Socialists to submit ‘Stop oligarchs’ bill to parliament

The opposition Socialists will submit to parliament a law package dubbed “Stop oligarchs” that would levy a special 75 percent tax on “the hustlers of the past eight years”.

Speaking at a press conference in Budapest on Saturday, MP Tamás Harangozó said, referring to the government’s “Stop Soros” bill, that Hungary is not under threat from a “distant elderly man” but from “[Prime Minister] Viktor Orbán’s oligarchs”, who take opportunities of education from children and health care from the sick “while getting excessively rich by stealing taxpayers’ money”.

The law package comprises three amendments. The first two are about “holding accountable the swindlers of the past eight years and recovering their extra profit”, and the third one would guarantee that “such foul deeds cannot be committed again in future, no matter who is governing the country,” the politician said.

Harangozó said they would levy a special 75 percent tax on dividend incomes and incomes withdrawn from enterprises instead of the general 15 percent income tax wherever substantial EU or public resources are utilised.

The amendment would concern companies collecting half of their revenue from EU or national public funding of more than 100 million forints (EUR 324,000), gaining excessive profits, he added.

The Socialists are also proposing that participants of the “residency bond business” should also pay a special 75 percent tax because they conducted an “immoral activity benefitting private rather than public wealth”.

Harangozó said they are also proposing that beneficiaries of public funding who violated the rules of transparency and conflict of interests should have to fully repay the funds they received.

Source: MTI