Dozens of Finnish municipalities reduced and 16 raised taxes in 2022
MUNICIPAL TAX RATES was reduced at the beginning of the year in ten municipalities in Finland, reports Helsingin sanomat newspaper.
According to the Association of Finnish Municipalities, the cuts will affect about 140,000 Finns. Only 16 municipalities, in turn, raised their tax rates this year, the lowest amount since the early 2000s. The tax increases are estimated to affect more than 115,000 Finns.
The largest municipalities that specified their tax rates were Kotka in Kymenlaakso and Nurmes, a locality of about 9,500 inhabitants in Eastern Finland.
Taivassalo, with a population of 2,000 in Southwest Finland, introduced the largest tax cuts, reducing the tax rate from 20.5 per cent to 19.5 per cent. Of the large municipalities, the largest surgeries were performed in Rauma and Lappeenranta.
Helsingin Sanomat pointed out that the revisions are a significant change compared to previous years, as as many as 39 municipalities increased their tax rates at the turn of 2020 and 2021 and 53 municipalities at the turn of 2019 and 2020. increased accordingly, with only four doing so in early 2021 and seven in early 2020.
Finns pay most of their taxes to their home communities. The municipal tax is thus one of the most important taxes in the country on revenue collected and will replenish the public coffers by about € 20.1 billion in 2020, according to the Tax Administration.
Aleksi Teivainen – HT