Hungary – Hungary’s fertility rate had fallen from 1.806 children per woman in 1989 to a catastrophic 1.295 in 2003, and it was still at 1.330 in 2010, when Viktor Orbán and the Fidesz party came back to power. However, thanks to the party’s pro-birth and pro-family policies, it slowly climbed back throughout the 2010s to reach 1.511 in 2020 and 1.530 in 2021, which is still a long way below the generation replacement level of 2.1. Today, therefore, the Orbán government is more than ever determined to continue along the same path.
Its latest natalist measure is to exempt young mothers (under 30) from income tax. The new policy came into effect on 1 January. This new full income tax exemption is in addition to the full exemption for young adults in general (under 25) and for mothers of four or more children.
In a statement to Breitbart Europe on Sunday, the Hungarian Secretary of State for Family Policy, Ágnes Hornung, wrote that “according to the government’s calculations, tens of thousands of young mothers with an income could avail themselves of the possibility of tax exemption. (…) They are eligible not only for the new income tax exemption, but equally for all other forms of family support, including the family tax allowance, the baby expecting support [loan], and the child care fee.”
The new income tax exemption applies until the fiscal year in which a young mother turns 30, starting from the 12th week of her pregnancy.
