Nearly half of Finns want the government's new income and tax policies to first and foremost address the wage gap hurting women working in predominately female sectors, finds a new poll by Helsingin Uutiset. A third of those surveyed want to see the value-added tax (VAT) on food lowered, whereas one-fifth thinks lowering inheritance tax is the most important issue for the government to tackle. Tending to women's low salaries was seen as the top priority by 56 percent of women and also by 32 percent of men. Men labelled rolling back VAT on food as the top priority for government. Opinions on income and tax policies were greatly influenced by respondents' political affiliation. Supporters of the Left Alliance and the Greens were in favour of increasing women's wages, whereas National Coalition followers perceive the lowering of inheritance tax as the most urgent issue for the government to take action on. The survey, carried out by market research firm Taloustutkimus, encompassed the views of 1,014 Finns who were interviewed at the end of June. The margin of error is three percentage points. Helsingin Uutiset is a local newspaper, published three times a week. YLE
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