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Eszter Kálmán

Senior Counsel and Head of Tax

Portrait of Eszter Kálmán

Eszter Kálmán

Senior Counsel and Head of Tax

Contact
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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"She is responsive and stands up under pressure."

Chambers, 2021

"Eszter Kálmán is positive, responsive and always available at short notice."

Legal 500, 2020

"Sources describe department head Eszter Kálmán as "very experienced tax lawyer" and to be a "very smart practitioner"."

Chambers, 2020

"She is responsive and stands up under pressure."

Chambers, 2021

"Eszter Kálmán is positive, responsive and always available at short notice."

Legal 500, 2020

"Sources describe department head Eszter Kálmán as "very experienced tax lawyer" and to be a "very smart practitioner"."

Chambers, 2020

Relevant experience

  • A major German OEM company on tax and state subsidy matters regarding its greenfield investment in Hungary worth over EUR 1bn.
  • SRF on the construction of its greenfield manufacturing plant including tax and state subsidy advice.
  • Goodman on the development of the largest, multi-billion-forint greenfield logistics facility in Hungary, regarding VAT and transfer tax matters arising on selling its entire Hungarian portfolio.
  • Liberty Global on the sale of its Hungarian operations to Vodafone, worth EUR 18.4bn. Tax contribution included a review and discussion of a tax disclosure document and tax warranties.
  • Hypo Noe Landesbank AG on the reorganisation of its business model regarding cross-border banking services in Hungary. Tax assistance comprised of analysing the tax status of the Hungarian representative under Hungarian and international taxation rules.
  • A subsidiary of an Irish airline company on the reorganisation of its CEE operations. Tax advice consisted of structuring how to employ tax staff and prepare tax models for the pilots. Our mandate continued with tax advice on the Government’s COVID-19 related measures for the aviation sector and their applicability to the client.
  • A multinational energy corporation in a cross-border gas repo transaction over storage gas where the actual natural gas was stored in a customs warehouse in Hungary and in other eligible facilities in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Tax assistance covered advising on specific VAT issues relating to certain gas trading scenarios.
  • A major renewable energy company on the planned acquisition of a PV project portfolio which includes a 20 MW project, at an early development phase, located in west Hungary, including a due diligence report covering a corporate and tax review of the SPV and legal work regarding the joint development agreement.
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Memberships & Roles

  • 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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Education

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

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19/10/2021
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The Hun­gari­an state un­law­fully col­lec­ted a size­able amount of VAT from phar­ma­ceut­ic­al com­pan­ies ruled the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in a re­cent pre­lim­in­ary rul­ing pro­ced­ure, ini­ti­ated by Boehringer...
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The CMS TAX group is pleased to launch the guide on VAT e-com­merce This guide cov­ers the VAT e-com­merce pack­age, which was first ap­proved in 2017 (Dir­ect­ive 2017 / 2455) and ad­ded to in 2019 (Dir­ect­ive...
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08/05/2020
Hun­gary an­nounces ex­ten­ded cor­por­ate tax re­lief for in­vest­ments and de­vel­op­ments
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Hun­gary to cre­ate eco­nom­ic re­lief fund by tax­ing banks and re­tail­ers
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Hun­gary in­tro­duces 2nd round of eco­nom­ic meas­ures in re­sponse to coronavir­us...
Hun­gari­an Prime Min­is­ter Vikt­or Or­bán an­nounced the im­ple­ment­a­tion of a second eco­nom­ic pack­age on Monday, 23 March 2020 to mit­ig­ate the ad­verse im­pact of the coronavir­us out­break on the eco­nomy. The...
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On 18 March 2020, Hun­gari­an Prime Min­is­ter Vikt­or Or­bán an­nounced the im­ple­ment­a­tion of an eco­nom­ic pack­age con­tain­ing meas­ures to mit­ig­ate the ad­verse im­pact of the coronavir­us out­break on the na­tion's...
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16/12/2019
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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07/08/2019
Hun­gary cre­ates tax-ex­empt as­set man­age­ment found­a­tions for stor­ing and...
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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