Press Releases

Budapest, October 20, 2010 08:30

Magyar Telekom announces that on October 18, 2010 the Parliament of the Republic of Hungary approved an act (Bill of 2010 T/1374) imposing a special tax on a number of sectors including retail sales, energy and telecommunications. According to the act, the estimated total special tax amount payable by Magyar Telekom Group for the full year of 2010 is HUF 27.5 billion.

On October 18, 2010 the Parliament of the Republic of Hungary approved an act (Bill of 2010 T/1374) imposing a special tax on a number of sectors including retail sales, energy and telecommunications. The tax will be levied on annual net sales based on electronic telecommunications services, and will apply until the end of 2012.

According to the act, the estimated total special tax amount payable by Magyar Telekom Group for the full year of 2010 is HUF 27.5 billion. It is expected that the tax will be accounted as other expense thus will lower profit before tax. As a consequence, the Company expects that it reduces the corporate tax payment by ca. HUF 1 billion in 2010.

The special tax, although expected to be reported as other expense will be treated as a one-off item and will therefore not have an impact on Magyar Telekom’s guidance for an underlying EBITDA decline of 7-9% for 2010.