The Semmelweis University Foundation was once again able to increase the amount of tax donations received in the past tax year, with 310 people choosing the foundation, amounting to a total contribution of HUF 2,064,402, up 27% from the previous year.
In the course of a survey conducted in 2017 among the university’s current and previous students, teachers, researchers, patients, as well as the parents of students, two-thirds of the 1638 people queried said the most important objective of the university’s foundation should be the purchasing of new equipment. Around half of the respondents also said that infrastructural developments at the university are at least as important, while one in three people named the creation of scholarships for students among the most important tasks the foundation should support.
The foundation’s Board of Trustees is committed to use the funds to support the areas that are most important for the citizens of the university. As a result, in 2017 four Roma students won one-off study grants through a program launched by the Semmelweis University of Medicine Foundation (called Semmelweis University Foundation since January 2019), while in 2018 the 1st Department of Internal Medicine was able with the foundation’s help to purchase monitors that help in the treatment of patients held for observation in the clinic’s ward after medical samples have been taken from them. After the 1% tax donations have been transferred, the foundation will this year again find the area to be supported from the funds, in line with its objectives: the decision on spending the amount will be made at a later date by the Board of Trustees of the Semmelweis University Foundation.
The opportunity to name a beneficiary for 1+1% of an individual’s paid personal income tax is a unique form of support because it does not take any money away from the family budget. Since every employee in Hungary has to pay income tax, and they do not have any control over what the tax deducted from their wages by the tax office NAV is used for, by offering 1+1% of their tax, workers have the opportunity to decide on the direct use of billions of forints each year.
Zsófia Vona
Translation: Tamás Deme
Featured image: Aimie Fekete