Press speculates that negotiations between the government and the coalition parties are going on to increase corporate tax by 300-400 bps from current 16% and . According to business daily Napi Gazdasag, government prefers the introduction of a unified tax regime of 20% (VAT is already at 20%).
The higher corporate tax would affect listed companies negatively:
Pharmaceutical companies would suffer the least (Richter has a full tax holiday granted by significant investment activity, while Egis' effective tax rate is only 10% due to tax allowances on R&D spending. Both are unlikely to be touched by the new government since it would affect many foreign companies and would be against principal economic goals of the country like attract more foreign greenfield investments and promote R&D spending in Hungary, which is one of the lowest in the EU)
Most of the corporate tax payments of MOL, OTP and MTel are paid on their Hungarian operations. Moreover, these companies has no corporate tax allowances (however, MOL expects to receive it for FY06)