“If Parliament votes in favour of the Government’s proposal, the 25 percent immigration surcharge could be introduced by late summer”, the Ministry of Finance’s Parliamentary State Secretary told Hungarian daily Magyar Idők.

In an interview published in Saturday’s edition of the paper, András Tállai stressed that the costs incurred to the state and to the Hungarian people as a result of the activities of organisations that assist immigration must be recovered, with relation to which he pointed out that the state has spent in the order of one hundred billion forints (EUR 300 million) on preventing illegal migration to date.

Concerning the details of the proposal, he explained that the surcharge will be payable with relation to financial support, such as bank transfers and the sum or value of goods received. Revenues from the immigration surcharge will flow into the central budget and will be used exclusively to fund tasks relating to border protection. According to the proposal, the surtax will primarily be payable by organisations that provide funding, with funded organisations, i.e. the organisations that assists immigration, only becoming liable to pay the tax if the providers of funding fail to fulfil their obligations.

(MTI)