Data sources used in the
production of Short Term
Business statistics
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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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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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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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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
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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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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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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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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.
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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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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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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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