Data sources used in the
production of Short Term
Business statistics
Reeta Koukkula
8.9.2005
Finnish tax system
Value added taxation
Tax liability
 Commercial selling of goods and services, imports, farms
 Exemptions
 Small scale activity: annual turnover < EUR 8,500
 Health care, social welfare, education, financial and
insurance services, real property, lotteries and money
games, performance fees
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8.9.2005
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Value added taxation
VAT rates
 22%: general rate
 17%: food and animal feed
 8%: passenger transport, accommodation, medicines,
books, public broadcasting, cinema
 Tax-exempt turnover
 Subscriptions to newspapers and periodicals, printing
services for membership publications, international trade
to non-EU Member States

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8.9.2005
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Employer payments
All employers paying wages and salaries are obliged to
withhold earned income tax from wages and salaries and to
pay social security contributions
 Regular wage and salary payer
 Two or more regular employees or simultaneously at
least six employees
 Non-regular wage and salary payer
 At maximum one regular employee or temporarily a
maximum of five persons

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8.9.2005
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Periodicity
VAT return
 Primary producers and visual artists: annual reporting and
payment
 Others: monthly tax return and payment
Due on the 15th of the second month following the reference
month
 Return for employer payments
 Regular wage and salary payers: monthly tax return and
payment
Due on the 15th of the month following the reference month
 Non-regular wage and salary payers: annual reporting and
payment

Reeta Koukkula
8.9.2005
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Monthly tax return
Data used in the production of Short Term Business
Statistics
 VAT timetable (m=month, d=day)
1 m 15 d monthly tax return to Tax Administration
2m
data input and sending to Statistics Finland
2 m 5 d data combined and partly checked
 Employer payments data one month faster

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8.9.2005
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Monthly tax return data
Arrives at Statistics Finland once a month in 2 text files from
the National Board of Taxes
 Every file contains data for 6 months: the reference month
and 5 previous months. Therefore the indicators for
turnover and wages and salaries may revise 5 months after
the first publication
 The first delivery contains about 90% of the total sum of
turnover/wages and salaries.
 Files also contain additional variables: branch, place of
assessment, actual amount of taxes paid by bank transfer

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8.9.2005
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Problems with monthly tax return data
Some enterprises are not tax liable or are not required to
report monthly (small scale activity, health care, etc.)
 Human errors in filling the forms, errors in the optical
reading
 Overall quality fairly good

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8.9.2005
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Direct data collection
Direct data collection is necessary when producing more
timely indices (delay less than 75 days in turnover).
 In some cases direct data collection is more reliable.
 Large enterprises doing business in several branches are
divided into kind-of-activity units.

Reeta Koukkula
8.9.2005
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Direct data collection
Turnover inquiry for the largest companies of their
branches (about 2000 enterprises)
 Wages and salaries inquiry only for the kind-of-activity units
(about 93 kind-of-activity units)
 Option inquiry for the enterprises having option programs
(about 250 enterprises). Options are eliminated from
wages and salaries indicator.

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8.9.2005
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Direct data collection
Companies may answer to the inquiry via mail, fax, e-mail
or on the Internet.
 Electronic data collection on the Internet
 Simplifies the data collection process
 Reduces need for human resources
 Reduces other data collection costs
 Speeds up the data accumulation

Enables direct individual feedback for respondents
 Enables previously submitted data browsing


75-80 % of the companies use electronic data supply
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8.9.2005
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Background information on enterprises
Background information for the enterprises is acquired from
Business Register
 Branch (NACE code), institutional sector, address, legal form
 Main data source for Business Register is data supplied by
the Tax Administration. Direct data collection is also
important source.

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8.9.2005
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