Hungary's Parliament approves 'crisis taxes'
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Hungary's Parliament approved on Monday what it called a "crisis taxes" levied against telcos, energy companies and retail chains.
Of the 386-member parliament, 294 voted in favor of the new taxes, 44 were opposed and 12 abstained.
The "crisis taxes" to be levied for three years will generate 161 billion forints ( 1 U.S. dollar equals 199.62 forints) in budget revenue in 2010.
Addressing the National Assembly before the vote, Prime Minister Viktor Orban argued for the tax, saying that until now taxpayers had covered the costs of the economic downturn to keep business interests afloat, and it was time this was turned around.
Orban blamed the previous administration for unethical support of private market interests at taxpayer expense and announced that the current administration needed "to keep the state a private interest-free zone."
He reiterated his administration's threefold goal of equally sharing in the public burden, maintaining jobs and combating irrational bureaucracy. And then he said that it was fair for the business world to bear the lion's share of the current burden to relieve taxpayers who "have already sacrificed too much."
He underlined that the extra tax was short-term and would be levied in 2010, 2011 and 2012, which will give the government the leeway to revamp the education, health care and public service systems and "enable us to turn the economy into the most successful one in Central Europe."
Orban also touched on the income tax reform, which essentially consists of a 16 percent flat tax, with major deductions allowed for children. He called it the lowest tax of the last 20 years.
He also promised to cut government spending by at least 5 percent, and to introduce job sharing for women. "Any business employing two women for four hours each in an eight-hour job will only have to pay a 20 percent social insurance contribution instead of the usual 27 percent," he said.
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