Prime Minister Viktor Orbán announced in his annual review on Saturday that the government will extend the lifetime social security exemption to mothers raising a minimum of two children, and that the government maternity benefit and childcare allowance (CSED and GYED) will also be tax-free.
Anna Nagy, head of Hungary’s Single-Parent Center, talked with Magyar Nemzet about the new family policy measures, highlighting that the poverty rate is much higher among single parents. About 36 percent of them live in difficult financial circumstances, so these exemptions are a huge help.
Some 81 percent of single parents are women, Nagy revealed, adding that about 26 percent of single-parent families are raising two children and 8 percent are raising three or more children.
“If we look at it, we are talking about nearly 100,000 families affected by this measure, and accordingly the living conditions of more than 100,000 children could improve in the coming years,” she emphasized.
“All government measures that make the living situation of families easier apply to single-parent families in particular,” she said.
Anna Nagy sees the personal income tax exemption for CSED and GYED as critical due to the shockingly high number of single-parent families involved in raising a small child.
“Ten percent of children, or about 8,000 children a year, are born without the father being with the family,” she pointed out. According to census data, out of 341,500 single-parent families, there are nearly 11,600 families (3.4 percent) where the youngest child is under 1 year old, while 13 percent of children under the age of one are in single-parent households.
“We would think that single parenthood is not yet the case with such a small child, but unfortunately this is not true. Moreover, if someone is alone with a baby, they are much more dependent on themselves, they have to raise the child on one income, and in many cases the mothers do not even receive child support,” Nagy told the paper.
“In most cases, they can only count on themselves, so making the two benefits tax-free is a huge help for them,” she said.
