This was a good verdict indeed.

One of the comments stated in the verdict is "Useimmissa tapauksissa etu saattaa olla niin pieni, ettei esimerkiksi vastaavan työsuhde-edun verottamista ole pidetty nimenomaisten säännösten nojalla perusteltuna.", i.e. "in most cases the benefit [received by the employee] is so small, that for example the taxation of a comparable employment related benefit, it has not been well-founded under explicit rules." What this means is that the highest court is putting low-value benefits, such as free coffee in the office, at par with the accumulation of frequent flyer benefits. This makes perfect sense: if the amount of points received per flight is a few thousand, whereas earning a "free" flight requires tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of points, the value of the benefit per flight is quite low for the employee.

The court concludes: "Lentopisteistä saadun edun ennakkoperintään liittyy näistä syistä sellaisia avoimia kysymyksiä, joiden vuoksi ei ole selvää, että etua olisi pidettävä palkkana ottaen huomioon, ettei osapuolten velvollisuuksista ja edun arvon määrittelystä ole nimenomaisia säännöksiä. Tässä tilanteessa ennakkoperintälakia on perusteltua tulkita niin, ettei kysymyksessä olevien lentopisteiden käytöstä muodostu sellaista etua, jota on pidettävä ennakkoperintälaissa tarkoitettuna työntekijöiden työnantajalta saamana palkkana. " i.e. "Regarding tax withholding related to benefits received from air travel points, there are so many open questions, that it is not at all clear whether such benefits should be considered salary, when taking into consideration that the obligations between the parties, and the valuation of such benefits, have not been defined in any regulations. Therefore, in this situation, the tax withholding law shall be with reason interpreted so that the use of airline points does not constitute such [taxable] benefit, which should be considered as salary received by the employee from the employer."

A verdict to the contrary would have resulted in quite "interesting" analysis of individual frequent flyer accounts. For example, my account has points received from 1) work-related flights, 2) personal flights, 3) credit card usage due to business reasons, 4) credit card usage due to personal reasons, 5) car rentals and hotel visits due to business reasons, 6) car rentals and hotel visits due to personal reasons, 7) etc. So if I were to book a flight using X points, the authorities would have a very interesting time trying to figure out how many "personal" and "work related" points I had used on the particular "free" flight.