From the 2026 budget audit
The ministry decides which associations your taxes support.
A discretionary transfer to social organisations and foundations concentrates the allocation in one office's judgement — and spreads the cost across every taxpayer.
Roughly 20 Ft per taxpayer per year — 79.8 millió Ft routed to associations the ministry selects, from a taxpayer pool that never voted for those specific recipients.
What you see — and what you don't
The seen: whichever organisations and foundations the ministry has determined worthy of a transfer in this budget cycle. The unseen: every taxpayer, including those who have never heard of the recipients and would not choose to fund them, whose income funds the transfer — and the voluntary donation the recipients could have solicited from the people who actually value their work.
Objection
"Civil society needs public support — without it, only well-resourced organisations survive."
Answer
An association whose work is valued by citizens can raise funds from those citizens through membership subscriptions, charitable giving, and voluntary fundraising. A ministerial transfer does not supplement that voluntary support — it substitutes for it, converting the allocation decision from the distributed judgement of many individuals into the single preference of one office. The reform removes the substitution; the voluntary channels remain open.
Share if you think your taxes shouldn't be routed through a minister's discretion to organisations you didn't choose.
The analyst's verdict
Support for Social Organisations, Foundations and Public-Law Bodies
Rationale
This line is a discretionary transfer from the ministry budget to social organisations, foundations, and public-law bodies. It is a subjective allocation of taxpayers' money by political officeholders: the ministry decides which associations and foundations receive support, on what basis, and in what amount. Associations and foundations whose members value their activity can fund that activity through the voluntary contributions of those members; an association that cannot raise its budget from the people who care about its work is, on the framework's reading, telling the analyst something about the actual demand for that work. The line concentrates a benefit on organised associations while spreading the cost across every taxpayer, including the many who have never heard of the recipients and would not choose to fund them. There is no rights-protection function, no constitutional precondition, and no protected reliance interest of the kind that converts an Immediate Cut into a Phase-Out — the recipients are organisations that can solicit voluntary funding, not employees with contracts or pensioners with accrued entitlements. The line is eliminated in the first budget cycle.
Transition mechanism
Eliminate in the first budget cycle. Recipient organisations transition to membership contributions, charitable giving, and voluntary fundraising.
Affected groups
The associations and foundations currently receiving the transfer. Each retains the option to fund its activity from the voluntary contributions of those who value it.
Free Society Institute
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