The National Tax and Customs Administration (NAV) may play a key role in boosting the competitiveness of enterprises, Minister of Finance Mihály Varga said at an executive meeting, where he introduced László Sors as the newly appointed head of the tax office. Besides becoming a paper-free office by 2021, the NAV will also be capable of preparing a high number of tax returns for enterprises thanks to the inflow of data, and thus this will reduce the burden of tax administration by half.

The tax office of the future will provide an increasing number of services, the Minister noted. Since last year, the NAV has relieved private persons from the responsibility of filling in tax returns. This year, the Office also prepares tax return drafts concerning excise taxes, one of the taxes with the largest weight. In the year 2021, enterprises will only be obliged to check and approve the tax return drafts produced by the tax authority.

The NAV’s electronic services are getting increasingly widely used; this way, taxpayers are assisting the Office to become fully paper-free within a couple of years, for the first time in the history of public administration.

The principle that nobody can bypass the obligation of paying taxes remains unchanged, Mihály Varga stressed. In tax controls, however, the differences between causes must be recognized, he added. Half of the tax gap (unpaid tax) is believed to stem from the unintentional failure to declare taxable income. Therefore, taxpayers who make such mistakes must be assisted while there must be harsh consequences for tax fraudsters.

At the meeting, the Minster also said that the NAV would in the next two weeks provide all the necessary help for some quarter of a million enterprises in joining the new online billing system, in connecting wending machines for snacks and beverages to the tax authority and for a smooth start of these schemes on 1 July.

The attitude of the tax authority has changed in recent years: the NAV has become client-friendly and the approach is now that of a service provider, he pointed out. The Office has adopted the “service provider” attitude in fields where this would have been unimaginable some years ago: in control, tax collection and even in customs affairs, he said.

Taxes and duties received by NAV account for 94 percent of the revenues of the state budget.

(Ministry of Finance)