Golfer Mikko Ilonen heads sporting taxpayers

Kimi Räikkönen in a class of his own, but he doesn't pay tax here

Sinuhe Wallinheimo

Kimi Räikkönen

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By Pekka Aaltonen
     
      European Tour golfer Mikko Ilonen was the top sporting earner when the annual tax figures for 2008 earnings were made public on Monday, though with a caveat that a great many big-contract Finnish sports personalities are Finnish in name only, and pay their taxes somewhere else.
      Ilonen paid a marginal rate of 38% on his earnings of 347,061 euros last year, in which he did not manage to win a tournament on the Tour.
      He saw a sharp decline in his earnings from 2007, when he won twice and finished 34th on the Tour's Order of Merit, and in so doing collected more than EUR 800,000 in prize money.
     
The 2008 silver medal went to cross-country skier Virpi Kuitunen, who gathered in EUR 346,427, and bronze went to the JYP Jyväskylä ice hockey goaltender Sinuhe Wallinheimo, with 310,524.
      Another Hockey jock, Jari Viuhkola from Oulu Kärpät, was narrowly outside the podium with a fraction over EUR 300,000.
      One more big earner from sports was javelin-thrower Tero Pitkämäki, EUR 246,728.
      On the coaching front, the biggest pay-packet was collected by HIFK Helsinki hockey coach Kari Jalonen, who earned EUR 188,000.
     
These numbers are all very well and good, but Finland's real sporting millionaires keep their dollars and cents safely out of the reach of the Finnish tax authorities.
      In particular the stars of motor sport safeguard their sunset years by moving to countries with a more user-friendly tax regime.
      One of the rare exceptions is the two-time World Rally Championship winner Marcus Grönholm, who actually retired from the sport a couple of years ago.
      Grönholm paid taxes in Inkoo on capital income of EUR 64,000 for 2008. Last year he did not earn anything by way of taxable personal income from his shop, restaurant, and gym interests in the town.
     
Formula One driver Kimi Räikkönen is more typical, in that he pays his taxes elsewhere.
      He is also far and away the king of Finnish sportsmen in terms of salary. Räikkönen's earnings for last year have been estimated in the region of EUR 30 million or more, equivalent to roughly five of last Sunday's record Lotto jackpot payouts.
      He spends this money in Finland only on vacation trips up here.
     
Those plying their trade for hockey or football teams abroad pay taxes in the place where they work.
      Hockey players in the NHL lead the table in this respect.
      The Calgary Flames goalie Miikka Kiprusoff earned the equivalent of EUR 5.7 million in 2008, and around a dozen other Finnish players in the North American league earned more than a million euros last year.
      Also high in the rankings was Finland and Bolton Wanderers goalkeeper Jussi Jääskeläinen, whose efforts between the posts in the English Premiership were worth approximately EUR 2.2 million.
     
Naturally, sporting success and large dollops of money do not always go hand-in-hand.
      Finland's only gold medallist at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Satu Mäkelä-Nummela, who set a new Olympic record in the trap shooting on her way to glory, collected just over 21,000 euros for her pains.
      Equally, Aino-Kaisa Saarinen, who scooped up three gold medals and one bronze medal at the Nordic Skiing World Championships in Liberec this year (while Virpi Kuitunen collected two golds in team events), earned conspicuously less than her colleague in 2008, at 67,000 euros.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 3.11.2009


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Mikko Ilonen secures European Tour card for 2010 at Madrid Masters (12.10.2009)
  Satu Mäkelä-Nummela wins gold in Beijing women´s trap event (11.8.2008)

PEKKA AALTONEN / Helsingin Sanomat
pekka.aaltonen@hs.fi