Well I don’t know if Kyiv is going to fall tomorrow, but it is obvious there is a lack of…
Hungarian Tax Office as Subordinate of the State Party
Yesterday quite a lot of Hungarian taxpayers, probably 1.4 million, found an official letter in their letterbox. All sent officially by the NAV, the national tax authority of Hungary. In the envelope there was no tax notice, reminder, not even a tax refund decision. It was a letter from the prime minister, who could as head of the executive only with very much goodwill seen as relevant tax officer. But the content of the letter was nothing but campaigning for the upcoming elections:
Dear compatriots!
I am happy to inform you: You, as parent raising a child, benefit from the family tax refund.
We have hard years behind us. The corona virus pandemic and the economic crisis in it’s wake have put a strain on all people, but families raising children came into a extraordinary difficult position. The government therefore decided on the tax refund as one-off measure.
In the Gyurcsány-era, family benefits were significantly cut. In contrast to this, we are convinced that in difficult times no money should be taken away from the people.
As long as Hungary has a national government, families raising children can count on the support of the government, because Hungary is moving forward, not backward!
Further I wish you good health!
Sincerely:
Viktor Orbán
In every other EU country – or elsewhere in the democratic world – it would be completely unthinkable that a campaigning head of government could abuse the tax authority for campaigning. However, this letter is not financed from the NAV, but Rogan’s propaganda ministry, as Magyar Hang found out ►HU. Still, the information who has to receive this letter with party content was only available through co-operation between state and party organs, and it doesn’t matter which ministry pays 256 000 000 Ft (721 000 €) for sending the letter, it remains the taxpayer.
In Hungary this winter so far are frozen to death 118 persons, nearly exclusively all in their homes, already 1/3 more than 2020. So much about what could have been done with 256 million Forint, if that amount would not have been taken away from the people (to quote the letter.) It is remarkable that I didn’t come along this in free Hungarian press, but an Austrian newspaper ►DE.
What are the family benefits available for all children? All amounts are per month: The general family benefit is between 12 200 for a single child (34 €) and 16 000 Ft for 3 or more children per child (45 €) for families, single parents get between 1 000 and 1 500 Ft (3.82 and 4.23 €) more per child. Chronically sick or disabled children get a bit more. These amounts were raised to this level in 2008, Orbán never changed the amount, while under Gyurcsány these every year changed, in total every single one more than doubled from 2004 to 2008 ►HU! This benefit is only paid as long as the child is going to school. The least educated parts of society miss 2 years, because Orbán has lowered compulsory school age from 18 to 16 years. Orbán has dramatically reduced access to additional benefits as well.
Young mothers may stay at home for 3 years while being paid by the state through different programs (Csed, Gyed, Gyes, Gyet.) Regardless the fact that this triggers economical wrong behaviour, this is a heritage of communism that fits into the ideology of FIDESZ that women belong into the kitchen. This was in force during democratic Hungary from 1990 to 2010 as well. In May 2010, however, the time was reduced from 3 to 2 years, just to be lengthened again to 3 years a bit later. Since the detailed rules were permanently changed I’ll have a look at the parts that are wage related and not wage related. If a woman has had an employment before pregnancy she gets the higher wage-related amounts than those who hadn’t. The total amount from wage related benefits were raised a lot between 2010 and 2016, which is not surprising seen the raised wages through the years. Those programs not related to income were lower in total value during that period, although the time was extended ►HU. As usual the amounts of state financed benefits were not raised by Orbán since 2010, here again we see the same amount as the minimum pension: 28 500 Ft (80 €.)
It is true that the system of tax allowance for families with children has been changed by Orbán in favour of families with children, these get now nets between 10 000 and 33 000 Ft (28 and 93 €,) depending on the number of children, more than those without children. However, Orbán’s flat tax alone already costs more than the tax allowance for a single child. Of course this only works in favour of those actually paying Hungarian income tax. And right now it reduces the amount to be refunded by the pre-election refund of course! Taxes not paid won’t be refunded….
The rest of all the praised child benefits are not accessible for everybody. Who wants to buy or renovate a house, or buy a car, or wants the baby credit, needs to be married (to each other,) having paid all taxes and contributions, and being creditworthy. Who has been employed abroad is excluded by definition, since these families – although being exempt from taxes – did not pay contributions in Hungary. Not that they needed to pay contributions, it is enough that they didn’t pay to exclude them. This means that these benefits are reserved to the wealthier part of the society fitting into the world-view of the regime.
And what are the results of Orbán’s family policy? Past 2010 were less children born than before 2010. Under the attacked Gyurcsány-area between 94 647 and 99 871 children were born every year, under Orbán between 88 049 and 93 063 children ►HU. So we can conclude that Orbán again illegally abuses the taxpayers resources to lie at the people and that the only Orbán cares for is Orbán.
Voila, the “Council of Judges” (OBT) has already submitted to Orban's "reorganization" by the afternoon. https://obt-jud.hu/sites/default/files/ulesek/Osszefoglalo_2024.11.20.pdf
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Current US situation: https://www.cdc.gov/bird-flu/situation-summary/index.html https://www.aphis.usda.gov/livestock-poultry-disease/avian/avian-influenza/hpai-detections/commercial-backyard-flocks
I am not in the least surprised Fidesz and Orban would use the tax authority as a campaign tool. There will be no consequences of any significance so why not?
On at totally different issue now we can compare both the Orban and the Macron trips to visit Putin. I would say neither achieved much as yet in terms of supposedly preventing a possible Russian attack on Ukraine. There was a striking similarity between the two and that was the post meeting press conference. In both cases Putin openly attacked NATO, I discussed Putin’s comments at the joint press conference with Orban in an earlier post. Now we have his comments from his press conference with Macron via video. After more than five hours of talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, there was little doubt Emmanuel Macron achieved nothing at all. Here are some of things Putin said in the press conference. Putin stated that Crimea is Russia and that if Ukraine joined NATO, European countries would “automatically” be at war with Russia. Jabbing a finger in the air at a French reporter, he said that “Russia is a military superpower and a nuclear superpower” and warned: “There will be no winners and you will be drawn into this conflict against your own will.”
Putin responded harshly at repeated assertions by Western leaders that NATO is a “defensive alliance,” he cited operations in Serbia, Afghanistan, Syria and Libya as proof to the contrary. He repeated his claim that Ukraine’s 2014 Maidan Revolution was a “coup d’état.” Putin accused the Ukrainian government of trying to settle the separatist war in eastern Ukraine by “military means.” To all of this and more, Macron had virtually no response other than to insist that it was important to keep on talking. Orban was very similar at his joint press conference with Putin in his failure to defend NATO and the West against Putin’s attacks.
In my opinion Putin actually threatened France with Thermonuclear War if Ukraine is ever admitted to NATO. Of course as is typical of this form of the Russian threat it is always framed using the Russia’s formal position that Thermonuclear War will leave no winners and the USA often discusses it in the same way. That is in fact bullshit, as insane as it may be both the USA and Russia believe the core leaderships of their societies could survive such a war. At least for a period of time.
Herman Kahn, a military strategist at the RAND Corporation wrote a full book on surviving a Thermonuclear War and the USA has what is called the Federal Relocation Arc consisting of three layered networks of facilities, each of which is designed to be progressively more survivable and fortified than the previous. In the event that intelligence or rising tensions indicate that a serious emergency may soon develop, cabinet-level agencies of the United States government would activate three “emergency teams” sequentially lettered “A”, “B”, and “C”. Each pre-designated emergency team generally consists of 60 to 100 staff who are capable of running the most critical functions of the government agency that they represent. Russia has similar plans and facilities for governmental survival of nuclear war (see for example “Russia’s Nuclear Weapons: Doctrine, Forces, and Modernization” published in September 2021 https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R45861 ) Even Macron’s France has such plans see https://nautilus.org/napsnet/napsnet-special-reports/france-nuclear-command-control-and-communications/
These times are like a return to the past during cold war days and none of this is good.
Thanks, Istvan for this overview. As you will certainly know house prices exploded last and this year in Hungary. Especially in Budapest. I talked to a woman working at the OTP bank, she is overviewing the customers’ requests for a credit for a house. She told me that is quite normal on the moment that people want to buy a house or appartment for one hundred million forints, where their only own money is the regimes chocolate money. So basically, only a loan. If you combine that with the decree of the Viktor that people do not need to pay back their mortgages because of the pandemic, one can just hope that not too many existences will be destroyed because of not being able to pay for their debts.
It reminds me of what I read about the roaring twenties. It seems that everyone wants to get “the family support”, even if this means your own bankruptcy.