From the 2026 budget audit
The state created a cost, then paid itself to reduce it
A 12 milliárd Ft line that partially compensates employers for the social contribution the state's own minimum-wage mandate raised — an admission that the payroll levy is burdensome, applied selectively rather than corrected.
Roughly 3,000 Ft per taxpayer per year — 12,000 millió Ft total to partially offset a cost the same budget created, channelled to the employers most directly affected by one specific wage round.
What you see — and what you don't
The seen: employers receiving a partial rebate on the employer social-contribution cost generated by a mandated wage increase. The unseen: every worker across the economy who continues to bear the SzocHo wedge — the roughly 13 Ft per 100 Ft of employer labour cost that falls, in incidence, on wages — while the rebate goes selectively to one cohort of employers in one year.
Objection
"But employers need transitional support when the state raises the minimum wage — otherwise jobs are cut."
Answer
If the social contribution levy is burdensome enough that the state must rebate it, the levy itself is the problem. A targeted, temporary rebate for one wage round does not fix the wedge — it adds an administrative layer on top of it and leaves every other employer, and every worker whose wage absorbs the levy, carrying the full cost. The honest correction is a lower SzocHo rate, applied to every employer and worker, visible in every payslip.
Share if you think the fix for an excessive payroll tax is to cut it, not to rebate it selectively.
The analyst's verdict
Social contribution tax subsidy linked to the minimum-wage increase
Rationale
This line is worth reading slowly, because it reveals a mechanism the rest of the budget keeps implicit. The state mandates a minimum-wage increase. That increase raises employers' total labour cost — not only the gross wage, but the employer-side social contribution (SzocHo) levied on top of it. The state then partially compensates employers for the contribution cost its own mandate created. The budget is, in effect, paying one part of the state to soften the cost another part of the state imposed. If a payroll levy on a mandated wage increase is burdensome enough that the state must rebate it, the levy itself is the burden — and the rebate is an admission of that, applied selectively and temporarily rather than addressed at the source. The honest correction is not a 12 milliárd Ft compensation line; it is a lower SzocHo rate, applied generally, visible to every employer and every worker. The employer-side contribution is a tax on labour that falls, in incidence, on the worker: it is part of the wedge between what an employer pays to employ someone and what that worker takes home, and over time it is wages that absorb it. A worker at the median monthly gross wage already loses roughly 37 Ft of every 100 Ft of total employer labour cost to the payroll wedge before any take-home pay is spent. A targeted, temporary rebate of one slice of that wedge for one cohort of employers does not change the structure; it adds an administrative layer on top of it.
Transition mechanism
Two-year phase-out. The compensation was framed as transitional support tied to a specific minimum-wage adjustment; honouring the commitments already made to employers who planned around it argues for a short glide rather than an immediate stop. The honest destination is a structurally lower SzocHo rate that removes the need for the rebate — that reform belongs to the tax-policy chapters, and the saving from this line should be counted toward funding the general rate reduction, not retained.
Affected groups
Employers receiving the current compensation (protected by the two-year glide); workers, who bear the SzocHo wedge in suppressed wages and are the ultimate beneficiaries of addressing it at the rate rather than through a rebate.
Free Society Institute
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