Following the introduction of new regulations for professional property agents, real estate agents and appraisal agents late last year, individuals with one of these job descriptions will be required to possess a state approved National Training Notary (OKJ) license by May 10th or by May 25th at the latest, vg.hu reports. If a company offers any of these services, then at least one owner or employee must be fully licensed, with the regional notary carrying out annual checks. János Kiss, director of Perfekt Zrt. stated his belief that the new regulations will lead to many agents signing up for training courses to acquire these qualifications, meaning a sudden flood in applications for those offering the courses, just like how interest in graduate school spikes whenever the economy nosedives.

Because Hungarian government agencies are always just a few weeks away from announcing some type of goofy public relations contest, the national tax office APEH announced that it was planning to organize a children's story and comic-writing competition where inspectors, collectors and even the office's leaders can enter, fn.hu reports. The creations will later be used in a tax awareness campaign aimed at kindergartners and elementary school kids, apparently to get to them before they realize that no one in Hungary properly pays their taxes. But then things hit a bump in the road, or this being Hungary, a pothole.

According to a survey made by the Hungarian unit of French credit insurance company Coface summarized on index.hu, only 50% of local companies currently holding back on paying their creditors are actually unable to pay because of financial distress. The study of 50,000 companies found that 20% of "nonpaying" have the means to pay their invoices but choose not to, while a further 30% of bad debts have gone bad because of clerical errors. At the time of the survey 4% of the firms where judged to be "totally unqualified" for any sort of credit and an additional 3% were already under bankruptcy proceedings.

Via our friends at the British Chamber of Commerce in Hungary we found this link to an interesting and probably very worthwhile survey on economic and business climate conditions in the region by a group of German chambers. It's a bit confusing at points - we twice confused the buttons for rating the importance of different things with the buttons for how bad the things are - so if you are going to fill it out you'll probably want to stay as sober as possible, given the topic.

Hungary's online public administration service Ügyfélkapu ("Client Gateway", which currently has 850,000 registered users) returned to its old version after a brand-spanking new version launched on March 1 experienced many errors following its launch. According to hirextra.hu, no date has been set for the relaunch of the new version.

A price war has broken out among brand-name diaper manufacturers in Hungary after consumers switched to cheaper store brands as a result of the economy continuing to be down in the dumps, napi.hu reports. Bad jokes aside, prices dropped by as much as 20% in some cases. Pampers, Libero and store brands control an 80-90% share of the Hungarian market.

Longtimers here in Hungary may recall an era when every other new business on the streets of places like Budapest seemed to be gaming halls. Well, that era now seems to be over. According to piacesprofit.hu, revenues for members of the Hungarian Gambling Association (MSZSZ) - that is, companies operating gaming machines - fell by almost 15% in 2009, while the number of such nyerőgépek has been in continuous decline for the last half-decade, from 33,000 in 2005 to only 25,000 last year.

Via the urbanista blog we discovered a rather unique piece of Budapest residential property currently being offered for sale on listings engine ingatlan.com. Here's a translated version of the owner's pitch: "Do you like remodeling? In Budapest's District VIII on Mátyás tér a 66-sqm, fourth floor (has elevator) apartment is waiting for you. Outside walls, two windows and security door are new, but there are no interior walls, because the flat has been burned out." The price is Ft 7.8 million (around €29,000), which may or may not strike you as a fire sale, depending on how burned you've previously been by supposedly hot Budapest properties before. Groan.

No doubt because of the ongoing crisis, an increasing number of employers in Hungary are believed to be violating regulations on work hours, forcing workers to do unpaid overtime. A recent piece on origo.hu illustrates the trend with the case of an employee of a multinational, who said their work contract had been modified at the end of last year, thus introducing flexible (kötetlen) work hours and making it impossible to account for their earlier overtime, while the number of tasks they were responsible for increased as result of layoffs.

The ongoing fiscal calamity in Greece has again brought the issue of taxes - and how some countries seem to have such trouble collecting enough of them to finance their spending - to the forefront. Why is it that in places like Greece and its sister in perpetual fiscal distress (that would be Hungary) can't seem to convince their citizens to cough up the state's fair share of national income? One answer, of course, is that what the state considers a "fair share" is usually quite different from the opinion of its citizens. But another seems to be a rather bizarre reluctance on the part of the state to make big trouble for companies and individuals guilty of even the biggest tax frauds against the public purse.

I've long noticed a big disconnect between Hungary's "surplus" of taxes and bureaucratic heavy-handedness and its seeming shortage of high-profile tax fraud cases. But it wasn't until I decided to take a look around the local media for stories about the latter that the size of the gap became really striking.

Currently, the biggest story about tax fraud in Hungary involves a company called ScienNet, a rather shady outfit offering its clients discounts at a network of participating stores. Late last year, the head of the company, one Zsolt Leinemann (left), was arrested on charges of evading Ft 960 million (roughly €3.5 million) in taxes. Following a raid on the company's headquarters, the Customs and Finance Guard (VPOP) confiscated the firm's cash, as well as its computer servers, and in general shut the whole thing down.

While this might seem like a splendid example of the Magyar taxman doing his job, when you consider what might be called the "aggravating circumstance" of the case it is less impressive. Basically, ScieNet seems to have been targeted not just for swindling taxes, but also for running a pyramid scheme that may have drawn in as many as 400,000 "members." And the scale and scope of its alleged tax fiddle are nothing short of outlandish. For example, the company is a subsidiary of a US-based holding, used eleven different offshore companies, and is said to not even have had a local tax number.

You really have to pity the poor Irish investors now sitting on Budapest property. It's bad enough that they had their expectations for making a killing on local real estate unjustifiably stoked when the market was on the up. But now it seems that they are getting equally poor information about how bad the market is while it's on the down. Just consider the below graph from this bizarre brief in today's Irish Times entitled "All quiet in Budapest" but which reads like it should have been entitled "Your money is all gone, Paddy, so just kill yourself":

In the previously moribund restaurant areas of Budapest, the Irish brought many evenings of good fellowship - and generous tips - to the newly opened diners, especially on the conclusion of investment deals. Alas, all's changed. Liszt Ferenz square, off the capital's Utca [sic], once a vibrant area of evening entertainment, is notably quiet, with only a handful of restaurants open, where two years ago there were dozens. Much of its clientele came from Ireland, as Hungary boomed with foreign investment after years of stagnation.

Over 10,000 Hungarian businesspeople have offshore companies, and this number is possibly growing, index.hu writes, based on a print-only report in daily Magyar Nemzet. Some experts say that there is now more than Ft 2 trillion (€7.4 billion) worth of Hungarian assets in tax havens. And despite offers of a tax amnesty to those who bring their money "home," few entrepreneurs are doing so, worrying that the tax authorities will come down on them anyway.