Poland to impose 0.7-1.3 pct tax rate on big retailers - FinMin

WARSAW, Jan 25 (Reuters) - Poland plans to impose a new progressive tax rate for retailers with monthly sales of over 1.5 million zlotys, which is to yield around 2 billion zlotys ($485 million) in state budget inflows this year, finance ministry said on Monday.

The ministry added that the tax rate will amount to 0.7 percent of monthly sales under 300 million zlotys and 1.3 percent if the revenue is larger. The ministry also plans to impose a 1.9 percent tax rate on weekend and holidays sales.

Initially PiS planned to link the retailer tax rate with the size of stores, but to avoid the retailers' tricks of launching small-sized shops, it finally decided to make the levy conditional on sales.

The proposal is yet to go through all legislative levels, with the ministry expecting the new levy to be in force as of April (LSE: 0N69.L - news) 1 this year.

The retailer tax is another tool of the ruling conservative Law and Justice party (PiS) to finance its costly election promises, including child and welfare benefits.

PiS, which won an outright majority in October parliamentary election and has an ally in the president, has already imposed a new bank tax bill, which will become binding on Feb.1.

This year's central budget deficit is capped at 54.7 billion zlotys. ($1 = 4.1252 zlotys) (Reporting by Pawel Sobczak; Writing by Agnieszka Barteczko and Adrian Krajewski)