Hungary’s Tax Office NAV Publishes Investigation Material

  • 27 Nov 2014 8:00 AM
Hungary’s Tax Office NAV Publishes Investigation Material
Hungary’s tax and customs office (NAV) has released the results of an investigation following allegations last November of VAT graft by a former NAV employee, András Horváth. NAV said the investigation, which together with its annex comes to 1,200 pages, established that the whistleblower had wrongly claimed that the tax office had failed to take action against tax cheats.

It said that an investigation of the former employee’s allegations had been necessitated since Horváth’s charges had lacked a factual basis.

“Given the allegations based on his experience at the tax office were not underpinned by concrete evidence”, the sources of these experiences had to be examined point-by-point, and responses given to the question of whether any abuses had taken place.

Last November, Horváth alleged that some of the larger domestic companies and multinationals evaded VAT to the tune of over one trillion forints (EUR 3.3bn), and that they had been assisted by the tax authority and people in government circles.

Two days later, the economy ministry said it had carried out an investigation, establishing that the tax office had carried out its tax inspections according to the relevant regulations and in an unbiased way.

Horváth said the investigation documents released by NAV were “frivolous and ridiculous” as there was nothing in the 1,200 pages that support the conclusions NAV had drawn. Horváth insisted the investigation by the tax office had been a mere “alibi” and its queries inputted into the system had been based on general parametres.

All this proves is that the tax office had worked during the period of the investigation, he said.

Source www.hungarymatters.hu

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