Orban calls Socialists hypocritical over VAT-cut proposal

Budapest, April 27 (MTI) – Prime Minister Viktor Orban in parliament on Monday dismissed a Socialist proposal to cut value-added tax on some products and called the opposition party “hypocritical”.

The Socialists want to reduce “the very VAT which they raised high-sky”, Orban insisted, responding to a proposal by Socialist MP Zoltan Gogos to reduce VAT on products rather than cutting personal income tax in 2016. Gogos argued that his proposal would help low-earners and combat the black market.

Radical nationalist Jobbik MP Daniel Z Karpat called Hungary’s 27 percent VAT “the engine of the illegal economy,” which also weighs on the poorest. He repeated his party’s proposal to reduce VAT to 5 percent for basic food stuffs and products for children.

The prime minister responded that the government sought to focus taxes on consumption rather than on labour. He insisted that cutting taxes on labour and convincing people that “it is worth working” was crucial to meet the government’s objective of completely eliminating unemployment.

In his answer to a question by another Jobbik MP concerning nurses’ wages, Orban said that between 2011 and 2013 the government had raised the salaries of some 75,000 nurses and doctors in the sector by about 25 percent.

based on the article of MTI

Photo: MTI

Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters