The amendment makes the relationship between those who commission and those who publish an advert more transparent and the law will also cover sales houses. Simon’s Monday submission aims to clamp down on tax evaders in the advertisement sector.

A taxpayer’s base can be reduced only if no pre-tax profit or losses were posted in the 2013 fiscal year. Some taxpayers use “creative” transactions to make their tax base negative in order to avoid paying tax, according to the justification of the bill.

Parliament is expected to fast-track the bill through parliament by the end of the week.

The opposition E-PM party said the aim of the amendment is to silence the free press and give oligarchs near Fidesz more opportunities. Coleaders Gergely Karácsony and Viktor Szigetvári said in a statement the amendment targeted commercial television channel RTL Klub.

Sándor Burány, the Socialist chairman of parliament’s budget committee, told a news conference there were increasing signs the rule of law was collapsing in Hungary. He said the legislation targeted RTL Klub.

He said it was unacceptable that a television station was being burdened with a tax bill of billions of forints just because it was not to the government’s taste.

Source www.hungarymatters.hu

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