Local business tax. In June the Hungarian Parliament passed an amendment to the system of contributions to the public revenues. Under this legislation, from 1 January 2010, the “part resulting in a local business tax base” of the revenue from an activity pursued at a foreign establishment will be exempt from local business tax in Hungary.
A new bill, which is currently being adopted, will clarify the definition of the tax-exempt part. According to the definition of the “part resulting in a local business tax base” of the revenue from an activity pursued at a foreign establishment, the rules on allocating the local business tax base will have to be taken into account when determining the part of the tax base in question.
Also with regard to the filing of local business tax returns changes have been made. Tax returns will have to be prepared in HUF. Concerning this issue the new bill has clarified also that taxpayers, who keep their books in a foreign currency, must use the mean exchange rate of the Hungarian National Bank valid on the last day of the tax year.
The bill passed in June 2009 allowed only three business days for local governments to notify the state Tax Authority of the granting of requests for the extension of payment facilities or for the reduction of local business tax owed. The proposed amendments will extend the three-day deadline to five business days.
Under the new regulations, in local tax matters and in other matters delegated to local tax authorities, the superior authority conducting a supervisory review will be able to change any decision challenged by an appeal, even if such a change is detrimental to the taxpayer. Taxpayers will be able to request a judicial review of such decisions.
Environmental protection product fee. According to the amendments submitted to Parliament  the product fee on commercial packaging should in future be based on weight instead of quantity.  In addition, only taxpayers that first release commercial packaging for circulation would be required to pay the product fee.
If adopted, the proposed amendments would introduce uniform rules on when the product fee liability arises on products imported from a third country or from other Member States of the European Union.  Except for reusable packaging, environmental product fee returns would all have to be filed quarterly. The return for reusable packaging would still have to be filed yearly.