2014 Hungarian Internet tax protests

2014 Hungarian Internet tax protests
Demonstration in Kossuth Square, Budapest, 17 November 2014
Date	26 October – 17 November 2014
Location	Mainly Budapest
Caused by	Planned Internet tax PM's Russian affinities Corruption allegations Centralization allegations Claims of violating democratic norms
Goals	Wider democratic freedoms Resignation of PM Viktor Orbán
Resulted in	Internet tax proposal cancelled Following civil demonstrations in other subjects
Parties to the civil conflict
Non-partisan protest groups Government of Hungary
Lead figures
Balázs Gulyás Zoltán Vajda Emília Nagy Tamás Lattmann Viktor Orbán Mihály Varga Antal Rogán Tamás Deutsch
Number
100,000 on 28 October
Casualties
Arrested	6

In late October 2014, anti-government demonstrations were held in Hungary, which were triggered by the government's announcement of a proposal to include the taxation of Internet usage in the Taxation Law, to be in effect from 2015. The ruling right-wing coalition’s larger party, Fidesz made their proposal public on October 21, which is meant to extend the existing telecommunications tax to Internet usage. The proposal designated a 150 HUF/GB tax rate (with 150 Ft being around $0.62, £0.38, or €0.49) paid by the internet service providers. Later, a cap was proposed: HUF 700 per month (individuals) or HUF 5,000 (companies).

This idea, possibly coupled with other issues surfacing around the government prompted multiple, generally peaceful demonstrations in Budapest and in other cities in and outside Hungary. The amendment to the law is universally referred to as the “internet tax” (Hungarian: internetadó) by Hungarian and global media outlets and critics, although Fidesz was not using the term in their proposal.

Following mass protests and international critics, the Hungarian government officially cancelled the proposed tax on internet data traffic on 31 October 2014.

As part of its economical reforms, Fidesz started to draft the new version of the Tax Law for 2015. Minister of National Economy Mihály Varga announced the proposal on October 21. According to the draft, Internet traffic would be taxed with a 150 Ft/GB rate irrespective of the type of data transmitted.

A Facebook page named Százezren az internetadó ellen (“Hundred Thousand Against the Internet Tax”) was created on October 21, the same day the proposal was made public, by Balázs Gulyás, a 27-year-old political blogger, who is also the son of Socialist politician Zita Gurmai. A week later, on the 28th, the page had more than 225,000 “likes”.