From the 2026 budget audit
26.5 billion Ft of your taxes, allocated to civil organisations chosen by one office
The largest single grant pool in the chapter: a discretionary fund that routes 26,527 million Ft to civil organisations selected by political officeholders — substituting a political choice for four million private ones.
About 6,650 Ft per taxpayer per year — routed to organisations whose selection the taxpayer had no part in, replacing voluntary support with mandatory transfer.
What you see — and what you don't
The seen: funded NGOs, civic groups, and public bodies receiving grants from a single central allocation. The unseen: the worker at the 540,000 Ft median monthly gross — whose 5,000-5,500 Ft annual contribution to this pool could instead be directed, through the SZJA 1% designation that already exists, to the specific organisation that worker actually chooses.
Objection
"Civil society needs stable public funding — voluntary donations are not reliable enough for organisations doing important work."
Answer
Hungary's SZJA system already lets every taxpayer designate 1% of their income tax to a civil organisation of their choice. That voluntary channel works. What this 26.5 billion Ft pool adds is a political selector — one office choosing which organisations receive the money, concentrating allocation power over an entire sector. Removing the pool does not remove civil society; it removes the office's power to decide which organisations survive.
Share if you think you should choose which civil organisation your taxes support — not a government office.
The analyst's verdict
Support for Non-profit, Social, Civil Organisations and Public Bodies
Rationale
This single line is the largest discretionary grant pool in the chapter, and its name describes the mechanism precisely: a budget from which political officeholders allocate money to non-profit and civil organisations of their choosing. There is no market price for "civil-society activity" and no aggregator of citizens' subjective valuations of which organisations should exist; the allocation is therefore a subjective judgement by whoever controls the line. A civil organisation that depends on this transfer for its operating budget is not financed by the citizens who value its work — it is financed by the office that selected it, and its survival becomes a function of staying selected. That is the rent-generating structure (see Key Observations below). Genuine civil society — the kind that classical liberalism prizes as the space between the individual and the state — is funded by the voluntary contributions of those who value it: membership dues, donations, the 1% SZJA designation mechanism that already lets every taxpayer direct a slice of their own tax to a civil organisation of their choice. A 26.5 milliárd Ft centrally-allocated pool does not strengthen that civil society; it substitutes a political selector for a voluntary one.
Transition mechanism
Eliminate in a single budget cycle. Organisations lose a state grant, not a contractual right; the SZJA 1% designation channel and ordinary fundraising remain open to every one of them. For a worker at the roughly 540,000 Ft median monthly gross wage, this single line costs on the order of 5,000-5,500 Ft a year in tax — money the same worker could instead direct, in part, through the 1% mechanism to the specific organisation they actually support.
Affected groups
Civil organisations currently dependent on the pool, who must transition to voluntary funding; no individual loses an accrued entitlement.
Free Society Institute
Support independent analysis
Our research is free, open, and unsponsored. If you find it valuable, help us keep it that way.