The members of the Executive Board of BBI Development SA are socially engaged as they believe that the common good is achieved when all participants of social and public life contribute their effort. The long-running Stop Janosik Tax battle is the fruit of this belief.
In 2013 the Polish Constitutional Tribunal declared unconstitutional a number of provisions of the so-called Janosik Tax Law, which levies disproportionately high tax on the Mazovia Province. A year before, when considering a complaint from Warsaw and Kraków, the Tribunal, in a Signal Ruling, declared that the Janosik tax violates the legal system of the Republic of Poland.
All this started when BBI Development SA and Juvenes-Projekt Sp. z o.o. decided to take action on the issue of huge annual sums which are paid by the Capital City of Warsaw and Mazovia Province Local Government to the state coffers and then channelled to the poorer regions of Poland at the expense of Mazovia inhabitants. At the request of Rafał Szczepański, the companies commissioned a legal analysis of a number of provisions of the ‘Janosik tax’ law of 13 November 2003. Dr Marcin Wiącek’s analysis, declaring the tax unfair and unconstitutional, provided the basis for the constitutional complaints filed by the cities of Warsaw and Kraków. It was also decided to draft a civic bill amending the Janosik tax to bring it to line with the Polish Constitution. The Stop Janosik Tax campaign was initiated by Rafał Szczepański, who spearheaded the Legislation Initiative Committee set up to campaign for amending the local government income law.
In 2011 the committee launched an effort to collect 100 thousand signatures under the proposed bill. On 9 August 2011, the committee, with the backing of local government and community workers, filed with the Sejm a document including 157 thousand signatures under the draft amendment.
The civic bill was first read in the Sejm on 15 February 2012. Work on the law revision is in progress.
pl