Economy minister rules out new tax in Hungary

Budapest, March 20 (MTI) – Unlike the opposition parties, the government is not mulling introducing any new tax, the economy minister said in an interview published by daily Magyar Idők on Monday.

Mihály Varga reacted to the recent announcement of the Socialists of a policy aimed at a “more fair sharing of the public burdens”. Unveiling policy details, László Botka, the opposition party’s candidate for prime minister, said that they would impose a “luxury tax” on incomes over 1 million forints (EUR 3,200) a month, affecting some 100,000-200,000 families. He said the tax would increase central revenues by an annual 300 billion forints (EUR 0.96bn), which could be used to cut taxes for low earners. Botka also proposed that properties worth over 100 million forints, as well as cars or other belongings worth more than 10 million forints should be taxed.

“It would be rather immoral to burden those with new taxes who have purchased for instance a new home for themselves or their families from their net income already taxed,” Varga told the paper.

He said the government would instead guarantee central revenues by quelling the black economy. To this effect, it connected tills online to the tax office and launched an electronic monitoring system (ekaer) for road haulage companies.

These measures have generated 200-300 billion forints in extra revenues for the central budget over the past two years, Varga said.

Source: MTI/Magyar Idők