As IT workers - even those who've got contracts of employment - typically do flexible hours, and pretty often work from home (or otherwise remotely), it doesn't really apply.
https://forsal.pl/artykuly/1415939,srokowski-tylko-3-proc-mi...
It's worse for society overall, but let's not pretend the high earners don't mostly subsidize the safety net.
I guess it translates into the lack of political will to curb the practice, too, as the government would risk that self-employed programmers (and whatnot) may not fall in line, but mostly log out of the system instead, registering their companies abroad, for example. I guess the government isn't eager to start this cat-and-mouse game, preferring a smaller slice of a bigger pie.
There are even some extra incentives on the top of the flat income tax rate (which is an option for all one-man companies, regardless of the sector)...
Like the "IP Box" tax relief, which drives the income tax rate from the regular 19% all the way down to 5%, as long as you get your services classified as "research and development". It takes some patience and loads of legal paperwork, which you obviously have to pay for (the latter, that is), but it's well worth it in the end.
"Registering" the business only is a trap and a way to pay much much more _when_ the tax office decides you are avoiding taxes. To truly do that, you need to move your center of life abroad, which generally means being outside Poland for 183 days a year.
>I guess the government isn't eager to start this cat-and-mouse game, preferring a smaller slice of a bigger pie.
I agree that it mostly is the case, as I still pay few times more taxes (and VAT on consumption...) than average citizen, even when using 12% lump sum tax.
Yeah, theoretically. But at least within the Schengen area, that's pretty difficult to prove/disprove, especially if you've got no family. I'm working remotely, I'm renting a cheap room in Budějovice, here's the tenancy agreement. Come see if my toothbrush is wet :)
It's really rare that the tax office would prove a company exists solely for tax optimization. The risk virtually drops to zero if one freelances after the hours and has legitimate invoices with other companies.
This often causes mismatch between Polish employees who wish to work remotely abroad, and for ex. employeers from the DACH region, where I've heard the laws are strictly enforced. One party claims there is no risk, and the other claims it's too risky :-) (taking other factors aside, such as employee protection, etc.)
This is exactly what happens in Poland and everyone involved feels very smart for cheating the system. That's also why software from Poland is such a tacky crap despite so many "talents". The software professionals have no leverage to push back, they only can walk away. The irresistibile benefit is that one can write off buying a car into operating costs, so the dream of PREMIUM GERMAN CAR prevails over doing anything creative.
I've had terrible experiences with Hungary, Latvia, etc. and (judging from conversations to the owners of the outsourcing agencies) Hungary has very high taxes and not many smart ways of avoiding them.
[citation needed]
How do you recognize "software from Poland" anyway?
Whatever is created in all these nearshoring and outsourcing centers in Warsaw, Kraków, and Wrocław. Currently mostly Azure, SAP, business Java and Angular.
The second problem is that the companies tend to hire a lot of people at the same time when they open their offshore/nearshore center in Poland - often going from zero to hundreds, or even thousands over the span of just a couple of years. Having such large organization of effectively people with no previous institutional history is akin to a herd of only young elephants, who don't have any elders and don't know what and how they should be doing exactly. The "elders" are in the HQ obviously, but building company culture exclusively over Zoom, especially on the scale of hundreds/thousands new hires, is a bad idea.
Also, your experience is very different than mine, I’ve never meet anyone working in Poland doing coding for a company abroad thinking they’re some kind of entrepreneur. They’re not delusional, they know that they’re just doing a job, selling themselves to a highest bidder like everybody else.
My original question still stands - by what metrics do you regard "software from Poland" as "tacky crap"? I'm not being belligerent about it, but somewhat curious, sure.