Online tills to be introduced in further areas

Budapest, November 19 (MTI) – The government is planning to roll out online tills to further areas such as garages, taxi services, as well as gyms and currency exchange offices, the economy minister announced on Thursday.

Speaking at a regional conference on efforts to evade VAT fraud, Mihaly Varga insisted that online tills were an “obvious success”, and generated significant extra revenues for the central budget.

As part of its fight against the illegal economy, the government made online tills mandatory for retail shops in 2014.

Addressing the conference, Varga said that Hungary’s VAT revenues had increased by over 300 billion forints (EUR 968m) last year, of which some 180-190 billion forints had been generated by the introduction of e-tills. The minister added that the grey economy and VAT fraud still cause some 500-750 billion forint losses to the central budget annually, which equals 15-20 percent of Hungary’s theoretical VAT base.

Varga also announced that the government is planning to lift mandatory tax returns for private individuals, and introduce more frequent checks for “bad” taxpayers. According to the ministry’s estimates, not more than one quarter of corporate taxpayers fall in the “good debtor” category, which suggests a large illegal economy, he added.

Photo: MTI

Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters