Hungary plans to levy1 a new tax on internet usage, in a move that could potentially hit telecom providers and the general public alike.
匈牙利政府计划对互联网使用进行征税，此举可能对电信运营商以及公众造成打击。
A draft of the 2015 budget submitted to parliament yesterday contains a new tax of 150 forint (around $0.60 or 3.8 yuan) per gigabyte of data traffic.
Within hours of the budget provision being published, more than 100,000 people had joined a Facebook group protesting the new Internet tax and calling on Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government to
scrap2 the proposal
entirely3.
Thousands of netizens have said on the group's wall that they will rally outside the Hungarian Parliament building in Budapest to protest the tax.
Hungarian Minister for Finance and Economy Mihaly Varga has defended the move. He says that as communications technology changes the way consumers use telecom services, the government has an obligation to adapt its tax code accordingly.
Varga also added that the bill contains a provision allowing telecommunications firms to
offset4 corporate5 earnings6 taxes against the new levy. One netizen on Facebook addressed this possibility as well, saying that telecommunications providers would still have no option but to pass the expense onto consumers in the form of higher
subscription7 fees.
The Orban government and the ruling Fidesz party control a 2/3rds majority in the Hungarian Parliament as of 2014. In recent years, the Orban government has passed an array of new taxes on the
banking8, energy, and
retail9 sectors10 in an attempt to control Hungary's skyrocketing budget shortfall.
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