Opposition: PM’s personal income tax rebate for families is a “campaign stunt”

Opposition LMP has branded a personal income tax rebate for low-earning parents proposed by the prime minister this week as a “campaign stunt”, saying that the government should have instead helped families and businesses over the past year and a half.

Máté Kanász-Nagy, the party’s co-leader, told an online press conference on Friday that the sole purpose of the tax rebate was to maximise votes for the ruling parties.

Otherwise, he said, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán “would have done something for the people or businesses hurting because of the crisis, like expanding the wage support scheme”.

Erzsébet Schmuck, LMP’s other co-leader, criticised the newly announced National Consultation public survey on Hungary’s economic recovery. She dismissed the government stance that the costs of climate protection should be borne by the biggest polluting companies as “propaganda”, arguing that the government provided far more support to multinationals than to Hungarian small businesses. Around 60 percent of Hungary’s CO2 emissions can be chalked up to transport and households, yet the government is building motorways instead of supporting public transport and refuses to provide support for building insulation, she said.

Concerning the planned climate tax, Schmuck said the European Union’s plan was to expand its emissions trading scheme to households and the transport sector with a view to reducing energy and fuel consumption. But since the details of the plan have yet to be finalised, it is impossible to hold a proper debate on it, she said, insisting that the prime minister was merely

“trying to rile people up”.

Featured image: illustration

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