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Reform Support
Supporting reforms to ensure efficient and effective revenue administration and public financial management.

Supporting reforms to ensure efficient and effective revenue administration and public financial management

Funding Programme
Technical Support Instrument (TSI)
Year
2021

Simplification of tax reporting obligations for employers in Hungary

The Commission provided technical support to the Hungarian Ministry of Finance and National Tax and Customs Administration (NTCA) for simplifying the reporting obligations of employers through design and implementation of a single channel for submitting the data in real time. The project involved the efforts of a number of stakeholders such as Hungarian State Treasury, the National Health Insurance Fund, the Central Statistical Office, the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Innovation and Technology, the Hungarian National Authority for Data Protection and Freedom of Information and the National Info Communication and Information Technology Council.

Context

The Hungarian government is committed to continue the transformation of public service provision procedures into a direction, which promotes voluntary compliance, and rapidly detects or prevents non-compliance. Administration related to employment – an area characterised by considerable administrative costs – is a topic where this approach seems both feasible and potentially rewarding.

Currently enterprises in Hungary are obliged to report large quantities of data through various channels in different formats to different public institutions. This situation creates heavy administrative burden for both taxpayers and public institutions, and involves problems such as:

  • unnecessary duplication of data;
  • unsynchronised reporting periods and reporting deadlines;
  • various degrees of data cleansing and quality control procedures;
  • discrepancies in terminologies and methodologies which require considerable crosschecking and data verification

The design and implementation of modern information technologies and solutions could allow for a significant change in the approach.

Support delivered

The provided technical support addressed the needs of Hungary to design and prepare for implementation a new simplified single-channel approach for providing of data by employers. This approach aimed at consolidating the requirements of the different public institutions and reducing the administrative burden for all parties involved in the process. Furthermore, the project specified the architecture and the requirements for a new IT solution based on state-of-the-art information technologies to facilitate the provision of data by employers. The project significantly accelerated the preparation of the reform by preparing a comprehensive consolidated description of the data (data dictionary) requested from employers.

Results achieved

This project produced the following deliverables:

  • Technical report on the single-channel provision of data by employers, which included an analysis of the current situation in regard with the reporting obligation and data provision by the employers in Hungary, benchmarking research on best international practice, proposal for a new model for provision of data by employers, feasibility study on technological solutions including block-chain technology, gap analysis, transition plan, and business case for the costs of the reform.
  • Technical report specifying the architecture and the functional, non-functional, and technical requirements, including system integration, interfaces, data migration, IT security and data protection requirements for the new IT, and a detailed plan for IT development and implementation of the new IT solution.
  • Consolidated data dictionary describing all data elements currently provided by employers and the desired future data requirements

Provided that the proposals and recommendations will be incorporated as part of the Hungary’s institutional and operational framework, the deliverables are expected to result in the following outcomes:

  • Adoption and implementation of a new simplified single-channel approach for providing data by employers.
  • Implementation of state-of-the-art information technologies to facilitate the provision of data by employers through a single channel.
  • Accelerated preparation of the reform by collecting information from all stakeholders of the contract and creating a consolidated data dictionary.

Although subject to other contributing factors, the tasks and deliverables of the contract and the associated outcomes should help Hungary to: (1) to improve public service provision procedures that promote voluntary compliance and significantly reduce the administrative burden to both - institutions and businesses; (2) to ensure high level performance, stability and data security; (3) to increase the revenue collection and compliance, and (4) improve the business environment in Hungary.

More about the project

You can read the final report here: