From the 2026 budget audit
1 billion Ft pumped into state-owned companies — because their own revenue doesn't cover costs.
A direct budget injection into commercial companies owned by the Cabinet Office: the transfer that substitutes a political decision for the market test of whether the business earns what it spends.
Roughly 230 Ft per taxpayer per year — 1,000 millió Ft transferred into state-owned commercial firms whose revenue does not cover their costs.
What you see — and what you don't
The seen: commercial companies kept solvent by a budget top-up that their own customers did not supply. The unseen: the signal this removes — when a firm's losses are covered by a political transfer rather than its own earnings, its management optimises toward the funder, not toward the customer.
Objection
"State-owned companies sometimes need capital support — that's a normal part of public ownership."
Answer
Capital support for investment with a measurable return is different from a forrásjuttatás covering a revenue shortfall: the first is financing; the second is covering a loss the market is signalling. Where the firm provides a service the public genuinely values, it can charge for it. Where it cannot cover costs that way, the transfer is funding an activity the voluntary payment of customers is declining to support. The sum is modest — but the mechanism scales, and the same logic that justifies 1 billion Ft here justifies the far larger injections elsewhere in the budget.
Share if you think a commercial company that can't cover its costs should face the market's verdict, not a budget transfer.
The analyst's verdict
Resource Allocations to Companies under the PM Cabinet Office's Ownership Rights
Rationale
This line provides budget transfers — forrásjuttatás, a resource injection — to commercial companies in which the Cabinet Office exercises ownership rights. A transfer of taxpayer money into a state-owned commercial company is a soft budget constraint in its plainest form: it is funding supplied to a firm by something other than the firm's own revenue. The mechanism is corrosive precisely because it is routine. A company that knows the budget will top up its resources does not face the discipline a privately-financed company faces — the discipline of having to cover its costs from what customers voluntarily pay. The injection substitutes a political funding decision for a market test, and the company's management optimises toward the funder rather than toward the customer. The classification is Immediate Cut: the state should not be injecting taxpayer resources into commercial companies. Where the underlying companies provide a service the public genuinely values, they can charge for it; where they cannot cover their costs that way, the resource injection is funding an activity the market is telling the state to stop. The line is small — 1,000.0 millió Ft — but the principle scales, and the year-1 saving is 1,000.0 millió Ft.
Transition mechanism
Immediate Cut. Where the underlying companies provide a service the public genuinely values, they can charge for it; where they cannot cover their costs from customer revenue, the resource injection was funding an activity the market signals the state to stop.
Affected groups
Commercial companies in which the Cabinet Office exercises ownership rights — they lose the budget top-up and must cover costs from customer revenue. The general taxpayer gains 1,000.0 millió Ft annually.
Free Society Institute
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