For people who have been asking me, “why is the internet Tax so important” well the tax is not important but the effect of the tax and a list of other injustices are important. If you can control information, you can control people. Tom Clancy - novelist and historian To live in an Orwellian state is an experience but if it is your country that is transforming to one it must me frightful. The Internet is the last source of unregulated information in Hungary. Curtail the Internet and you reduce the ability of a population to education their youth and themselves. As the information is more costly the chance someone finds out the truth about his or her government decreases as well. The government has implemented laws giving it the ability to force an extended closure of any media company, which the government feels is “causing harm”. This closure can be long enough to force the media company into bankruptcy. During the recent elections very little of the opposition was seen. How can there be fair elections when one side cannot campaign? This Fall the government exercised their power and revoked the license for non-profit organizations to function simply because they received funds from a donor who spoke against the current government. Just an exercise to let the people and the media companies know they should be careful. So the government maintains a legal position they essentially removed the power of the Hungarys Supreme Court by changing the constitution so as only the legality and its process of the issue not the issue itself can be decided on by the supreme court. So as long as the “crime” is done legally the government can do what they want. This opens the door for the government to implement laws, which are legal but not good for the country and leaving no legal recourse for its citizens. An example of where the government used this change to the constitution is when it removed 12 billion USD from peoples pension funds. They changed the laws that allowed them to do it. So when the case was heard at the Supreme Court the “theft” was done legally. The governmental control of the judiciary branch was recently made clear with the vote of the this summer that potentially could cost the Hungarian banking sector a billion USD. This is after the Hungary’s banks already had a special Bank tax applied to them as well as a new 6% health tax which clients need to pay. In September 47 cases out of 96 submitted by the banks one month after the law was voted on heard concerning this law and all but two were rejected. As FIDESZ has control of the parliament they can make any laws they want. The financial pressure on the banks will not destroy them, they have transferred the costs onto the clients. However the projected tax revenue from the Internet tax can destroy the small telecom companies. The fiscal revenue from the Internet tax is estimated at 82 – 400 Million USD the variation comes because the no one knows how this tax will be applied. The telecoms industry, that supplies most of the Internet, had profits of 400 million USD last year. Keep in mind this tax is calculated on usage not on net profits. So this tax could destroy Internet companies unless they pass the cost onto consumers. The latter will be the result regardless if the government passes laws that the Internet provides can pass on only a fraction of the costs they will need to increase the Internet fees to break even. Raising the price of something decreases its demand and, in Hungary, basically its affordability, by the majority of the population, so information available to the public will decrease. I am not speaking about the following as I fear the traffic would increase. “Cafeteria tax” benefits like food, education and health care costs received from employers increased to 51.17 per cent: Highest VAT (essentially sales tax) rate in Europe at 27% Increased fees and costs to attend school not just universities but all schools and this Internet tax will be another cost for them. politics.hu/20141029/magyar-telekom-shocked-by-internet-tax/
Posted on: Wed, 29 Oct 2014 19:33:52 +0000