Hungarian Tax System Not Too Complex, Says Finance Minister

By Ulrika Lomas, for LawAndTax-News.com, Brussels

15 July 2008

Hungary's Finance Minister János Veres (pictured) has spoken out this week to assure taxpayers that he will do all he can to continue simplifying the country's tax system.

The announcement came after results of government reviews showed that over 90% of companies within the country benefited from recent changes made to accounting and taxation rules.

Further to this, data collected from reports by both the World Bank and the consultancy PricewaterhouseCoopers International Ltd (PWC) ranked the complexity of the Hungarian tax system as “average," meaning that companies bear an average amount of administrative burden, according to the Budapest Business Journal.

The BBJ further reported that Mr Veres was particularly pleased with how well the implementation of new tax filing systems had gone, with 100,000 more individuals choosing to administer their tax affairs online than last year, and 300,000 more choosing to fill and check their tax forms online.

This news follows earlier reports that the Hungarian government are planning significant reductions in tax and contributions in 2009.

The changes will be subsidized by a large re-shuffling of the tax system, coupled with the narrowing of tax preferences and reductions in government spending, the BBJ has revealed.

The Finance Ministry is reportedly expected to present its 2009 budget to Parliament at the end of September.

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