Hungary to introduce 'weather tax'

The Hungarian government is planning to impose a new tax, according to a bill on meteorology. The ‘service fee’ would be 0.5% of the annual advertising revenues of any media - irrespective of whether they broadcast weather forecasts/reports or not!

Media service providers shall pay a meteorological service fee from their annual advertising revenues, the bill stipulates. The rate of the fee shall be 0.5% of the annual advertising revenues and it shall be payable by the 20th day of the month following the end of the financial year to Hungarian Meteorological Service’s account at the State Treasury in forint.

The media service providers will be obliged to submit a report on their annual advertising revenues to the Service by the payment deadline. The service fee is public revenue that shall be recovered as taxes.

Failure to pay the service fee or submit the relevant data will oblige the subject of the fee to pay 0.8% of its net revenues of the previous business year as tax to the Service.

(source: portfolio.hu)