VAT data in Business Register and Business Statistics Natalia Dorontsova Lefeuvre September 28th 2010 / Wiesbaden Group 2010

Contents Overview VAT data as a tool to control the quality of Business Register units VAT data in Business Statistics Use of VAT Data – example of BAPAU survey Final remarks

Overview 2004: BR* received individual addresses of enterprises subject to VAT 2005: BR* started to receive VAT return data containing turnover information 2011-2012: Turnover individual data will be introduced in BR* for all relevant units * BR: Business Register

VAT data as a tool to control the quality of BR units Major problems in the BR: Errors in existence Errors in links and relationship characteristics Open issue: The current definition of the statistical universe is still relevant? Company Status Total enterprises Total of enterprises with VAT turnover > 0 Active enterprises (persons employed > 0) 410,328 273, 421 Inactive enterprises 196,182 29,371 Special Entities 575,538 23,301

VAT data in Business Statistics What is the quality of VAT data for business statistics? Good quality: only <1% of turnover data are problematic What is the relevance and coverage of VAT data for business statistics? Total coverage is more than 65% Coverage for medium and large enterprises is more than 85% Problems: Small and new enterprises Certain economic activities, like real estate, finance, education, health care and insurance activities Turnover is optional for public and agriculture sectors

Use of VAT data – example of BAPAU survey Construction Industry Production, Orders and Turnover Statistics Sampling frame: Population size: 20,350 enterprises Cluster sample size: 2,920 enterprises VAT turnover: 5.4% of the enterprises in the construction sector are missing and have been imputed with a robust regression method. The majority of missing turnover is for enterprises that are small and are not required to pay VAT. VAT turnover variable is used as an auxiliary variable for the weighting/calibration of the BAPAU survey.

Use of VAT data – example of BAPAU survey Results: The calibration to VAT data considerably improves the precision of the estimations of quarterly turnover data! The BAPAU survey is a good case for calibration, because the VAT turnover is known for almost all enterprises.   Coefficient of variation (CV) turnover CV ratio Factor: CV(M1) / CV(M2) 2009-4 2010-1 (2010-4 / 2009-4) NOGA M2 M1 Ratio 41 5.86% 11.90% 4.66% 13.43% 2.63% 2.03 2.88 2.23 42 4.70% 5.59% 4.83% 7.85% 2.13% 3.73% 1.19 1.63 1.75 43 3.40% 4.48% 4.34% 5.84% 1.96% 2.66% 1.32 1.34 1.36 Total 2.72% 4.56% 2.90% 5.73% 1.27% 2.57% 1.68 1.97 2.02

Final remarks VAT turnover serves to measure the quality of the register and to reduce the size of samples and the frequency of surveys. VAT turnover increases the effectiveness of results and data processing capabilities. VAT turnover has a great potential for estimating, plausibilising or imputing missing values.

Thank you for your attention