This would be a completely irrelevant toss-off post except for its potential significance.

The MDF (Hungarian Democratic Forum) is raising some eyebrows with a couple pieces of news lately. It needs to, because as discussed before, the MDF is in a fight for its life when it comes to parliamentary representation. If it cannot make 5%, and that’s looking increasingly doubtful, then it’s out there with the also-rans.

Which makes it significant that the MDF:

1. Has said they will neither enter into coalition with FIDESZ, nor support them with second-round votes. FIDESZ, whose proposals are increasingly self-contradictory, is no longer seen as a truly credible partner (Getting rid of car registration fee: good. Pledging to return Hungary to a free market by means of strengthening price controls: confusing at best). This would mean that the electoral see-saw has just tilted back slightly towards the middle, and cuts probably 1-3% out of FIDESZ’s fairly narrow lead,

except

(and this is the significant part)
2. As part of their “we’ve got to get some votes or perish” strategy, the MDF is echoing current events next door in Romania, by proposing an across-the-board 18% flat income tax would reduce the role of the underground economy.

This would put the Hungarians a touch behind the Romanians in terms of “raw number” accounting, but comfortably ahead of several other countries’ proposals (no internal links, scroll down for table). Note that Romania’s recent proposal would put it on a par with Hong Kong, so two percentage points off that is still not bad. (And would be a vast improvement over what we have here in the U.S.)

Not that this is the final word, since tax systems are as important as the raw number, but it’s now an open question as to how the promise of a reasonable flat tax will float in Hungarian politics.