Hungary State Treasury addresses car purchase subsidy reclaims
The Treasury highlighted that eligibility for the car purchase subsidy was conditional to not having outstanding public debt not when the grant was awarded but when the application was made. The applicants had an obligation to declare that they had no such liability and had every opportunity to check with tax authority NAV to verify their belief in case of doubt.
Should the declaration fail to coincide with reality, the subsidy must be repaid with interest on arrears.
However, it is important to note that this will only happen if someone fails to settle the debt after the notice. The Treasury allows 14 days from the date of receipt of the notice to do so.
By 31 December 2022, the Treasury had paid out subsidies totalling HUF 70 billion for 28,098 large family cars purchased with the grants. Only 65 cases, 0.2% of all claims, had to be recovered due to false declarations detected during the ex-post control.
The processing and assessment of applications for car aid for large families and the payment of the contracts received are ongoing, the Treasury added.
(The statement incorrectly stated a repayment rate of 0.002%, which we have corrected to 0.2%).
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