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Eszter Kálmán

Senior Counsel and Head of Tax

Picture of Eszter Kalman

Eszter Kálmán

Senior Counsel and Head of Tax

T +36 1 483 4842
F +36 1 483 4801
CMS Cameron McKenna Nabarro Olswang LLP Magyarországi Fióktelepe
YBL Palace
Károlyi utca 12
1053 Budapest
Hungary
Languages Hungarian, English, French

Eszter Kálmán is Senior Counsel and Head of the Tax Practice at CMS Budapest, with 20 years’ experience in tax law.

Eszter has extensive experience in VAT issues and tax driven corporate restructurings. She has been advising major domestic and international clients on various tax issues including mergers and acquisitions, tax structuring projects, VAT disputes, transfer pricing, state subsidy issues as well as day-to-day compliance issues. She represents clients in several tax litigation cases, especially in the field of VAT.

She is an active member of the European VAT Club, an association of independent VAT specialists. In addition to being a member of the Budapest Bar, Eszter is also a registered tax advisor.

Eszter is recommended by Chambers and Legal 500 in the Tax category.

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Relevant experience

  • AXA Bank on the VAT structuring of the sale of its Hungarian banking operations to OTP Bank.
  • Apollo Tyres on the construction of a greenfield manufacturing plant in Hungary, including legal, tax and state subsidy advice regarding the acquisition of the selected property, cash incentives, and incorporation of a subsidiary as well as its ongoing operation. Successfully negotiated a high-value incentive agreement for the client with the Hungarian Investment and Trade Agency within an extremely short timeframe.
  • Wizzair on tax implications of leasing various aircrafts.
  • Credigen Bank (subsidiary of Credit Agricole) on the sale of its performing loan portfolio. Tax involvement was mainly focused on the VAT aspects of the portfolio transfer, since the VAT treatment of portfolio transfers is quite controversial on the basis of EU case law as well as Hungarian legislation.
  • A major international telecommunication company with respect to VAT dispute of EUR 48 m.
  • Mota-Engil on the tax structuring of the sale of a major portfolio of development properties.
  • DHL Supply Chain in a VAT litigation and won the case before Hungary’s supreme court, called the Curia.
  • British American Tobacco on two separate VAT disputes against the Hungarian Tax Authority. As a result of our intervention the Tax Authority accepted BAT’s position and dropped both cases still in the administrative proceedings phase, and litigation was avoided.
  • Bricostore Holding S.A.S on the restructuring of its Hungarian operations.
  • A major real estate investor on complex tax issues regarding a Hungarian property development. The deal was unique on the Hungarian market due to the involvement of Islamic finance and thus the need to comply with the principles of Sharia law. 
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Education

  • 2018 - Postgraduate degree in Economics, University of Corvinus, Budapest, Hungary
  • 1999 - Doctor of Law, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest
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Memberships

  • Member, Budapest Bar Associations
  • Member, The European VAT Club
  • Member, IFA
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Publications

  • EKÁER’s grace period has been extended (article in Hungarian) – Napi Gazdaság
  • The “Tóth”-case (summary and comments)-Highlights & Insights on European Taxation
  • The “Klub OOD” case (summary and comments)-Highlights & Insights on European Taxation
  • The “Mecsek Gabona” case (summary and comments)-Highlights & Insights on European Taxation
  • The “Pannon-Gép” case (summary and comments)-Highlights & Insights on European Taxation
  • The “Commission vs France and Luxembourg cases re e-books” (summary and comments)-Highlights & Insights on European Taxation
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Expertise

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15 April 2019
Ex­pats at green­field in­vest­ments – a po­ten­tial 'per­man­ent...
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Guide Expat Desk
16 Dec 19
Hun­gari­an tax au­thor­ity launches pub­lic con­sulta­tion on SAF-T
As Hun­gary pre­pares for the in­tro­duc­tion of the Stand­ard Audit File-Tax (SAF-T), the na­tion­al tax au­thor­ity has launched a pub­lic dis­cus­sion to col­lect feed­back from the busi­ness com­munity, soft­ware de­velopers...
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Law-Now Life Sciences & Healthcare
22 Apr 18
CMS Guide to tax re­gimes in Cent­ral and East­ern Europe
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Guide
07 Aug 19
Hun­gary cre­ates tax-ex­empt as­set man­age­ment found­a­tions for stor­ing...
Re­cent changes to the Hun­gari­an leg­al and tax sys­tem have cre­ated a new type of leg­al en­tity: an as­set man­age­ment found­a­tion. This new en­tity en­ables fam­il­ies to man­age, pre­serve and in­crease their wealth...
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Law-Now Tax
03 Jul 17
Over­view of Tax Re­forms in CEE 2015 - 2017
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Publication Tax
26 Nov 18
Hun­gary makes changes to cor­por­ate tax­a­tion for 2019
The latest re­forms to Hun­gari­an tax law have brought sig­ni­fic­ant changes mostly to the cor­por­ate in­come tax sys­tem. Some changes may of­fer new op­por­tun­it­ies while oth­ers re­quire co­ordin­ated ac­tion. Hun­gari­an...
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Law-Now Banking & Finance
CMS Ex­pert Guide to Trans­fer Pri­cing Doc­u­ment­a­tion...
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Expert Guide
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Tax
12 Oct 18
New Rules on Di­git­al Archiv­ing
As of 1 Ju­ly 2018, De­cree No. 1/2018. (VI. 29.) ITM of the Min­istry of In­nov­a­tion of Tech­no­logy on the Di­git­al Archiv­ing Rules is re­pla­cing the former De­cree No. 114/2007. (XII.29.) GKM of the Min­istry...
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Law-Now Banking & Finance
02 Mar 18
New tax and lit­ig­a­tion codes re­quire new strategy in tax dis­putes
Changes to pro­ced­ur­al rules that came in­to ef­fect on 1 Janu­ary 2018 have made the tax­pay­er’s life more dif­fi­cult when de­fend­ing his po­s­i­tion in tax dis­putes. The new law does not al­low tax­pay­ers to...
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Law-Now Commercial
10 Oct 17
Hun­gary: EKAER sys­tem may in­fringe EU VAT rules 
The European Com­mis­sion has ini­ti­ated an in­fringe­ment pro­ced­ure by send­ing a let­ter of form­al no­tice to Hun­gary with re­spect to its Elec­tron­ic Trade and Trans­port Con­trol Sys­tem (EKAER). Un­der the EKAER,...
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Law-Now Commercial
24 Jun 16
Hun­gary makes sig­ni­fic­ant cut backs to be­ne­fi­cial IP tax re­gime
In or­der to com­ply with the re­quire­ments set out in Ac­tion 5 of the OECD/G20 Base Erosion and Profit Shift­ing (BEPS) pro­ject, Hun­gary has re­vamped its pref­er­en­tial tax re­gime re­lated to in­come de­rived...
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Law-Now Commercial
21 Jun 16
New tax be­ne­fits for his­tor­ic­al monu­ments and pro­tec­ted build­ings...
From 2017, new cor­por­ate in­come tax be­ne­fits will be avail­able to in­centiv­ise the res­tor­a­tion of his­tor­ic­al build­ings. The fol­low­ing be­ne­fits will be avail­able for com­pan­ies un­der­tak­ing main­ten­ance or...
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Law-Now Tax