depending on Poland's tax laws - IIRC here in Canada about a third of people who filed tax returns didn't pay a single cent.
Minimum wage here was recently increased to 7000 Euro a year (2800 PLN a month, gross, around 2100 PLN of actual cash in your wallet). Personal allowance/tax allowance here depends on your income, for minimum wage of 32000 PLN gross a year you will have exactly 525 PLN returned. Or not paid, to be precise.
With higher income, tax allowance gets smaller.
My flat rent plus upkeep is around 3000 PLN a month (capital, suburbs, almost 60 square meters), half of that in a small city. Big Mac is 18 PLN, coke 330ml (small can) in large store chain is 2,50 PLN or more (recent "sugar tax"). Trash pickup fees just went up from 18, to 60, to amount calculated based on water usage (around 120PLN in my case, two people in flat).
So that 525 saved ain't much. I can't even keep up with new taxes my government creates, but we still have 21% of people saying they pay no taxes at all. That's not wording. "at all".