What is surprising about living in Hungary is that just when you think nothing can surprise you, along comes something that leaves you desperately seeking oxygen.
Take last week’s front page of The Budapest Times. The announcement that the EU was doubling its bailout money, aka, handout, to eastern members was certainly dramatic. But what was much more mind-boggling was another story about handouts that also ran on the front page: a pending referendum on whether Members of Parliament should have to submit receipts for their expenses.
I almost fell off my dunce’s stool when I read that one.
Papers, please.
If I go to an office supply store to buy a 100 HUF pencil and want to expense that pencil because, as it turns out, I need a pencil for my business, I cannot take the cash register receipt, and claim that business expense on an expense report like one does for businesses in The United States, Canada, Great Britain, France or Germany, to name a few other countries that have companies following non-communist economic models. No. I have to ask the poor employee at the cash resister to give me an invoice. Then out comes the ubiquitous invoice book with it’s pre-computer carbon copies (remember those?) and the poor beleaguered employee now starts to write out the invoice.
Name of company? Mine is long which turns out to have been a grave, strategic error in naming a Hungarian-based company. I usually have to write it out for them.
Address? Ditto.
Heaven help me, the employee, and the line of people gathering behind me waiting to pay for their 100 HUF pencil, if the employee makes an error when writing out the invoice because the invoice would have to be voided. And the process would start all over again. By this time, and quite understandably, my pencil and I are not winning any popularity contests with other business people standing in line waiting to buy a pencil.
Addicted to love (of money)
Meanwhile, down by the river’s edge, every one of the elected representatives of the good people of Hungary can withdraw funds from the money supplied by the good people of Hungary (that would be their taxes), all without a receipt.
And they are going to hold a referendum to determine if the good people of Hungary believe their representatives should have to endure the scrutiny of supplying receipts after gorging at the public trough?
What’s next? A referendum on whether junkies be given the keys to the morphine cabinet?
There is something very addictive about free money. The phenomenon is not Hungarian, it’s human. There is no need for a referendum on whether Members of Parliament should have to submit expense receipts to their employers. Those would be called ‘taxpayers’. Play this one out: you go to work, tell you boss that in the last week, you spent 150,000 HUF on business expenses and your boss says, “Ok, Joe, here is your 150,000 HUF.” Seriously. Are these people on drugs?
Follow the leaders
Or are this nation’s leaders leading by example? Bad example. It seems it wasn’t that long ago that they were aggressively pursuing criminals such as hairdressers and plumbers who were not giving out receipts for their services and therefore avoiding tax expenses. There you go. Free money. And a you need a referendum to crack this one?
Try a simple expense report, attaching cash register receipts. For those who don’t know what expense reports look like or how they work, you can find examples in the templates folder of Microsoft Office or Apple’s iWorks.
The next thing you know someone will come up with the bright idea to hold a referendum to see if people want to pay a 300 HUF user fee to their grossly underpaid doctors. Oh, wait a minute. They already did that one. How about a referendum to find out how many people would like a free car?
How much does it cost the taxpayer to hold a national referendum? It can’t be cheap, what with the love of paperwork here and all. And what is the criteria for holding a referendum? So far, from what I have seen, the only common ingredient to referendums is that they are inordinately stupid questions. They make the rhetorical question seem like something you would actually have to ponder.
Someone better grab those keys to the morphine cabinet before things get out of hand. Or have they already? Just how is the Forint doing?
