Poland's PiS party aims to win voters with copper tax reduction

Lawmakers from Poland's ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party proposed on Tuesday to cut mining tax payments so that major copper producer KGHM could spend more money on the investment. The mining levy, introduced in 2012 and calculated using a formula based on local production volumes and prices, primarily affects KGHM, a major employer in southeast Poland and one of the world's biggest copper and silver producers.

Poland's ruling nationalist party has recently made efforts to stem a decline in its popularity ahead of two key elections this year with warnings that opposition support for LGBT education is a threat to Polish culture and should be blocked wherever possible. The Law and Justice Party (PiS) has condemned a new school sex education programme planned in Poland's opposition-ruled capital Warsaw, calling it an infringement of traditional Catholic values by Western liberalism.

PiS has targeted LGBT rights as it strives to reverse a decline in popularity amid corruption allegations against financial regulators and questions about party chief Jaroslaw Kaczynski's business dealings, among other things. Poland's European Coalition, an umbrella grouping of opposition parties, has passed PiS by two points ahead of May's European Parliament elections, according to a new opinion poll. Parliamentary elections will follow in the autumn.

The tax has been a subject of debate during previous campaigns. In 2015, some politicians had promised to scrap it. KGHM paid 1.67 billion zlotys ($442 million) in mining tax in 2018, while the group's profit was 1.66 billion zlotys.

"Lowering the mining levy by 15 per cent... will make additional funds available to KGHM, which will significantly translate into long-term stability and development of the company," lawmakers said in draft law published on parliament's website.

Reducing the mining levy would lower budget revenues by an estimated 180 million zlotys in 2019 and 240 million zlotys in subsequent years, the draft said. By 1310 GMT shares in KGHM had risen by 4.2 per cent.