Mass protests put end to Hungary’s internet tax

Hungary has agreed to drop a controversial internet data transfer tax in the wake of mass protests which have rocked the country this week.

According to Reuters, Prime Minister Viktor Orban froze the proposed law in the wake of the protest, as well as, advice from the European Union, which called the levy a mistake.

“This tax in its current form cannot be introduced because the government wanted to extend a telecommunications tax, but the people see an internet tax,” Orban told Radio Kossuth Friday. “If the people not only dislike something but also consider it unreasonable then it should not be done… The tax code should be modified. This must be withdrawn, and we do not have to deal with this now.”

The controversial tax would have seen Hungarian citizens pay US$0.62 per gigabyte of transferred data. Estimates for the amount of data it would have brought in range from as little as US$8-million a year to as much as US$720-million.

Speaking on Hungarian radio, Orban said that the government would bring up the issue of internet taxation again in January and was hoping to come up with a viable solution by the middle of next year.

There are two questions,” Orban said. “The question of internet regulation, what can and cannot be done, and the financial questions of the internet. We really should see somehow where the huge profits generated online go, and whether there is a way to keep some of it in Hungary and channel it into the budget.”

“Overall, the law was visibly flawed at several points, and it seemed ill-prepared. It was not an ideological question or a matter of big money,” Tamas Lanczi, chief of Hungary’s Szazadveg Political Analysis Centre told Reuters.

“When any government faces an angry population the best thing it can do is change course.”

European legislators meanwhile are treating the freeze as a victory for the EU.

“I’m very pleased for the Hungarian people,” EU vice president Neillie Kroes said in a statement on Friday. “Their voices were heard. I’m proud the European Commission played a positive role in defending European values and a digital Europe.”