Visitors to Hungarian tax offices around the country are being given a questionnaire on the quality of service provided by APEH staff starting today.
The survey can also be completed online, reports atv.hu.
“Customers” of the APEH will be asked to provide ratings on a scale of one to five in 12 categories. Results will be announced in December.
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Well, as the Hungarians would say: “They’re not going to put that one out in the window.” APEH is a frickin salt office, to use another appropriate Hungarian term.
Well, I hate to miss a good moan-fest, but I’ve always found the people in APEH and the Illeték Hivatala to be helpful and efficient. Far more efficient than their equivalents in the UK. Now if you could only rate the dead beats that infest the waiting rooms (particularly the Buda néni’s that dress like 20 year olds) I’d have a lot more to complain about.
The problem with APEH is not the folks sitting at the windows, they are just as puzzled by the system as customers. Why does it make sense to sell coffee and sandwiches in the APEH office, but not the 2 page form everyone needs. Why do you have to travel far away to buy that piece of paper and go back to start waiting at the end of the line again?
Why do they have computers if it takes a full week to give you a tax number? Why does it take 6 weeks for APEH to notify Social Security (or whatever it’s called here) about you paying your dues? Why do they allow idiots to mess with the computer and delete you from the system for no reason? Why cannot you take care of simple things over the internet, forcing you to spend hours in the office waiting for someone to tell you that he doesn’t know? Is it possible that APEH needs new management? Maybe Hungary needs new management. Waste less time and money on bureaucracy and everyone will be happier. When I opened my first business in the US, all I needed is a phone call to the IRS, I never even saw the inside of their office. It’s not about money, we just need someone with more than a 90 IQ to organize the mess.
Stan, You ROCK! You are so right – on every point. The people that you deal with face-to-face are not the problem (most of the time) it is the ‘system’. The changes that have been made, like setting up a business ‘electronically’ are imported from the West but get mixed up with some Communist fetish for paper work. Thus electronic becomes ‘scanned paper documents’ with stamps. You still need to employ a lawyer to do the paperwork, since they know nobody can be smart enough to interpret the pages of unnecessary documentation. For me, what I liked the best was going back to the bank twice to set up a business account. First to do the paperwork (1 hour) and second to do more paperwork (30 minutes). And in between trips some kind of confirmation email was exchanged – now that is efficiency!
Well, if we were allowed to vote on the most redundant people (or paperwork machines) in the Hungarian legal/business framework I’d put all my money on the beloved notaries (közjegyzők). They are the people to whom you have to go just to double sign everything that you and the lawyer have just signed in triplicate and then get a proof of signature document from, and then go back to whenever even small changes are made to any business details. That job is a money printing machine. There are a fixed number of them, everyone wants to be one and when one looks like they are going to retire people pay big money to step into the fatcat’s shoes. Well at least from next year they are supposedly going to be used to speed up legal proceedings ( http://www.jogiforum.hu/hirek/19122 ), but I think this is simply because the government aren’t brave enough to stand up to the judges that have been taking the proverbial out of the country for years.
I still have a lot to learn about Hungarian bureaucracy. In the US a notary public actually saves you some time and trouble. For a couple of bucks they put a stamp on your contracts, so you don’t have to ask strangers to sign as witnesses.
Notaries don’t care what’s the contract about, they just look at your driver’s license to see that you sign your own name. Notaries are easy to find and they don’t cost too much.
Let’s not get into what I think of US lawyers…
you’re bloody well right.
Some 12 years agoo, as a chessmate to Gönz Árpad, i predicted the total bankruptcy of the system in Hunagry within abt. 10 years.
It might turn now out to be within 13 years, but still i’m getting right, ain’t it ??
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Hungarians never ever won a war. They’ll loose this one too i am affraid..!!!
@Stan. I had an experience recently where a notary refused to notarise our UK incorporation papers that were required by HU law (to be notarised) in order to set up a subsidiary office here in HU. The Notary said that she wanted to read the document, couldn’t and therefore had the right to refuse. THis is in spite of the HU law that say one MUST attach (and have notarised locally) your foreign incorp papers in order to get you HU subsidiary. Maybe there should be a customer satistfaction survey for notaries too? Or at least a complaints book where one can note, “Too Ignorant of the Law, should have shingle detached.”
@Rolrox: I’d always check the lawyer or notary speaks English if you are dealing with anything that is in English otherwise it gets really messy and expensive (most of the time their Enlish isn’t good enough anyway, but they pretend it is like all Hungarians do rather than admit a weakness). The Hungarian language website that lists all lawyers and members of the legal profession states which languages they claim to speak/understand.
The best part is when you need to get an “official translation” of a document. I have yet to get a translation that wasn’t almost completely useless and unusable. The joke being that the legal people in the Hungarian legal system that stamp these translations ovbiously can’t speak or read English to any meaningful degree. The end result is that you have to wait to get the translation (which is obligatory in some cases) then you retranslate the document yourself and then you send it on.
So far my list of hate figures is:
1. Notaries
2. Judges
3. “Official” translators
Does anyone do quality checks on these people.
My least favourite bureaucratic practice from before EU accession was making me get an ‘up-to-date’ tranlsation of our wedding certificate each time I renewed my residency permit (8,000 Ft). The leprosy test (4,000 Ft) came second. There was a also a contract signed by my wife saying which rooms in our flat she would let me use explicitly mentioning the toilet. I think that was 12,000 Ft – but it used to make me laugh a lot.
@Vandorlo. My point was that the document had to be “acknowledged” as part of an HU process; akin to being witnessed as being presented (when we signed a HU document saying that such is our UK Incorp papers). It was just part of the package.
The notary acted as if it was her responsibility to also read the document. Now I ask, to what benefit would that be? Is she thinking she’s supposed to ‘comment on the content?’ or ‘correct the grammar?’ Truthfully it was just her chance to take a power trip.
I agree, these people are just more societal parasites. Though top of the list for me are:-
- Former secret police, ex-soviet era building maintenance managers (and their progeny) that now own large villas in the hills, sport shaved heads and drive around in Mercs ignoring traffic laws.
- Politicians that don’t know that “Policy” is the root word of their profession (and not “Populist”)
- Burons (bureacratic morons, a term invented by Trump); who in order to make ends meet will deliberately go slow so you have to bribe them.