The government’s announcement on Thursday that a planned duty on financial transactions will raise more than twice the revenue earlier targeted goes against an agreement signed with banks last December as well as recent consultations, the Hungarian Banking Association said in a statement.
National Economy Minister Gyorgy Matolcsy said on Thursday that the next year’s budget expenditure target would be raised by HUF 170bn and much of the revenue to cover the increase would come from the planned transactions duty. He said the duty would generate HUF 280bn next year, well over the originally targeted HUF 130bn.
The Hungarian Banking Association said the government had agreed at the start that talks with banks were to be closed and not to be influenced by the involvement of the media until a proposed solution was reached.
Continual extra taxation and new regulatory burdens make the banking system incapable of maintaining its level of lending activity, which hurts the chances of putting the country on the path of economic growth, the association said.
