Budapest pays more tax than govt support received, says Mayor Karácsony

Budapest pays more tax than the government support it receives, Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony said on Facebook on Monday in response to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s remarks in parliament concerning the city’s finances.

The new city leaders elected in October 2019 must pay nearly four times as much municipal tax during the coronavirus epidemic than the previous city leaders did, Karácsony said.

“The recovery of the country, including Budapest, must not be an issue focusing on a war of numbers,” he added.

Orbán said in parliament concerning accusations that the government is “bleeding local governments dry” that Budapest’s account showed 122 billion forints at the end of December last year. Orbán insisted that 44 percent of all government support or 3,000 billion forints went to Budapest last year as against 6-12 percent to some regions in the Hungarian provinces.

Karácsony said that despite the crisis, it was not the government supporting the metropolitan council but the other way round.

“We are fulfilling numerous public tasks without any state support and we are paying extra to the government,”

he said, and insisted that Budapest was a net contributor to the central budget.

Budapest Buda castle
Read alsoBudapest prepares ‘tourism reopening package’ to help hospitality industry

Source: MTI

2 Comments

  1. Comrade Karacsony has engaged the services of numerous so-called experts to provide ‘advice’ about how Budapest should be managed at a local level.

    These ‘experts’ are VERY EXPENSIVE and have the same motto as car-park attendants : ‘little care and no responsibility’.

    One would think that years of studying ‘political science’ would have provided the Commissar with some insight into local government but – alas – that has not proven to be the case.

    Comrade Number One has NO IDEA what he is doing and his STUPIDITY has cost Budapest literally BILLIONS of forints.

    So much for ‘fulfilling numerous public tasks’.

    He should just mount his beloved bicycle and ride off into the distance, never to be seen – or heard from – again.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *