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Profit Shifting from the Polish Economy: Magnitude and Fiscal Effects
 
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Katedra Ekonomii Stosowanej, Szkoła Główna Handlowa w Warszawie, Polska; Ministerstwo Finansów, Polska
 
2
Ministerstwo Finansów, Polska
 
 
Submission date: 2024-03-17
 
 
Final revision date: 2025-01-26
 
 
Acceptance date: 2025-01-29
 
 
Publication date: 2025-09-30
 
 
Corresponding author
Karolina Magdalena Konopczak   

Katedra Ekonomii Stosowanej, Szkoła Główna Handlowa w Warszawie, Polska; Ministerstwo Finansów, Polska
 
 
GNPJE 2025;323(3):68-87
 
KEYWORDS
JEL CLASSIFICATION CODES
ABSTRACT
This article analyses profit shifting from the Polish economy and proposes a methodology for quantifying its magnitude and fiscal effects. Adopting a microeconomic perspective, the study draws on firm-level fiscal and financial data for companies registered in Poland and applies microeconometric methods. The obtained results reveal that foreign multinational subsidiaries exhibit significantly lower average tax profitability than domestic standalones (i.e. Polish-owned companies with a simple ownership structures), indicating profit shifting out of Poland. The most reliable quantification estimates suggest that foreign subsidiaries transfer roughly one-fifth of their profits abroad, thereby reducing the tax base and leading to a loss of tax revenues by around 2.6 billion PLN annually—equivalent to approximately 6.4 percent of CIT revenues in Poland between 2011 and 2021. Given the empirical strategy employed, this estimate should be considered conservative.
FUNDING
The research presented in the article was carried out as a part of the project financed by the National Centre for Research and Development in Poland no. GOSPOSTRATEG-VI/0029/2021-00 “The monitoring of innovation performance of firms and regulatory impact assessment: developing tools to support economic policy”, acronym FIRMINREG.
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