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Actually this is just a smoke screen. As a native Hungarian I can tell you this. The Hungarian government is doing business with the Russians (we build a nuclea

by edem 12y ago

Actually this is just a smoke screen. As a native Hungarian I can tell you this. The Hungarian government is doing business with the Russians (we build a nuclear power plant funded by Russian loan) which the EU and the USA does not like. I don't like it either because Russia is blackmailing Hungary. There can be no good outcome of this situation because we either infuriate the Russians (we depend on the Russian gas) or the EU/USA. So the government came up with this tax nonsense as a distraction. As you can see they achieved their goal. Everybody is talking about the internet tax while the government is doing business with the Russians under cover. I don't like the 150 HUF/GB but I know how it works here. There will be an upper bound per month (say 4000 HUF) for the tax. The ISPs can put this tax as an expense in their books and in the end the user will see something around 1000-2000 HUF per month plus. This is how it goes here. Make no mistake I do not protect our government or the Russians. I hate both but I want you to see what really goes on here.

Sevores 12y ago
Actually I think it’s more related to the corruption charges: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/20/us-usa-hungary-idUSKCN0I921220141020 http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/20/us-usa-hungary-idU...
coldtea 12y ago
>So the government came up with this tax nonsense as a distraction. As you can see they achieved their goal. Everybody is talking about the internet tax while the government is doing business with the Russians under cover. Sorry, but lest this is marked as "informative" by anyone due to it coming from a native Hungarian, I'd like to say (as a neighborhood) that this "it's a distraction" sounds like the usual ideas of how goverment works put forward by some blogs, columnists, that are not really grounded in reality. It's not like Hungary only does "business with the Russians" for the very short term that this will be in the news, for it being a "distraction" to be effective. It's also not like there would be any popular backslash on "doing business with the Russians" at this particular time either, so that they would need a distraction. It's more likely that they just wanted an extra tax and some extra dough coming their way, and came up with this, sans distraction nonsense.
- edem 12y ago
  They want to distract Hungarians not foreigners.
  - coldtea 12y ago
    I know. That's what I tried to debunk -- its supposed usefulness (and even more so, need) as a way to distract Hungarians.
- pjc50 12y ago
  The opinion when this came up on /r/europe was that it was an attempt at clamping down on access to independent and non-Hungarian media by making internet use unaffordable. Edit: well, that seems comprehensively debunked
  - riffraff 12y ago
    it's capped at 4k HUF at most (~10€), that seems like a very inneffective way to do it. I mean, you get free press (Metropol, elsewhere known as Metro, which IIRC is swedish) at metro stations, it would make more sense to tax _that_ if you really wanted to clamp independent media. Also, many people with a smartphone aged 25+ have a company-payed one, so the tax is irrelevant to them. (source: anecdotal evidence as someone living in hungary)
    - toyg 12y ago
      Metro is not "free press", it's a joke of a newspaper. Nobody can seriously think to rely on Metro for political or hard-hitting news. What if the tax is just a trojan horse? If it's introduced, the government will have to install "smart meters" somewhere, checking who consumed what in order to reconcile it with the amount of paid tax. The move from "smart meters" to "total eavesdropping capability" is then just a firmware update away.
      - coldtea 12y ago
        Only they can already do that with the cooperation of the ISPs or control of the national backbones, with no need for some tax. And probably they are already doing it. And worse, the "five eyes" are doing too (worse, as they are not even your own elected government).
hu_ha 12y ago
It's a pretty bad smoke screen if it makes more people angry than the other issue they trying to "smoke". Even if it will cost less it's a bad PR for the government and can lower their popularity among the young generation who didn't care about the other issues.
atleta 12y ago
While it's probably smoke screen, it's outright stupid and very harmful. The context is a bit more complicated than Hungary doing business with Russia, the government probably does need this money as it's doing stupid (and counter productive) spending to increase their popularity among the the less educated and the ones who are less willing to think critically. From this perspective, their move is clever: it's smoke screen and they can back up later and they win or they don't have to back up that much and they also win. The only way for them to lose is if it turns out to be an ignition bomb (much like the plan to cut the trees in park Gezi in Turkey). The move itself, even with an upper cap of 3-10EURs would be devastating and pointing to the wrong direction. Hungary's only option to rise would be education and the strengthtening of the IT sector. But that would need at least 10 years of investment and we're still only talking about it. BTW, there was a news bite I think on the same day that this utter stupid move was announced, that we should make the IT education stronger, we should teach more IT in elementary school, blah-blah. Sounds like something that should have been (and indeed have been) said in like 2000. Yet nothing happened, apart from cutting back IT classes last year. This is yet another step in the wrong direction. Totally wrong direction. Oh, and the context: the national tax authority has been known and proven to support criminals who stole around 30M EUR of VAT/yr. It's been in the news, nothing happened. Then the idiots tried to force a US company to pay them (high ranking officials of the tax authority) to launch attacks on the competition of the said US company. That's when they notified the US authorities and that's how prominent Hungarian politicians (and/or their immediate comrades) were banned from the US. And this is what this smoke screen is intended to cover. Hopefully it will add up in the heads of people.
- atleta 12y ago
  Correction: it's indeed 30Bn EUR/year...
DominikR 12y ago
How exactly is Russia blackmailing Hungary? Are they preventing Hungary from doing business with the EU or USA? What threats are used? From what I read (even from your own comment), it's the other way around. The US doesn't want Hungary to do business with Russia and it even threatens the Hungarian government. For example, the US administration banned Hungarian govt officials from entering the US a few days ago. But I have yet to read about a single threat the Russians made towards the Hungarians, if they do not stop doing business with the US.

by edem 12y ago

Sevores 12y ago

Actually I think it’s more related to the corruption charges: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/20/us-usa-hungary-idUSKCN0I921220141020 http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/20/us-usa-hungary-idU...

coldtea 12y ago

>So the government came up with this tax nonsense as a distraction. As you can see they achieved their goal. Everybody is talking about the internet tax while the government is doing business with the Russians under cover. Sorry, but lest this is marked as "informative" by anyone due to it coming from a native Hungarian, I'd like to say (as a neighborhood) that this "it's a distraction" sounds like the usual ideas of how goverment works put forward by some blogs, columnists, that are not really grounded in reality. It's not like Hungary only does "business with the Russians" for the very short term that this will be in the news, for it being a "distraction" to be effective. It's also not like there would be any popular backslash on "doing business with the Russians" at this particular time either, so that they would need a distraction. It's more likely that they just wanted an extra tax and some extra dough coming their way, and came up with this, sans distraction nonsense.

edem 12y ago
They want to distract Hungarians not foreigners.
- coldtea 12y ago
  I know. That's what I tried to debunk -- its supposed usefulness (and even more so, need) as a way to distract Hungarians.
pjc50 12y ago
The opinion when this came up on /r/europe was that it was an attempt at clamping down on access to independent and non-Hungarian media by making internet use unaffordable. Edit: well, that seems comprehensively debunked
- riffraff 12y ago
  it's capped at 4k HUF at most (~10€), that seems like a very inneffective way to do it. I mean, you get free press (Metropol, elsewhere known as Metro, which IIRC is swedish) at metro stations, it would make more sense to tax _that_ if you really wanted to clamp independent media. Also, many people with a smartphone aged 25+ have a company-payed one, so the tax is irrelevant to them. (source: anecdotal evidence as someone living in hungary)
  - toyg 12y ago
    Metro is not "free press", it's a joke of a newspaper. Nobody can seriously think to rely on Metro for political or hard-hitting news. What if the tax is just a trojan horse? If it's introduced, the government will have to install "smart meters" somewhere, checking who consumed what in order to reconcile it with the amount of paid tax. The move from "smart meters" to "total eavesdropping capability" is then just a firmware update away.
    - coldtea 12y ago
      Only they can already do that with the cooperation of the ISPs or control of the national backbones, with no need for some tax. And probably they are already doing it. And worse, the "five eyes" are doing too (worse, as they are not even your own elected government).

hu_ha 12y ago

It's a pretty bad smoke screen if it makes more people angry than the other issue they trying to "smoke". Even if it will cost less it's a bad PR for the government and can lower their popularity among the young generation who didn't care about the other issues.

atleta 12y ago

While it's probably smoke screen, it's outright stupid and very harmful. The context is a bit more complicated than Hungary doing business with Russia, the government probably does need this money as it's doing stupid (and counter productive) spending to increase their popularity among the the less educated and the ones who are less willing to think critically. From this perspective, their move is clever: it's smoke screen and they can back up later and they win or they don't have to back up that much and they also win. The only way for them to lose is if it turns out to be an ignition bomb (much like the plan to cut the trees in park Gezi in Turkey). The move itself, even with an upper cap of 3-10EURs would be devastating and pointing to the wrong direction. Hungary's only option to rise would be education and the strengthtening of the IT sector. But that would need at least 10 years of investment and we're still only talking about it. BTW, there was a news bite I think on the same day that this utter stupid move was announced, that we should make the IT education stronger, we should teach more IT in elementary school, blah-blah. Sounds like something that should have been (and indeed have been) said in like 2000. Yet nothing happened, apart from cutting back IT classes last year. This is yet another step in the wrong direction. Totally wrong direction. Oh, and the context: the national tax authority has been known and proven to support criminals who stole around 30M EUR of VAT/yr. It's been in the news, nothing happened. Then the idiots tried to force a US company to pay them (high ranking officials of the tax authority) to launch attacks on the competition of the said US company. That's when they notified the US authorities and that's how prominent Hungarian politicians (and/or their immediate comrades) were banned from the US. And this is what this smoke screen is intended to cover. Hopefully it will add up in the heads of people.

atleta 12y ago
Correction: it's indeed 30Bn EUR/year...

DominikR 12y ago

How exactly is Russia blackmailing Hungary? Are they preventing Hungary from doing business with the EU or USA? What threats are used? From what I read (even from your own comment), it's the other way around. The US doesn't want Hungary to do business with Russia and it even threatens the Hungarian government. For example, the US administration banned Hungarian govt officials from entering the US a few days ago. But I have yet to read about a single threat the Russians made towards the Hungarians, if they do not stop doing business with the US.