Supercell stands out as remarkable benefactor

The success of the game maker Supercell dominated the headlines in Finland on Wednesday, when the Finnish revenue authority released the taxation details of the previous year.

The top seven individual wage earners in 2016 were founders and employees of Supercell. With capital gains income included, the Supercell people occupied top four positions.

The two largest total incomes were 74.04 million euros for John Nicholas Derome and 70.35 million euros for Lassi Tapani Leppinen, both co-founders and owners of Supercell.

Supercell was also the second largest payer of corporate tax in Finland in 2016. It paid 181 million euros as tax, based on its 912 million euro profit and 2.1 billion euro turnover.

The largest source of corporate tax was Kahon3, a company established by the Japanese Softbank when it used to own Supercell. Its 674 million euro corporate tax payment resulted from the sale of the Softbank's ownership of Supercell.

Founders of Supercell have over the years given "taxation friendly" public statements. One of the founders, Ilkka Paananen said in 2013 "what Finland has given to the founders will be paid back now".

A Finnish language newspaper Helsingin Sanomat calculated that the tax revenue from Supercell and Kahon3 in 2016 would cover the cost of all police services in Finland next year.

One of the trends in the 2016 taxation was that politicians and influential civil servants appeared to have increased their earnings remarkably when switching from public service to the private sector. Most notably, some conservative politicians cashed in well after moving to commercial health care companies.

Among members of parliament, Communication Minister Anne Berner was in the lead with 1.5-million-euro income, mainly from capital gains. Prime Minister Juha Sipilä was the fourth on the list, with a total of 375,800 euros.

The actual salary of an MP is maximally 83,000 euros. Out of the 200 members of parliament, 68 earned less than 83,000 euros in 2016.