Purpose – The aim of the article is to present the essence of tax justice in relation to the personal income tax in Poland. Research method – The realisation of the aim required using the method of descriptive and compa-rative analysis to assess the fairness of charging the personal income tax.Results – The results of the empirical study on the personal tax structure point to the progressive tax as the one which better fulfils the concept of tax justice. The common acceptance of the tax progression confirms the deeply rooted sense of vertical equity in the Polish society. According to this, higher taxes should be paid by the rich, while the less wealthy should be charged with lower taxes. Unfortunately, the structure of the personal income tax in Poland does not reflect this. On the basis of the evolution of the PIT tax structure, it is possible to determine flattening of the progression due to the introduction of the two-stage tax scale. What is more, one may experience frequent ethical doubts connected with tax exemptions, and especially with the rules of granting them.Originality / value / implications / recommendations – Author’s own evaluation of the personal income tax in terms of tax fairness.

Cel artykułu. Celem artykułu jest ocena znaczenia rozwiązań prorodzinnych w PIT ukierunkowanych na wsparcie rodzin z dziećmi w Polsce na tle krajów UE w kontekście współczesnych wyzwań demograficznych. Hipoteza badawcza. Ulgi i zwolnienia w podatku dochodowym są jednym z najważniejszych instrumentów podatkowych polityki rodzinnej w Polsce. Metodologia badawcza. Do realizacji celu badawczego wykorzystano metodę analizy opisowej i porównawczej. Dane z lat 2009–2021 dotyczące preferencji podatkowych i liczby podatników z nich korzystających pochodziły głównie z MF i BBGD GUS. Do oceny rozwiązań w zakresie wsparcia rodzin w Polsce wykorzystano również wyniki badania CBOS. Wyniki badań. Preferencje podatkowe, w tym ulgi na dzieci, są jednym z najczęstszych rozwiązań stosowanych przez większość krajów UE w celu tworzenia warunków do poprawy dzietności. Na podstawie przeprowadzonej analizy stwierdzono, że obowiązujące od 2014 r. zmiany w konstrukcji ulgi na dzieci w Polsce sprawiły, że stała się ona silnym instrumentem wsparcia, zwłaszcza dla rodzin wielodzietnych i o niskich dochodach. Wprowadzone zmiany zwiększają skuteczność tej preferencji jako narzędzia redystrybucji i są jednocześnie oceniane jako bardziej sprawiedliwe społecznie. Choć zmodyfikowana ulga zwiększyła wysokość zwrotów podatku PIT dla rodzin, to w ogóle nie przyczyniła się do poprawy dzietności, podobnie jak świadczenia z program „Rodzina 500+”. W 2021 r. współczynnik dzietności (TFR) dla Polski oscylował wokół wartości 1,33, czyli na skrajnie niskim poziomie.

Artykuł został poświęcony analizie redystrybucyjnej funkcji finansów publicznych jako jednemu z kluczowych elementów współczesnej polityki fiskalnej. W ujęciu teoretycznym przedstawiono ekonomiczne i filozoficzne podstawy redystrybucji, ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem idei sprawiedliwości społecznej. W artykule podkreślono także różnice między redystrybucją a alokacją zasobów publicznych oraz omówiono narzędzia stosowane przez państwa dobrobytu, takie jak: progresywne opodatkowanie i transfery socjalne. Zaakcentowano fakt, że redystrybucja nie jest wyłącznie działaniem kompensacyjnym, lecz również mechanizmem korekty rynkowych niedoskonałości, wspierającym inwestycje w kapitał ludzki. Podkreślono również konieczność wyważenia między sprawiedliwością a efektywnością, a także zwrócono uwagę na nowe wyzwania, przed którymi stoi polityka redystrybucyjna, m.in. nierówności dochodowe, automatyzacja czy zmiany klimatyczne.

Water stress is read in the sustainability literature as either a physical or an institutional outcome, but the two readings have never been tested jointly within the sovereign ESG framework. This paper estimates the environmental, social and governance determinants of the freshwater withdrawal-to-availability ratio across up to 170 economies observed between 2002 and 2022, drawing on the World Bank Sovereign ESG Data Portal. Three equations share the same dependent variable and differ only in the pillar supplying the regressors. Each is developed along three tracks: panel econometrics, comprising pooled OLS, fixed and random effects, between and weighted least squares estimators and two-step difference and system GMM; a competition among six clustering algorithms assessed on eleven internal validity indices; and a competition among six supervised learners used to validate the specification rather than to forecast. Water stress proves overwhelmingly structural, with 99.1 per cent of its log variance lying between countries. The governance block explains 38 per cent of cross-sectional and 4 per cent of within-country variation. The level of institutional quality, measured as the first principal component of four Worldwide Governance Indicators and absorbing 91.9 per cent of their variance, is unrelated to water stress in every estimator; its composition is not, with accountability relative to state capacity carrying a coefficient of −1.10 between countries. The dominant predictor across all three tracks is the female-to-male labour force participation ratio, whose partial dependence reveals a discontinuity concentrated in a five-point interval. Under cross-validation with countries held out, no flexible learner outperforms ordinary least squares.

Purpose – This article is devoted to Poczta Polska, which is a sole‑shareholder company of the State Treasury. The research problem concerns the financial situation of the largest postal operator on the market. The aim of the article is to examine the financial condition of Poczta Polska SA in the years 2018–2022 in the context of further opportunities to operate on the market. Research method – The research consisted of two stages: preliminary analysis (outlining the general picture of the financial situation) and ratio analysis (which is an extension of the preliminary analysis). The assessment of the financial situation of Poczta Polska was based on the analysis of the balance sheet, analysis of the profit and loss account, cash flow statement, analysis of liquidity, debt, turnover and profitability ratios. The study used data included in the financial reports available on the post office’s website for the years 2018–2022. Results – The carried out analysis allowed for the assessment of the financial condition of the examined Poczta Polska SA, which is one of the oldest enterprises operating in Poland. The situation of the national operator is financially difficult and is systematically deteriorating. The continuation of unfavourable trends in the coming years may contribute to the bankruptcy of the post office, which would be difficult for the owner, i.e. the State Treasury. Originality / value / implications / recommendations – The raised issues are important and current, but they are not the area of interest for scientists. The carried out analysis and the formulated conclusions fill the gap in the literature and constitute an inspiration for further development of research on the financial and property situation of postal operators.

The purpose of the article: The aim is to present the basic principles of the family-friendly tax policies implemented in Italy and Poland, taking into account the differences in pro-family policies between the two countries against the EU-27 countries. Research hypothesis: The differences between Poland and Italy in terms of family support policies and the choice of pro-family fiscal instruments stem from the different welfare state models represented by these countries. Research methods: The data for the analyses are taken from studies by the Italian and Polish Ministries of Finance, OECD and Eurostat. The main research methods used in the study are content analysis, comparative analysis of the current tax law, and individual case studies. Main findings: EU countries have diverse family support systems that offer direct financial support through family benefits, child tax credits, deductible expenses (e.g. for childcare and education) and preferential tax treatment for spouses or single parents. Tax benefits, including tax credits for children, are among the most commonly used instruments by EU countries to improve fertility rates. The analysis shows that the changes to the Polish child tax credit introduced in 2015 have significantly strengthened its role as a support mechanism, particularly benefiting large and low-income families. These changes increased the effectiveness of this tax relief as a redistributive tool, improving its social equity, although they did not lead to an increase in the fertility rate. A particular feature of the Italian tax system is the structure of the so-called family allowance. Deductions exist for children and spouses and are applied independently. Tax credits for dependent family members differ according to the relationship and the age of the child (above or below three years) and the number of children in the household. Their amount also depends on taxpayers’ income. Since 2022 the child tax credit in Italy has been replaced by the new Universal and Unique Allowance for children. By 2022, the importance of these tax instruments in supporting families was slightly higher than in Poland. However, they also have not had a strong impact on Italy’s birth rate, which has continued to fall in recent years.