From the 2026 budget audit
The payroll tax on a body we are phasing out still costs 662 million Ft a year.
Employer social contributions on the Integrity Authority's staff — a mechanical companion to the salary line, carried through the same five-year wind-down.
Roughly 169 Ft per taxpayer per year — 662.0 millió Ft in employer levies on the payroll of an institution whose monitoring workload disappears once the discretionary grant allocation it polices is reformed.
What you see — and what you don't
The seen: the employer-side payroll charge — a statutory obligation on every wage the Authority pays. The unseen: the taxpayer who funds both the employer levy and the underlying salary, on top of having already funded the grant pool the authority watches.
Objection
"This is just a tax the state pays itself — it's not real spending."
Answer
Every forint of employer social contribution is a real charge on the domestic budget, funded from the same general taxation that funds the salary line. It is carried through the 24-month severance window alongside the salaries and ceases with them — the same transition, the same horizon, the same saving.
Pass this on to anyone tracking how much the oversight layer on top of state discretion actually costs.
The analyst's verdict
Integrity Authority — Employer Contributions and Social Contribution Tax
Rationale
This is the employer-side payroll charge — social contribution tax and related employer levies — on the personnel line above. It is a mechanical companion to the salary line and follows its classification and its schedule. Where the salaries are carried as severance-with-overlap, the employer charges on those salaries are carried with them: an employee on the bridge is still an employee, and the employer levies are still due. The line is part of the payroll component for the purpose of the severance computation.
Transition mechanism
Phase-Out over 5 years on the same severance-with-overlap schedule as the personnel line; the employer contributions are paid through the 24-month overlap alongside the salaries and cease with them.
Affected groups
As for the personnel line — the Authority's permanent staff. No separate group is affected.
Free Society Institute
Support independent analysis
Our research is free, open, and unsponsored. If you find it valuable, help us keep it that way.