One of the most efficient ways to motivate employees is to make them owners. In Hungary, however, plenty of legal and tax obstacles have restricted the introduction of such incentive so far. Changes made to the legal and tax environment in the recent years may yet boost the spread of employee stock programmes in the future.

The recent amendment of the Luxembourg - Hungary double tax treaty will result in a sharp decrease of Luxembourg-based schemes for Hungarian real estate transactions. Those groups which currently use such schemes for holding their Hungarian real estates will need to react fast.

The “anti-offshore” law relating to the use of public funds, introduced in 2011, aimed to prevent off-shore companies with unidentifiable ownership structure from acquiring grants out of domestic and EU public funds. The original intention of the legislation seriously distorted, however. Numerous innocent foreign-owned firms, including Hungarian subsidiaries of US-based multinational firms got trapped by the rules.

Lease services often lead to uncertainty from a VAT perspective. Some services which seem like lease at first glance do not meet the criteria for “lease” for VAT purposes. The improper classification can lead to surprises: on the one hand the lessor’s deduction right can be challenged, on the other hand a seemingly VAT-exempt transaction could trigger VAT liability. A recent ECJ decision will set standards for these situations.

Software developer companies fall under a very favourable corporate income taxation in Hungary. Moreover, their income is local business tax exempt. Surprisingly, however, most of such companies are not aware of their beneficial status, losing billions of forints as a consequence.

The recently adopted tax law changes significantly expand the definition of related parties. As of 2015 not only those companies will qualify as related parties which are connected in their ownership chain, but also those with an overlap in their management. As a result, the number of transactions where parties have to apply arm’s length pricing will increase. The new definition may, however, cause uncertainties as well.

International tax structures fail more and more often due to the lack of real economic presence. These days both foreign and Hungarian tax authorities analyse in detail whether a legal entity has real economic nexus to the country where it was established. While tax investigations in the past primarily focused on corporate income tax reassessments, a recent decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union (“ECJ”) pointed out that the lack of real economic presence may also entail significant VAT consequences.

Before purchasing a real property it is obvious that the purchaser examines whether the seller is the registered owner of the property and whether the title deed lists any encumbrances relating to the property. If, however, the investigation stops at this point and does not cover the transaction on the basis of which the seller acquired the property, the purchaser may face some unpleasant surprises.