Finns Willing To Pay More Tax For Social Services

A survey published by the Social Insurance Institution of Finland, shows that 80 percent of Finns would be ready to pay higher taxes, if the money were to go to into healthcare services. In general, people would rather see higher taxes than a deterioration in social benefits.

Less than 10 percent of those interviewed for the survey say they would want to see income supports for low-income groups cut, even if this meant that they would pay less tax.

Nearly 40 percent backed more funding for labour market supports, such as unemployment benefits, although this world require that middle-income groups would pay around 10 euros a month more in taxes. About one-third considered the present level of labour market supports good as is.

Finns were found to be critical of income gaps. Most respondents would reduce income gaps by raising wages and salaries for people in jobs such as cleaners, nurses and school teachers. Nearly half would back steeper progression for the income tax scale.

The newly-published survey is based on replies from 1,350 people between the ages of 18 to 75 and was carried out in the spring of 2006.