The information service of the Parliament’s library calculated the tax revenue for the party by more than 500 million euros at 0.5 percent interest.
The Left Alliance argued that the tax would be a way to narrow the growing wealth gap in Finland, and highlighted that the richest 10 percent have almost half (49.6%) of the country’s household net worth, which represents an increase of 13.3 percent. points from the late 1980s. A quarter of households, on the other hand, have almost no net worth.
Teemu LehtinenThe head of the Taxpayers’ Association shot down the idea in an interview with YLE on Tuesday.
“I don’t think this is a tax idea that works at all. This is very much outdated thinking,” he said.
Most European countries have abandoned wealth tax systems since the 1990s, including Finland in 2006. Norway, Spain and Switzerland are currently the only countries on the continent that tax private individuals’ net wealth.
Lehtinen pointed out that a wealth tax aimed at millionaires could make them move their assets outside of Finland.
“The risk of capital flight is completely obvious. Since nothing like this exists in our main competitor countries in Europe, Finland would be heading down a rather bad path,” he commented to the public broadcasting company.
Another problem is the potential overlap between property and income taxes. According to Lehtinen, a smart approach has been adopted in Finland over the past couple of decades to primarily tax the return on assets rather than the assets themselves.
Information from Statistics Finland point that more than 108 billion euros were collected in taxes and tax-related payments in Finland in 2021. Almost 39 billion euros were collected from income taxes, such as earned income and capital income taxes, and another 35 billion euros from income taxes. taxes related to goods and services.
Property taxes, such as gift tax, inheritance tax, property tax and transfer tax, generated almost four billion euros.
Lehtinen also stated that wealth should not be taxed too heavily, because capital taxes inevitably offer more leeway for planning than other taxes, such as income taxes.
“A smart taxman is not too greedy about capital gains to ensure the creation of a tax base,” he said.
The center and the Social Democrats have an equally weak attitude to the proposal.
Riikka Pakarinenvice president of the center, told According to YLE, the party aims to promote domestic ownership in Finland.
“Not the other way around. With this millionaire tax, the exact opposite would be achieved, he stated. “Before considering new taxes, we should think about how we could get more taxable things, that is, how we could get more jobs and companies to Finland.”
Niina MalmThe vice-chairman of the Social Democrats expressed neither support nor opposition to the proposal, but only stated that fairness should be the primary goal of taxation.
“People are taxed according to their ability to pay taxes. Especially in this constantly rising inflation situation, it is particularly important to take into account those with low incomes and those in difficulty, Malm said.
The Left Alliance has admitted that its proposal is aimed more at the next parliamentary elections.
“This is too big a decision for the government in its last autumn budget session, especially considering that the Center has already adopted a very tough line on tax policy,” Chairman Lee Andersson said For Iltalehti on Tuesday.
Aleksi Teivainen – HT
Source: The Nordic Page