After registering at the Hungarian Court of Registration, entities in Hungary have to fulfil statutory obligations by certain deadlines. From among the tasks to be performed after a company registration, those related to accounting and taxation obligations are highly important. Failure to meet these obligations can result in a default penalty from the authorities.
Data reporting obligations after a company registration
After a company registration, common business data has to be reported to the Hungarian tax authority (NAV). It has to be reviewed whether all activities were registered at the establishment and whether these are included in the master data held by the tax authority. If additional activities have to be specified, you have to indicate this on the relevant forms. The operating licence number also has to be reported if the activity is subject to a permit from the authorities. You have to consider and, if necessary, report the form of taxation you have chosen in the cases when the law allows this choice. This is hugely important, particularly in the case of leasing and property sales activities. You have to specify the place where documents are stored and report the data of any registered office service if this is relevant for your business. According to the new provisions, you have to provide the main details of any bank account held at a foreign bank, and you can specify whether to use the MNB or the ECB exchange rate in your bookkeeping. In addition to data reported to the tax authority, after a company registration you have to report the data to the local governments and register at the competent bodies of the Hungarian Central Statistical Office (CSO). Some of the businesses’ tax obligations and data reporting tasks will be defined based on this information.
Accounting tasks
You can define the accounting tasks following a company registration in Hungary based on the principles and procedures relevant for the business. The reporting date of the financial year and the bookkeeping currency are defined upon the establishment of the company. The rules and requirements typical of the business have to be defined within the framework of the accounting policy, and it has to be decided which statutory choice will be applied by the business. The accounting policy has to include the policy for the valuing assets and liabilities, the inventory policy, the cash management policy and the internal prime cost calculation policy, if the latter is relevant.
The representative of the business entity is responsible for preparing the accounting policy, the preparation deadline is 90 days after the establishment of the company. When preparing the valuation policy, you determine the valuation of the assets and liabilities typical of the business, and during this process, in the case of international companies, you also have to consider the requirements of the group. Among other things you can record the principles for the depreciation of assets, the valuation of inventories and receivables and the allocation of provisions. It is important to keep accounting records based on these principles, and any changes should be documented in writing in the accounting policy.
Other potential obligations
These general tasks arising after a company registration in Hungary may be supplemented with other obligations or data for reporting. Tax consultants assess these based on appropriate information, and consult with the managers in charge if necessary. If there is any change in the data already reported, you have to proceed according to the rules on change reporting; thus, ensuring that the information affecting the tax obligations of the business is available for the authorities.
If you are not sure that you properly fulfil all the data reporting and accounting obligations after a company registration, please contact us!
