Welcome back Grey Zone?
The Polish order has effectively frozen the plans of enterprising Poles. January was another disastrous month when it comes to the simplest business activity. Similarly to December 2021, significantly more applications were submitted to CEIDG for suspension and termination than for the establishment and resumption of a sole proprietorship. InfoCredit indices are still the lowest since March 2020, when entrepreneurs first reacted nervously to restrictions related to the epidemic.
In January 2022, 26,528 applications were recorded for starting a new business and 8,901 for resuming it. 37,626 thousand entrepreneurs suspended their business and 27,235 thousand terminated it.
– The tax system in force since 2022 can hardly be called transparent. There are opinions that it is the most complicated in the history of free economic activity. It is therefore difficult to expect other effects, such as those visible at the end of last year and at the beginning of this year. We regularly monitor economic activity. Since the beginning of the epidemic, we have been constantly publishing the InfoCredit index to analyze the impact of economic fluctuations on the propensity to entrepreneurship in Poland. This has been decreasing since the first half of 2021, when the assumptions of the tax system reform were announced – says Jerzy Wonka, Development Director at InfoCredit.
The mass retreat and decline of the InfoCredit entrepreneurship index, the lowest since March 2020, was recorded in December 2021. At that time, 24,207 new businesses were established and 9,110 were resumed. 41,480 were suspended and 26,344 were closed. The turn of the year usually brings more activity in CEIDG, but a year ago it was not so bad.
Let’s look at the data for January 2021:
– new businesses 23,550;
– resumed 8,574;
– suspended 24,104;
– closed 16,412.
– The industry says that the New Deal, tested in Poland, can now be exported to Russia under sanctions. This is a bitter joke and I am far from laughing. The truth is, however, that entrepreneurs have issued an unequivocal assessment of the new tax regulations. With such inflation and a very tense geopolitical situation, it would be worth considering suspending the reform. I am afraid that with the growing burden on entrepreneurs, not only due to tax reasons but also due to the increase in fuel, currency and raw material prices, we will once again be dealing with an increasingly large grey zone – adds Jerzy Wonka.
In February, the situation is gradually starting to normalize. In the first half of the month, 11,358 businesses were established, 4,907 were resumed, 10,291 were suspended and 7,979 were terminated. – There are more suspensions and terminations in total, but this advantage is gradually disappearing. We are waiting for data for the entire month, which will include the first days of the war in Ukraine. Only then will it be possible to draw more complete conclusions – says Jerzy Wonka.
How do we calculate the InfoCredit Index?
The InfoCredit Index was created to track trends in micro-entrepreneurship, alternative forms of employment and self-employment at a time when the situation on the labor market and in individual industries is changing dynamically. The index, which is developed by Poland’s oldest company analyzing the economy, takes on a positive value when there are more new businesses than closures. When there are fewer than closed businesses – a negative value. In the same way, we also track the ratio of resumed to suspended businesses.
