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🇫🇮 Finland /Economy & Trade

Taxes | Orpo says high earners’ share of wage taxes has grown on Yle, waving a finance ministry paper

From Helsingin Sanomat · () Finnish

Translated from Finnish and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

News Named sources Context piece
  • Prime Minister Petteri Orpo defended the government’s income-tax cuts by saying high earners will pay a larger share of wage taxes in 2027 than in 2023.
  • Finance Ministry figures show the top income decile’s share rising from 44.52% in 2023 to an estimated 45.26% in 2027.
  • The decile includes many people earning €5,000 to €8,000 annually, while unemployment and tax cuts for lower earners affect the shares paid by the seven lowest deciles.

Prime Minister Petteri Orpo arrived at Yle’s A-studio with a piece of paper, borrowing a familiar tactic from opposition leader Antti Lindtman. The document supported Orpo’s argument in a dispute over who benefits most from the government’s income-tax cuts.

Lindtman criticized the cuts for favoring the highest earners. He said a salesperson or teacher might see only about €20 more in take-home pay each month, while someone in the prime minister’s income bracket could gain as much as €8,000 a year.

When you look at what this means for different people, a salesperson or teacher might have perhaps twenty euros more in their pocket each month, while in the prime minister’s income bracket it can be as much as eight thousand euros a year.

· Antti LindtmanLindtman criticized the government’s income-tax cuts during a Yle television debate.

Orpo said he had asked the Ministry of Finance to calculate how wage-income taxation had changed across income deciles over the previous four years. “This shows that high earners pay an even larger share of wage taxes than in 2023,” he said.

Helsingin Sanomat asked the ministry for the document. Its figures show that the highest-earning tenth paid 44.52% of wage taxes in 2023. The ministry estimates that their share will reach 45.26% in 2027, even though the government has substantially reduced taxes on people earning more than €10,000 a month.

I asked the Ministry of Finance for a calculation of how wage-income taxation has developed across different income deciles over the past four years. This shows that high earners pay an even larger share of wage taxes than in 2023.

· Petteri OrpoOrpo used a Finance Ministry calculation to defend the government’s tax policy.

The calculation covers all people in Finland, including children and others without income. That means the lowest decile has no income at all. In 2023, the threshold for entering the highest decile stood slightly above €62,000, placing people earning around €5,000 a month in the group. The threshold is expected to approach €70,000 by 2027.

Filip Kjellberg, a finance adviser in the ministry’s tax department, said the highest decile contains many people earning between €5,000 and €8,000. Their taxes have fallen the least, according to the Central Taxpayers Association, which helps explain why their share of total taxes is rising. Kjellberg also said unemployment is visible in the lower deciles, alongside tax cuts for lower earners.

Unemployment of course shows up in these figures.

· Filip KjellbergThe Finance Ministry adviser explained why the lower income deciles pay a somewhat smaller share of taxes.
About this summary

Originally published by Helsingin Sanomat in Finnish. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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