Hungary Prime Minister Viktor Orban cuts local business tax, Budapest’s mayor criticises the move. On a Facebook post, the Lord Mayor of Budapest said: “Halving this tax does not manage this crisis, but deepens it.”
Hungary Viktor Orban announces new COVID-19 relief measures
Hungary’s government will extend a moratorium, a moratorium is an authorized delay in an activity or obligation, on household and business loan repayments until July 2021.
Families with children or expecting a child will be eligible for a preferential loan of up to 6 million forints and non-refundable grants to renovate their homes.
They have also halved a local business tax collected by municipalities, a move strongly criticised by Budapest’s opposition lord mayor on Saturday.
Prime Minister Viktor Orban announced that local tax for small and medium-sized businesses would be halved from Jan. 1 to support jobs during the coronavirus crisis.
Lord Mayor of Budapest
The local business tax is a vital source of revenue for municipalities. Opposition leaders said the tax cut would jeopardise public services and allow the nationalist government to exert political pressure on cities.
The opposition parties which is aligned with Budapest’s Lord Mayor Gergely Karacsony who is a liberal sociologist is opposing the Prime Ministers in a bid to cause unrest before the 2022 elections. the PM of Hungary has been in power for a decade and the backlash from the pandemic is seen as an opportunity for the opposition to capitalise.
Orbán’s government has long butted heads with the EU over what Brussels sees as democratic backsliding in his country. He is also currently in a standoff along with his Polish counterpart against other European leaders over plans to install a mechanism that would tie EU funds in certain circumstances to rule of law principles under the bloc’s next long-term budget. The rightwing prime minister Viktor Orbán has reignited anti-Soros rhetoric with the ongoing EU dispute where Orban blames the 90-year-old financial speculator George Soros.
Viktor Mihály Orbán born on 31st May 1963 is a Hungarian politician who has been Prime Minister of Hungary since 2010; he was also Prime Minister from 1998 to 2002. He has also been President of Fidesz, a national conservative political party, since 1993, with a brief break between 2000 and 2003.
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