Senior executives of the state-owned energy company Fortum occupied the top positions in the lists of the biggest earners from 2006, issued by the Finnish tax authorities.
Right at the top of the pile was the Fortum CEO Mikael Lilius, whose income doubled from 2005 and reached just over EUR 10 million. Lilius also headed the league table in 2005.
Several other leading lights at Fortum also saw their incomes doubling or even trebling from the previous year, as a result of the company's much-debated stock option programme. They eclipsed other familiar figures in the annual tables, such as the senior management of Nokia or Nordea.
Six Fortum executives were in the top ten by earned income.
Finland's policy of making tax records a public matter is either viewed as a means of ensuring transparency within the society and "keeping people honest" or an egregious invasion of personal privacy that fosters a spirit of envy and allows the tabloid newspapers to write lavishly about celebrities' wealth.
Readers with an understanding of Finnish can access Helsingin Sanomat's searchable lists of the highest earners and those with the greatest capital income or personal property at the link below. Taxable personal wealth details for 2006 are not given, as wealth taxes were axed last year.
