29 million euros of offshore money salvaged

Approximately 2,550,000 euros were legalized in Hungary this year between January and April, states András Tállai in the Parliament. It was a response to national secretary of Ministry of National Economy Márta Demeter’s question about how much was the income due to the regulations that were introduced in January. According to MNO.hu, the national secretary highlighted that, according to the new tax amnesty rules, the tax on the sums transferred to Hungary from abroad is 10 percent, so about 2,836,000 euros flowed into National Tax and Customs’ account.

The point of tax amnesty – or, as it is officially called, the opportunity of paying taxes afterwards – is that any individual may legalize their fortune gained until 30th June in 2016 among favorable financial conditions. This served the purpose of getting back the sums received in tax paradises. The measure of the preferential tax is ten percent, to which a rather favorably low central bank basic interest is added.

Tax expert Attila Michnai stated earlier that the National Tax and Customs Office is trying to gain the favor of a narrow layer, who do have an extremely good financial situation. He said that founding offshore companies and managing such bank accounts is not the feature of small-time tax dodgers. It is also exceedingly unjust towards the honest tax payers that these offshore magicians might get away with this wile only paying a ten percent rate tax and some ridiculous self-checking supplements instead of paying 15 percent of personal income tax and 27 percent of healthcare contribution.

However, there are no certain data about how much money may come back to Hungary this way, as there is no data about how great the sums are that vanished to offshore accounts. The Tax Justice Network published an estimation in 2012, which stated that about 187 billion euros were salvaged from Hungary this way in 30 years. This would mean that Hungary ranks the third place in the world’s top list. Chief manager of Blochamps Capital István Karagich recently told Világgazdaság that these data are greatly exaggerated, as he estimates the Hungarian fortunes substantially between 8 and 9.7 billion euros. Whichever is true, we can see that a mere fragment of these sums were transferred back to Hungary.

Ministry of National Economy published a statement recently that from 30th September on, the National Tax and Customs Office will see through the hidden bank accounts abroad: they will receive information about Hungarian customers from 59 countries in October, and from more than 70 next year.

Ce: bm

Source: MNO.hu