Business power against redistribution – the case of watered-down tax reform in Poland (csv. dataset)

For our research purpose we compile a dataset of press articles, concerning the tax reform, published between May 15th, 2021 and October 1st, 2021 – namely, between the day of the announcement of the “Polish Deal” and the day when the final legal act with changes favourable for the high income self-employed was passed by the Sejm. We consider articles from the three most opinion-forming Polish newspapers – Rzeczpospolita, Gazeta Wyborcza and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna – according to the ranking prepared by the Institute of Media Monitoring for 2021. The ranking is prepared based on the number of citations of articles/statements of one medium by other media. Therefore, it may be interpreted as a measure of the impact of a given medium on the public debate.

We study the electronic versions of the paper editions and include in the dataset all the articles that somehow concerned the tax reform. Additionally, we have separately distilled all the comments of external experts used in the articles – usually short (1-5 sentences) statements. The initial dataset consisted of 359 articles and 378 comments.