The Polish Deal reform aimed to correct a highly regressive tax system where top earners paid lower effective rates than lower-income citizens.

For years, Poland's tax system was unusually regressive. Research showed the top ten percent of earners paid an effective tax rate of just seventy-one percent of what the bottom half paid. This made Poland the fourth most regressive tax system among twenty-six European nations. The Polski Ład reform, proposed in May 2021, set out to change this imbalance. It shifted the burden by lowering taxes for eighteen million low-income workers while raising them on high-earning self-employed individuals.