Budapest pays more tax than govt support received, says Mayor Karácsony
Budapest pays more tax than the government support it receives, Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony said on Facebook on Monday in response to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s remarks in parliament concerning the city’s finances.
The new city leaders elected in October 2019 must pay nearly four times as much municipal tax during the coronavirus epidemic than the previous city leaders did, Karácsony said.
“The recovery of the country, including Budapest, must not be an issue focusing on a war of numbers,” he added.
Orbán said in parliament concerning accusations that the government is “bleeding local governments dry” that Budapest’s account showed 122 billion forints at the end of December last year. Orbán insisted that 44 percent of all government support or 3,000 billion forints went to Budapest last year as against 6-12 percent to some regions in the Hungarian provinces.
Karácsony said that despite the crisis, it was not the government supporting the metropolitan council but the other way round.
“We are fulfilling numerous public tasks without any state support and we are paying extra to the government,”
he said, and insisted that Budapest was a net contributor to the central budget.
Source: MTI