Attention Economy Tax Proposal Debated in Finnish Parliament: Users Pay for Screen Time to Fund Public Services

Finland's parliament began reviewing a globally pioneering tax proposal on February 27 — the "attention tax." Jointly proposed by the Green Party and Social Democratic Party, the bill requires social media platforms to pay tiered taxes based on their Finnish users' total monthly screen time.

The proposed tax rate structure is: zero tax for total monthly user screen time under 50 million hours; €0.02 per hour for time exceeding 50 million hours; and €0.05 per hour for time exceeding 100 million hours. Based on Finland's current social media usage scale, the tax could generate approximately €30 million annually.

Revenue would be dedicated to youth mental health services and digital literacy education programs. Bill author and Green Party MP Maria Ohisalo said: "Attention is the most scarce resource of the 21st century. Platforms profit from users' attention and should pay for the resulting social costs."

Tech industry lobbying group Digital Europe criticized the proposal as "punishing innovation" and warned it could cause some platforms to exit the Finnish market.