Tax on excessively increasing wage payments in the economy of the Polish People’s Republic

Abstract

The article presents the history of introduction and application of the tax on excessively increasing wage payments being in force in the years 1982–1995. Basing on source documents, it also analyses the characteristics of this tax and discusses the social and economic situation, together with the legal environment which conditioned the way it was introduced, its shape, functioning, and the infamous end. The author acknowledges that legal faults of this tax, its repressive character, economic ineffectiveness, and the social discontent with its functioning, could be among the important factors that stimulated the Polish political system’s transformation during the late eighties and nineties of the twentieth century.