The opposition Social Democratic Party wants to extend tax progression beyond earned income after the next Parliamentary elections. One possible policy goal would be to change capital gains taxation so that large dividends would be taxed more heavily than small ones.
“Most recently, progression has been dismantled in inheritance taxation. I hope that this trend will change”, said Jouni Backman, chairman of the SDP’s tax policy working group.
“I do not rule out the possibility of some kind of progression to apply to capital taxation”, Backman said.
In practice, this would mean that dividends would be taxed progressively, even if the corporate tax were to remain unchanged.
“I feel that the idea is actually likely”, Backman says.
Taxation policy is becoming a major topic in advance of the next Parliamentary elections. Minister of Finance Jyrki Katainen (Nat. Coalition Party) has set up a working group to examine taxation structure.
In Backman’s view, tax policy should be “subordinate to employment policy” in the coming years. This would mean that taxation should support employment.
“The focus of taxation should be moved away from the taxation of labour.”
Backman predicts that the biggest disagreements on taxation within the Social Democratic Party will be over environmental taxes and other similar taxes that are aimed at modifying the behaviour of citizens.
