The 500-700bn HUF extra gap in the budget left behind by the Socialist government forced the new government to urgently introduce measures aimed at increasing revenues and cutting expenditure.

To balance the budget, besides other measures the government has decided to implement a crisis tax. As the financial sector had already shared some of the burden of the crisis, now the same has been expected from telecom companies, the energy sector and retail companies. Because of their influence, market position and last but not least because of the advantages offered by the state these sectors have been accumulating profits enabling them to play a greater role in stabilizing the country’s budget situation. At the introduction of the crisis tax the government has paid particular attention to making the tax proportional which would by no means negatively influence the operation of these sectors. Another characteristic of the tax besides being proportional is that it is temporary, so it will not dent the profitability of these sectors in the middle or long term.