Agricultural tax as a source of income for rural communes

Abstract

The revenues from the agricultural tax only to a small extent contribute to the budgets of communes, and they often constitute the basic source of tax revenues in rural communes. This is the main reason for the worse income situation of rural communes in Poland. Rural communes in Poland are the least independent units and such situation requires the search for effective sources of income for local government units. For many years, there has also been a discussion on the possibility of real taxation of income from agricultural activities. Considering the above, the purpose of this study was to analyze the income equipment of rural communes in the field of agricultural tax in 2011–2017. The analysis of the income structure confirms that in rural communes, the share of agricultural tax in total income is twice as high as the average in Polish communes. However, this is not a factor that makes it possible to increase the financial independence of rural communes.