---
title: "May an activist be interviewed, what a foundation supervises, and the Swedish model for inheritance tax — Sami Miettinen on Weekly Wiseguys"
titleOriginal: "Viisastelu: Elokapinan isku | Koneen säätiön tekopyhyys | Moniavioisuus lailliseksi? | Perintövero"
description: "Sami Miettinen and Tere Sammallahti on Ivan Puopolo's Weekly Wiseguys, 27 September 2024: a defence of interviewing the activist who defaced Parliament, an unanswered interview request to the foundation that funded the group, a genuine disagreement about legalising polygamy, and a concrete proposal to replace Finland's inheritance tax with the Swedish model."
format: "podcast"
show: "Viikon viisasteluklubi"
episode: "Viisastelu 27.9.2024"
hosts: ["Ivan Puopolo"]
date: 2024-09-27
duration: "50:38"
language: "fi"
original: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FLt0Jq0FIk
canonical: https://www.neuvottelija.com/media/viisastelu-elokapina-kone-foundation-and-inheritance-tax/
---

# May an activist be interviewed, what a foundation supervises, and the Swedish model for inheritance tax — Sami Miettinen on Weekly Wiseguys

Sami Miettinen joined **Viikon viisastelu** — Ivan Puopolo's weekly political panel, known in
English here as *Weekly Wiseguys* — on 27 September 2024, alongside **Tere Sammallahti**, shortly
after a climate group defaced the facade of the Finnish Parliament.

The episode goes against expectation twice. First, on whether the activist should have been
interviewed on television: the panel says yes, on the grounds that interviewing is not
platforming but informing, and that refusing interviews to deny visibility ends in blacklisting.
Their complaint is about the quality of the interview — the activist's justification that
democracy would not otherwise yield went unchallenged — not about its existence. They also put
the act in proportion in the movement's favour, noting that defacing a wall is less dangerous
than sitting on a motorway, which the same group has done.

Second, the host reports doing the reporting himself. The movement had received a €200,000
project grant from a private foundation; his interview request was declined, and his one precise
follow-up — how does the foundation ensure the money is not used, even indirectly, to enable
unlawful activity — went unanswered. The panel is careful to note that this is private money,
not tax money, so the criticism is about oversight rather than about anyone's right to give away
their own funds.

The second half is a concrete proposal: replace Finland's inheritance tax with the Swedish
model, where the heir also inherits the deceased's acquisition cost and tax falls only on the
gain when the asset is sold. Sami is named in the episode as one of the reform's public
advocates, which this write-up flags, along with the central empirical claim — that the change
could be revenue-neutral — that is asserted without a calculation.

## Chapters

- **00:40** — A lecture worth watching
- **01:24** — The climate group at Parliament
- **01:39** — The symbolism of the act
- **02:26** — Less dangerous than the earlier ones
- **03:32** — The life cycle of a movement
- **04:21** — A researcher who had taken part
- **05:07** — May the person who did it be interviewed?
- **05:54** — The interview that should have been done
- **06:39** — The layers of a communications operation
- **07:35** — A justification nobody challenged
- **08:27** — Who should be invited to the studio
- **09:19** — The grant and what it may be used for
- **09:57** — An interview request to the foundation
- **10:54** — The answer that never came
- **11:44** — Private money and public money
- **12:34** — What a communications professional would say
- **13:22** — Where the line runs on who can be interviewed
- **14:13** — An extreme case as a test
- **15:03** — An interview is not a catwalk
- **15:57** — Peat, and what it is used for
- **16:49** — If you break the law, take the consequences
- **17:35** — When activism reshapes administration
- **18:24** — The means nobody asks about
- **19:13** — The question that went unasked
- **20:02** — First-hand information as a source
- **20:50** — Earlier cases
- **21:40** — Would an elected politician accept law-breaking?
- **22:26** — The scenario in which the answer changes
- **23:17** — Rosa Parks, and judging afterwards
- **24:06** — When the democratic channels are open
- **24:54** — Ten years of working within the system
- **25:41** — Polygamy: the liberal starting point
- **26:28** — Marriage as contract law
- **27:28** — The objection: men left out
- **28:18** — A thought experiment about free choice
- **29:08** — Children and the bond between spouses
- **30:00** — The risk of cults
- **30:45** — A comparison with an earlier reform
- **31:36** — Why I'm arguing the other side
- **32:22** — Dividing inheritances, and how marginal this is
- **33:15** — Turning to inheritance tax
- **34:04** — The current model and its problems
- **34:49** — The Swedish model in brief
- **35:38** — What if the tax ended up larger?
- **36:29** — A worked example
- **37:23** — Why the current system is defended
- **38:21** — Revenue neutrality in the change
- **39:14** — Three taxes stacked
- **40:10** — An heir who does not want the company
- **41:04** — Ownership chains and vitality
- **41:53** — The compounding of wealth
- **42:42** — Sweden's trajectory as a comparison
- **43:28** — Listings and the ownership base
- **44:13** — Undivided estates
- **45:01** — The backlash to getting wealthier
- **45:53** — What is worth taxing
- **46:38** — A family firm at the generational handover
- **47:27** — The deficit target and realism
- **48:22** — The toolbox is not empty
- **49:08** — Wins worth acknowledging
- **49:57** — Sign-off

**The recording lives on Ivan Puopolo’s own channel and he owns it.** This page is a record of the appearance and a pointer to the original, not a copy of it. The chapter marks above are derived from the recording itself; the episode carries no published chapter list of its own.

A fuller write-up is on Neuvottelija AI, [in English](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/viisastelu-elokapina-koneen-saatio-ja-perintovero/) and [in Finnish](https://www.neuvottelija.fi/poliittinen-satiiri/viisastelu-elokapina-koneen-saatio-ja-perintovero/).

Original recording (Viikon viisasteluklubi): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FLt0Jq0FIk

---

Cite as: Sami Miettinen, guest on Viikon viisasteluklubi Viisastelu 27.9.2024 — May an activist be interviewed, what a foundation supervises, and the Swedish model for inheritance tax — Sami Miettinen on Weekly Wiseguys, 2024-09-27, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FLt0Jq0FIk. Record: https://www.neuvottelija.com/media/viisastelu-elokapina-kone-foundation-and-inheritance-tax/.