HS: Corporation tax revenues on the wane in Finland
EU countries are increasingly competing for tax revenues, according to Friday’s Helsingin Sanomat.
Economic experts suspect that corporation tax revenues in Finland are falling even further than previously thought.
The senior civil servant at the Finance Ministry, Lasse Arvela, told the paper in an interview that he believed revenues from the tax are declining.
”I’m afraid that corporation tax will not be a key method of collecting taxes for much longer,” Arvela said.
The nine biggest exporters in Finland paid less than six percent of their profits in 2010, according to the broadsheet daily.
The majority of profits end up declared abroad for tax purposes. For example in the Netherlands, a company can pay an effective rate of just five percent corporation tax on profits from research and development or patents.
”This is a dangerous recent development,” said Arvela. ”That does not help with the falling tax base.”
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