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Contents

Series editor's foreword

Preface

Provisions of the "1% Law" (Law CXXVI/1996 on the Use of Some Part of the Personal Income Tax in Accordance with the Disposition of Taxpayers)

Geyza Mészáros - István Sebestény: Thoughts around 1%
The taxpayer as a "decision-maker"
The Tax Office as an opponent "grant-maker"
The beneficiary as a diligent "lobbyist"

Éva Kuti - Ágnes Vajda: In defense of partiality
Who benefits from the citizens' decision?
Do taxpayers decide justly?

Ágnes Vajda - Éva Kuti: Citizens' votes for nonprofit activities
Introduction
The 1% provision
  Regulatory environment and the birth of an unprecedented tax measure
  A mixed but rather friendly reception
Economic importance and redistributional effects
  1% income as part of the revenues of nonprofit organizations
  Differences between taxpayers' and government's decisions
Attitudes and choices of taxpayers
  Socio-demographic factors influencing the designation decisions
  Interests, values and motivations behind taxpayers' decisions
  Reasoning of taxpayers who refuse to support nonprofit organizations
Strategies to encourage designation decisions
  Types of potential beneficiaries and options available for them
  Three years' experience of 1% campaigns
Conclusions
  Theoretical implications
  Practical implications
Appendix I: Methodology
Appendix II: Tables

Lajos Biro - Balázs Gerencsér: Opinions of civil society organizations on the 1% provision and its implementation
Introduction
Our survey and its findings
  The sample
  Some characteristic features of the respondent organizations
  1%
  The 1% results of nonprofit organizations
  1% campaigns
  The "profit rate" and the feeling of satisfaction
  The evaluation of the 1% provision
Summary

György Bódi: 1% in practice
The emergence of a provision
Civil reaction
  How did organizations try to win 1% designations in the last three years?
  Mainly which organizations received 1% designations?
  Some misconceptions
  Is there an alternative?
Summary

Irodalom / References

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Preface

Life was the editor of this present volume. Or rather: death. When preparing the research plan for the 1 % of personal income tax designatable to civil society organizations, Ágnes Vajda intended to publish the findings in a volume containing "an analytical work with detailed charts and tables." The generous support of Aspen Institute enabled her to realize her fastidious program without having to give in to compromises. Everything was given for its success, all the materials had been collected and a repeatedly checked and updated database readily awaited the expert analyst. Ágnes Vajda, however, was denied the chance to complete the study, which was to become the first empirically based analysis of a phenomenon of particular interest. One of the best researchers of the Hungarian nonprofit sector has gone without receiving any well-deserved appraisal for her immense amount of work.

She lived in the shadows. Not only in the circles where she was surrounded by exceptionally talented people but also in several other relations of hers. How many of us know that it was she - together with Antal Gyulavári - to launch the annual statistical survey of the nonprofit sector? How many of us know that after the first free elections it was she - together with János Farkas - to embark on surveys on parliamentary candidates and representatives of local governments? And that she played a pioneer role - together with Ágnes Czakó and György Lengyel - in the research on small enterprises? We could go on and lengthily enlist the research fields from job provision to voluntary work, from housing statistics to the examination of the leaders' elite, from the entrepreneurial activities of nonprofit organizations to the practice of micro-crediting, which all bear her fingerprints in the sense of both content and methodology.

We who had the fortune of working together with her know how much it meant when with a quiet question or comment she helped us get over a point of deadlock, find the answer to a seemingly unsolvable professional problem or just tone down our definitive and overconfident statements. We shall not only painfully miss her professional expertise but also her remarkable sensitivity and empathy. She belonged to the few who represent patience and understanding in our restless world. She did not only grasp the social tendencies but exhibited sympathy towards its often rather frail participants. She was also able to feel glad about the good signs, the research results that indicated a healthy functioning of society. I shall never forget how delighted she was - only a few weeks before her parting - when she first saw the summary of the citizens' opinions on the 1% designations. Forgetting her personal problems, she was able to feel elated because the majority of those asked reacted as thoughtful and responsible citizens to the new possibilities the tax system offered.

The fact that the final report of the research could not be written by Ágnes Vajda is a loss to all of us, readers and colleagues alike. Her analysis would certainly have been more modulated, more understanding, softer, less angular and less critical. While struggling with the sentences and statements, I made an effort to adjust the structure to her original ideas, I tried to incorporate all the thoughts that came from her into the study. The end result, of course, cannot be anything but a strainful failure: the grievous document of a person's unique and irreplaceable existence.

In order to provide the reader with somewhat of a compensation - to the contrary of the original idea - the volume includes the debate articles written in the spring of 1997, the second one of which contains mainly Ágnes Vajda's sentences and thoughts. The volume that this way has transformed into a collection of studies ends with Balázs Gerencsér's summary of interviews with nonprofit leaders and György Bódi's work analyzing practical experiences.

Éva Kuti
January 2000

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