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KARÁCSONY: GOVT STRIPS BUDAPEST OF HUF 227 BN

 

The central government has stripped the Budapest municipality of funds amounting to 227 billion forints (EUR 601m) in the past three years, Mayor Gergely Karácsony said on Facebook on Friday. According to Karácsony’s calculations, the city had been made to pay a new solidarity tax introduced in 2019, which amounted to 136 billion forints, while it collected 81 billion forints less in the local business tax, as a result of government-initiated changes to the system. Karácsony spoke in reaction to recent remarks made by Gergely Gulyás, the head of the Prime Minister’s Office, who had said that the city had “inherited over 214 billion forints from former Mayor István Tarlós”.