Self-taxation as a form of participation of citizens in expenditures of the territorial community: the experience of the Republic of Poland

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of the Polish experience of legal regulation of self-taxation as a form of citizen’s participation in local community expenditures. It is shown that the Institute of self- taxation in the Republic of Poland has a long history. Borrowed in the 1950s in the USSR, it continues to be successfully used today as a tool to further mobilize financial resources to address local issues. The peculiarities and mechanism of establishing self-taxation are disclosed. It is shown that today the mechanism of establishing self-taxation is significantly complicated and the only acceptable form of its introduction is a local referendum. The author emphasizes the existence in Polish law and the financial and legal doctrine of a clear position on the distinction between self-taxation and taxes. Self-taxation is intrinsic to the target character, its own form of legalization, its own entity and its voluntary nature.
 It is substantiated that self-taxation is an independent form of non-taxable compulsory payment and is used to resolve issues of local importance, its size and order of introduction and use are determined independently by the population in a local referendum. At the same time, local referendums for Poland remain a rare occurrence. This is due to both the cost and the complexity of the procedure. In addition, the widespread use of self-tax referendums was blocked by court decisions and the opinion of financial law experts, who stated that the self-tax institute in its current form had no legal basis.
 The analysis shows that the Polish communities most often use self-taxation of the population for the purposes related to the construction of infrastructure networks (water and sewerage networks) or municipal waste management (sorting, disposal and storage). Introducing self-taxation is essential for the development of territorial communities. Self-taxation allows territorial communities to receive additional funds, increase civic activity of residents, and increase the level of responsibility of local self-government bodies.