Mikko Kodisoja, former game lead and co-founder of mobile game company Supercell, was the highest income earner in Finland in 2020, according to tax data revealed by the Finnish Tax Administration on Wednesday morning.

Kodisoja, who left Supercell and set up the virtual production company Fireframe last summer, earned 93.5 million euros and paid over 33 million euros in taxes. The Tax Administration provides information on the highest income earners to the media every year.

Another Supercell founder, CEO Ilkka Paananen, also made the list of top earners, coming in second behind Kodisoja with an income of 86.7 million euros last year. Paananen, who paid over 32 million euros in taxes, also earned a spot in the previous year's top three.

Heikki Herlin, whose family controls international machine manufacturing giant Kone, took third place with an annual income of 28.3 million euros. Herlin owns stakes in companies such as Cargotec, Alma Media and Oriola.

Other high income earners include Joni Kettunen, one of the founders of Firstbeat Technologies, who took home 27.9 million euros, and Mikael Thuneberg, founding member and CEO of Supermetrics, who made 24.7 million euros in 2020.

Firstbeat Technologies, which develops physiological analytics technology for wearable devices, was bought by smart watch manufacturer Garmin last year, while Supermetrics tracks market data and includes Warner Bros. Entertainment and Dyson in its list of customers.

Open data this year

This year, around 2,300 people asked that their names be removed from the annual list of high income earners that tax authorities submitted to the media.

The list contains the tax data of Finns who earned more than 100,000 euros. Last year, the names of half of Finland's top earners were left off the list that was shared with the press by special request.

This year's list is more comprehensive than 2020's after a court ruling ensured that tax officials were required to inform media companies which taxpayers have requested to be removed from public lists.

Media outlets can then ask specifically for those taxpayers' data, and add it to their own public datasets.

Previously, the Tax Administration had removed the data of those high earners who asked for discretion. They will continue to do so, but must hand over details if specifically asked.

Media organisations including Yle have set aside resources to go through the list of some 2,000 publicity-shy high earners and ask for their data, with the aim of completing the data set on Wednesday.