What is “income lost” and how does it affect the calculation of one’s income?

Loss of income occurs if the income in question existed in 2024 and does not exist at present – it (its source) was lost in the year 2024 or after the year 2024, which must be documented. Thus, the amount of income earned from this source in 2024 is not included in the calculation of the monthly income of the person who reports income lost.

However, not every income, even though it has ceased to exist for a person, can be documented as “income lost”.

What is important is what the income was, what its source was, and on what basis it was earned.
A loss of income may be caused only as a result of:

•  gaining right to take advantage of a child care leave,
•  losing one’s unemployment benefit or compensation,
•  losing one’s employment or ceasing to have other gainful activity,
• losing one’s early retirement allowance, teacher’s compensation benefit, retirement pension or disability pension, family pension, social pension or parental supplementary benefit referred to in the Act of 31 January 2019 on parental supplementary benefit (Journal of Laws of the Republic of Poland item 303)
•  becoming de-registered from the register of non-agricultural business activity or suspending such an activity within the meaning of Article 16b of the Act of 20 December 1990 on the social insurance for farmers (Journal of Laws of the Republic of Poland of 2019, item 299, as amended) or Article 36aa section 1 of the Act of 13 October 1998 on the social insurance system (Journal of Laws of the Republic of Poland of 2019, item 300, as amended),
•  losing one’s sickness benefit, rehabilitation benefit, or maternity benefit, granted after losing one’s employment or ceasing to have other gainful activity,
•  losing one’s court-awarded maintenance benefits as a result of death of the person obliged to pay such benefits or losing one’s cash benefits paid due to ineffective enforcement of maintenance as a result of death of the person obliged to pay the maintenance benefits,
•  losing one’s parental benefit,
•  losing one’s maternity benefit referred to in the provisions on the social security for farmers,
•  losing one’s doctoral scholarship referred to in Article 209 sections 1 and 7 of the Act of 20 July 2018 – Law on Higher Education and Science.

On account of the above, e.g. an income from maintenance may not be treated as “income lost” if the person obliged to pay it is alive. Likewise, an income from an agricultural holding that was sold, a rental income, or an income from sickness benefit may not be considered an “income lost” if there was no loss of employment. Even though a person no longer receives this kind of income at present, the amount of income earned in 2024 must be taken into account when calculating the monthly income.

On the other hand, if e.g. a given person worked for the whole year 2024 in company X based on a contract of mandate or an employment contract, and the contract was terminated in 2024 or after 2024, the income from 2024 (e.g. PLN 26,300.00 indicated in the PIT-11 form and in the tax office certificate of income) is not taken into account in the calculations and the monthly income of that person is PLN 0.00.

NOTICE!
The provisions on losing and earning income do not apply to income from employment or other gainful activity and to income from de-registration or starting a non-agricultural business activity if a family member has lost their income gained in any of the said ways and has earned income from the same employer/mandator/ordering party or has taken up non-agricultural business activity again within 3 months from the date of loss of income,

If you have any questions, please contact: [email protected]