Last year, the state-owned investment company Solidium paid the largest corporate tax bill in Finland from all limited companies, according to information published by the Tax Administration on Wednesday. At the same time, the German pharmaceutical company Bayer was the largest corporate taxpayer overall.
Founded in 2008, the holding company Solidium owns a small stake in several listed companies, including Sampo, Elisa, Nokia, Metso, Stora Enso, Valmet and Outokumpu. It paid more than โฌ 95 million in taxes last year.
The next largest bills were paid by the oil company Neste (80 million) and the telecom operator Elisa (69 million).
Corporate tax is paid by corporations and other entities and is about 20 percent of the companyโs taxable income. About 70 percent of this tax goes to the state and the remaining 30 percent to the domicile of each company.
The Covid crisis affected different sectors in different ways. Net sales declined for many, but operating profit increased due to cost cuts and government Covid subsidies.
By research According to Kauppalehti, the net profit of more than half of the companies increased by more than six per cent.
The total amount of corporate taxes paid by companies in 2020 was EUR 5.4 billion, which is EUR 0.4 million less than in the previous year.
Covid grants paid by the state to companies are taxable income. This may be one reason why corporate tax revenues did not fall as expected last year.
International conglomerates paid the most taxes
The tax administration provides information on companies that have paid more than 5,000 euros in corporate tax.
However, there are only limited companies on the list. Investments would change when taxes paid by companies such as conglomerates and multinationals are taken into account.
According to estimates by Finance Finland (FFI), the Finnish financial industry lobby group, the German pharmaceutical company Bayer was the country’s largest corporate taxpayer last year, paying EUR 124 million in taxes.
The Finnish retail conglomerate K-Group came in second with EUR 118 million in corporate tax, followed by Nordea, which paid EUR 110 million.
Source: The Nordic Page