Finland Times

Although the oppositions lawmakers on Wednesday strongly criticized the budget plan of the government announced last week, the ruling party leaders termed the budget as dynamic.

The leaders of the oppositions Perussuomalainen (True Finn) and Keskusta (Centre) held the government responsible for reduction of the grants for the municipalities and said that the impact of the budget would affect the middle class people seriously.

Leader of the Perussuomalainen, Timo Soini said that the development programmes would be hindered severely due to the government planning for  reduction the allocation for Municipal Corporations.

He also accused the government of reducing the corporate tax and cutting expenditure.

The Keskusta party parliamentary group chairperson, Kimmo Tiilikainen said that the new budget would affect the middle and lower middle class people as it planned to hike the tax on electricity and other necessary goods.

Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen termed down the allegations made by the opposition parties and said that the budget planning was dynamic and it would create a considerable number of job.

The premier, however, did not mention the specific number of the job he expected to be created through the new mechanism.

The Finance Minister , Jutta Urpilainen said that the Municipality would need to find out the new process and practice it to increase productivity and efficiency.

She said that that the municipalities are going to be involved in the new form of practice actively.

The secretary to the Finance Ministry, Martti Hetemäki  also termed the budget as dynamic in a sense that it would increase the revenue  due to increase the tax on Alcoholic Beverage and Sweet.

The secretary said that the budget would attract also Investment as well. He said that the largest savings has taken place for cutting expenditure cut in the local administration as well as Health Insurance and Development work.

The Central Government is expected to remain in a deficit throughout the planning period. and it expected to be 2.7 percent next year.

The coalition government on March 21 announced the budget planning in the parliament for the next fiscal aiming to adjust an amount of EUR 600 million.

The budget planned to subside to corporate tax at 20 percent from the existing  24.5 percent.

The government cut in the budget included the development cooperation, local government and state subsidies. 

It also planned to hike the consumption taxes on  Alcohol, Tobacco, candy, sweet items and electricity.

The Finance Minister said that  the reform in the housing policy in this year budget would be the biggest ever housing reform.

The  budget increased allocation for the apprenticeship and the Helsinki Children Hospital.