20/06/22

EUROPE: Hungary continues to be against global minimum tax.

As published on dailynewshungary.com, Monday 20 June, 2022.

The introduction of the OECD’s global minimum tax on corporate profit would result in big tax hikes and endanger “tens of thousands” of jobs in central Europe, where, thanks to disciplined fiscal policy, businesses now pay the lowest corporate taxes in Europe, Péter Szijjártó, the foreign minister, said in an interview broadcast on public radio on Sunday.

Szijjártó told Kossuth Rádió that the global minimum corporate tax would put jobs at risk around the world, while producing companies would raise prices as their tax burden increases, creating further inflationary pressure.

The plan to roll out the global minimum corporate tax in Europe from next year, as the rest of the world sits back and watches, would put European companies at a competitive disadvantage, he said.

Hungary’s talks with the United States at the ministerial level on the global minimum corporate tax were “fair and square”, he said, but Hungary’s government made it clear that it could not support the introduction of the tax.

He added that the US Republicans and the Hungarian government agree that the smaller the tax on labour, the bigger the opportunities for economic growth.

Szijjártó said the economic impact of the war in Ukraine is starting to show on a global scale.

He reiterated that while Hungary has, from the very beginning, condemned the military aggression against Ukraine, stood up for the country and launched a humanitarian campaign of unprecedented scale, the Hungarian government has also taken the position that ensuring security for Hungary is the priority, that is, not being dragged into the war.

As a member of NATO, Hungary takes the stand that a direct conflict between NATO and Russia should not be allowed to come about, as the consequences would be “tragic”, he said.

He expressed hope that “common sense will prevail” at an upcoming NATO summit in Madrid, and that no decision would be taken that would cause the conflict to escalate.

Szijjártó said Hungary’s gas and crude deliveries are continuing “on schedule, without interruption”.

He added that Gazprom’s CEO and Russia’s deputy prime minister for energy had assured him by phone that contractual commitments will be fulfilled after reports that Gazprom had stopped deliveries to some countries. Hungary’s state-owned energy company MVM is paying for Russian gas as the supplier requires, as are many other companies in Western Europe, he said.