By Margit Feher
BUDAPEST--Hungary plans to tax internet use, beginning next
year, by levying a special tax on internet service providers to
raise budget revenues.
The measure would be the latest in a series of extraordinary
taxes the Fidesz-party government has introduced since coming into
power in 2010.
The move will be an extension of Hungary's already existing
telecom-sector tax since "most of the phone calls and text messages
are done these days via the internet versus the traditional
telephone lines," Economy Minister Mihaly Varga said at a news
conference on Tuesday.
At present, Hungary has an extraordinary tax levied on each
minute of a phone call and every text message, with a monthly cap
on the tax's amount per customer.
The new tax will be 150 Hungarian forints ($0.62) on every
started gigabyte of data, reads the draft 2015 tax bill, which the
economy ministry submitted to parliament on Tuesday, before
submitting the draft 2015 budget bill to parliament by Oct. 31.
Hungary's biggest internet service providers include its three
mobile operators: Norway's Telenor ASA (TEL.OS), U.K.'s Vodafone
Group PLC (VOD), and Telekom, an arm of Magyar Telekom Nyrt.
(MTELEKOM.BU), majority-owned by Germany's Deutsche Telekom AG
(DTE.XE), as well as UPC, owned by U.S. cable group Liberty Global
(LBTYA).
Also beginning next year, telecommunications companies may
deduct their corporate tax from the special telecom-sector and
internet-data-traffic tax, the draft bill adds.
Parliamentary approval of the new levy is likely since Fidesz
has a two-third majority in parliament after it won a consecutive
second term in power in general elections in April.
To express disapproval of the government's plan, several
Facebook pages started Tuesday night to organize street
demonstrations for Sunday. Various Facebook users have said the new
levy would limit access to the internet and thus hamper the freedom
of expression.
The budget revenue the government expects to collect from the
new levy could exceed 20 billion forints a year, Peter Beno Banai,
a state secretary at the economy ministry, told Hungarian online
news agency Mfor on Tuesday.
Based on Hungary's international internet traffic data, which
only covers part of the country's data traffic, fellow Hungarian
news portal Index has estimated that the budget revenue could total
as much as 95 billion forints a year.
In comparison, Hungarian internet providers' combined revenue
totaled 164.4 billion forints in 2013, according to figures from
the Hungarian statistics office.
Write to Margit Feher at margit.feher@wsj.com