Government commissioner linked to tax avoiding offshore company

Andrew G. Vajna, a former Hollywood producer – also a government commissioner in Viktor Orbán’s cabinet since last January – wants state financed film productions distributed by an offshore company he had founded  earlier. The now unknown owners of Intercom Zrt. have managed to get 1 billion  HuF out of the country without paying tax on it.

Mr Vajna’s contract as a governement commisioner for the Hungarian film industry was recently extended to an undefinite period despite the fact that his first year in office provoked a series of debates in the Hungarian film industry. Earlier, Viktor Orban’s government decided to close the struggling foundation (Magyar Mozgókép Közalapítvány) formerly in charge of film financing and the government set up a new state owned money distributor, the Hungarian Film Fund (Magyar Nemzeti Filmalap).  Last year only one film production was given state subsidy, though the original plan mentioned 5-6 films supported a year.

In the meantime the liquidation of several Hungarian film production companies has started (the copyrights of  some internationally acknowledged state funded films  will be sold this way) due to preliminarily promised subsidies which were later withheld.

Intercom’s owner is  an offshore company registered in Curaçao under the name Magyar Enterprises. Since its daughter company operates in Hungary, the company is obliged to hand in yearly reports to the Hungarian Companies House. Yet the last, publicly avaiable report (2010) of Intercom suggests that the company made a a loss of nearly one billion Forints.  At the same time the company’s own capital dropped radically from 2,45 billion to 1,48 billion HuF. The company claims to have provided long term loans to various foreign companies, which did not repay, allowing Intercom to write off  more than one billion HuF as losses.

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