Taxes must be reduced, and everyone must be made to pay taxes, András Tállai, Parliamentary State Secretary of the Ministry of Finance said. He also said in an interview published in the Saturday issue of the newspaper Magyar Nemzet that today Hungary is the European Union’s number one tax reducer.

The politician told the newspaper that in the past few years the government has launched several tax reduction programmes. Today Hungarian corporation tax is the lowest in the whole of the European Union, private individuals pay a 15 per cent personal income tax, and the reduction of employer taxes began three years ago.

In his view, while in 2017 in Hungary taxes to GDP decreased to 38.4 per cent, in the European Union they increased to 40.2 per cent. “There is no doubt that we have preserved our number one position since, given that last year a tax reduction package worth HUF 290 billion came into force, this year taxes have decreased by another two hundred billion forints, and prospects are also good for next year as the measures of the economy protection action plan will leave HUF 450 to 500 billion with families and in the economy,” the politician told the newspaper, taking the view that the wider international economic environment has also appreciated the government’s measures.

In the interview, the State Secretary also spoke about the opposition; in his view, in the present situation it is incomprehensible why some of their politicians talk about tax increases and the introduction of new taxes in the municipal election campaign, given that nothing warrants the implementation of austerity measures.

(MTI)