Orbán: More than EUR 9.7bn left with families since 2010

More than 3,000 billion forints (EUR 9.7bn) has been left with Hungarian families since Hungary’s Fidesz-KDNP government came to power in 2010, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said at the Figyelő Top200 award gala, an event acknowledging Hungary’s most successful businesses organised by news weekly Figyelő reported on Saturday. 

The savings include those from tax preferences for families and newly married couples as well as the lower tax rate and the introduction of a flat-rate tax system, Orbán said.

He said

his government had taken some pages from the “Reagan catechism” and “put a brake on inflation, continuously cut taxes and put the communists in mothballs”.

Hungary was at rock bottom in 2010, but “as Hungarian logic dictates: when at rock bottom, look at the foundations”, he said. The government did just that and found that the foundations were good: “Hungarians like to work, they can work hard and take initiative…and they are able to take responsible decisions,” he added.

If the foundations were good in 2010, that meant that there was a problem with policy, as that policy couldn’t draw on those resources, he said.

Orbán acknowledged the cooperation and contribution of businesses in the implementation of the government’s policy after 2010.

“Although they ground their teeth, the banks still stood by the government and paid the bank levy, the multinationals and the Hungarian companies stood by the country and paid their sectoral taxes, and the SMEs also accepted what they had to,” he said.

We have come so far as to have been able to form an alliance with businesses last year that includes tax reductions,

he said. “With this, we’ve started a new period of Hungary’s economic history, because we’ve brought to an end the era of low wages,” he added.