Hungarian government temporarily cancels internet tax after protest

The Hungarian government is canceling the plan to have providers pay tax per gigabyte for the time being. Prime Minister Orban will look for other ways to tax the internet from January, but does not yet know how he will do that.

The Hungarian prime minister announced the cancellation of the internet tax plan in 2015 via radio and via a Facebook post. In the radio interview, Orban said it would be “Communist” to push through the plan while the people are against it, HungaryToday claims. “Now we’re at a point where the plan has become a vision that instills fear, making it difficult to talk about.”

So the plan won’t be implemented next year, but the prime minister still wants to look at how he can levy taxes on online activities. To this end, the Hungarian government will start a consultation in January next year. This consultation can last from one to one and a half years.

A week and a half ago, the Hungarian government announced a plan to make providers pay per gigabyte for every internet connection they offer. Many Hungarians feared that providers would pass this fee on to customers on a one-to-one basis and they would therefore have to pay the tax themselves. Converted the tax would be 50 cents per gigabyte, with a maximum of 2.27 euros for households and 16.26 euros for companies per month.