The Oulu City Council declined to take up an initiative proposed by council member Matias Ojalehto (Center Party) to reintroduce a dog tax in the city. The initiative was voted down by the Council last Monday.
The decision was made based on the conclusions of an internal appraisal which estimated that the fiscal benefits of the proposed dog tax would be quite limited.
The last time a dog tax was collected in Oulu was in 1997. Of the ten biggest cities in Finland, only two have a dog tax on the books; Helsinki collects 50 euros of tax per dog with Tampere charging 34 euros.
According to the Ojalehto initiative, the money generated from the new taxes would have been earmarked to defray expenses related to cleaning up dog waste around town and maintaining the city’s existing enclosed dog parks, which already number 14. At present, there are no off-leash/enclosed dog parks in Oulu’s outlying municipalities. The price tag for building a new dog park costs around 70 000 euros.