Hungary to raise taxes in a bid to shore up budget, exit excessive deficit procedure

Yup, tax hike up ahead - 16:40

Proposals that will serve as the foundation for tax changes are in the making at the National Economy Ministry, the ministry told state newswire MTI on Thursday. This means Hungary does not want to leave anything to chance and it will take also the third step aimed at reducing the budget deficit to the level required by the EU to let the country out of the excessive deficit procedure as soon as possible (this summer).

Will there be higher taxes? - 14:07

State newswire MTI asked András Giró-Szász about Orbán’s remarks made in Brussels on Wednesday.

At a press conference after an extraordinary EU summit the PM said Hungary needs to have the EDP abrogated “if the rules of mathematics still apply".

“The question is whether we should take additional steps just to make sure" about exiting the EDP, he added. There is still a debate about this in the cabinet, he noted.

“By the reduction on the spending side, experts say, we have frozen 0.3% of GDP worth of funds [...] We have also said that if that was not enough then the one-off investments will be carried out not from the budget but at the expense of state assets, which means one-off expenditures will be covered from one-off revenues. As the third step, if these still did not suffice, we are willing to raise certain taxes," the PM said yesterday.

• Tags:
• edp,
• economy,
• tax,
• mihaly varga,
• orbán,
• commission,
• excessive deficit procedure