Previously I have been complaining about Hungarian tax system. But I have forgotten to mention one pretty interesting feature. It is one percent - 1%.

The idea of this 1% is that you can choose where one percent of taxable income goes. It can be NGO, for example children hospital, animal shelter or something similar. I am do not know exact rules and it is voluntary to choose receiver. In case you do not pick any organization then government decides where it should go. At least I have been told so.

The side effect is that organizations are competing fiercely with each other to get this one percent. This can be seen in TV and street advertising, flyers and so on. Naturally 3F principle applies here as well as member of such organizations are approaching friends, family and fools. I can imagine that some organizations take big risks with their campaigns in order to secure enough funding for next term.

Despite all the side effects I find this good. I can imagine that some people would be happy to choose that 1% go to local healthcare or police as they would know that it wont be used to something totally different. And maybe it would put some pressure on certain organizations to do their job well.