Do Commercial Banks in Poland Pass the Bank Tax On to Their Customers?

Abstract

Theoretical background: Bank tax was introduced in Poland in February 2016. As a consequence, several banks with assets surpassing certain value need to cope with the additional burden.

Purpose of the article: The aim of the research is to verify whether Polish banks that nominally are subject to the bank tax indeed shifted onto their clients most of the cost connected with this new levy and, thus, now these are the clients who effectively bear the burden of bank tax.

Research methods: The analysis is based on monthly data for the years 2010–2021, for which a multilayer comparison of performance of banks subject to the bank tax was made from various perspectives: (1) before and after the introduction of bank tax and (2) with remaining banks not subject to a bank tax – which serve as a control sample. The analysis took into account the composition of Polish bank sector, while focusing on the development of: (1) revenues, costs and income from commissions and charges, (2) revenues and income from interest, (3) level of commissions and charges as well as interest imposed on different bank products, (4) banks profitability, (5) their balance sheet total and (6) ROA.

Main findings: The analysis does not confirm increases in revenues of commercial banks and foreign branches following the introduction of the bank levy, whereas the profitability and ROA of these banks worsened significantly. At the same time, the performance of banks not affected by the levy did not deteriorate, which allows to conclude that banks did not manage to shift the cost of bank tax onto their customers. Conclusions are important primarily from the perspective of fiscal policy (they answer the question on effective tax incidence) and supervisory policy (to what extent the introduction of the tax erodes the performance of the banking sector, inhibiting the accumulation of capital determining the level of financial stability).