Immigrants´ play a significant role in Finland's public finances and they pay higher amount of taxes than the benefits they receive, according to a recent study of the Diaconia University of Applied Sciences (Diak).
The study showed that the common perception of immigrants as burden on public finance is incorrect and the ration of their contribution to the public finance is higher compared to the native Finns.
Researchers Pekka Myrskylä and Sakari Kainulainen in their joint study said that immigrants paid about 2.7 billion euros taxes in 2023 and consumed about 2.4 billion euros benefits resulting a contribution of about 225 million euros to the public finance.
In the same year, the amount of benefits consumption by the native Finnish languages speakers was about five billion euros higher than the contribution they made to the public finance.
According to the study, foreign-language speakers account for about 10 percent of the total population in the country and they only account for about five percent of benefits receivers.
The report was prepared based on the data from Statistics Finland on the permanent-residents and the national social insurance institution-Kela.
Terming immigration as a key factor in maintaining country's demographic development and workforce, the researchers also suggested use of these data in discussion on immigrants and politics and urged the politicians to be refrained from inciting negative attitudes towards immigrants.
- Immigrants
- Contribution
- Public finances
- Finland
Source: www.dailyfinland.fi
