1. Recent development of Finnish Enterprise Groups Register
- Timo Laukkanen
International Roundtable on Business Survey Frames
Wiesbaden, October 2007

2. Content Coherence of the statistical output with FATS and EG register
Inter department development project
Main findings
Plans for developing the EG register
Towards direct links system and automatic updating
New administrative data for maintenance of the EG register
Tax Administration new data on ownership
Timo Laukkanen
October 2007

3. Coherence of the statistical output with FATS and EG register
Development project of the EG register and FATS statistics
Common interest, foreign owned enterprises in Finland =>Inward FATS, Multinational enterprise groups
Background: conflicting figures, overlapping efforts in data treatment, no common rules for treatment of problematic units, no common language
Aim
Harmonising the output of two statistics by harmonising definitions,
treatment of individual units and
rationalising the work process
Timo Laukkanen
October 2007

4. Coherence of the statistical output with FATS and EG register
Main benefits
Removing systematic differences in treatment of individual units: 50% rule, funds as UCI, inclusion/exclusion of certain unit present only in some administrative data
Reducing the workload with common efforts
‘Harmonised’ language (terminology, jargon, definitions) inside of Statistics Finland
Removing black-box difference from statistical output of two statistics
Knowing better other statistics processes, needs, data, etc...
Timo Laukkanen
October 2007

5. Plans for developing Finnish EG register
Impetus: new challenges, new data, old problems
Present database structure reflect the characteristics of data and user needs
Two relations model: EG - LeU and LeU -LeU relations
Data
Main data source consolidated annual accounts from the Board of Patents and Registration
Various styles for presenting the EG information
Main problem missing in-group owning shares
No problems in compilation the chain of control
Problems in presenting exact control/ owning shares in multilevel EGs if relying on direct links only
Timo Laukkanen
October 2007

6. Plans for developing Finnish EG register 2
User needs
Role of tax administration for EGR and BR
Allocation of enterprise revenue tax to local governments, verifications based on BR and EG register data. EG revenue taxes allocated according to 90% owning share cut-off
Exact owning shares used in other statistics
Conflict
Missing in-group owning links prevent simple reformulation of the EGR on ‘direct links only’ system. How to record unknown direct owner to database?
Simultaneous updating of EG-enterprise and direct links causes problems to automatic updating. Whole EG structure should be updated at single point of time for avoiding problems
Timo Laukkanen
October 2007

7. Plans for developing Finnish EG register 3
EGR development project launched in October 2007
Shift from two relations model to direct links based system
Renewal of software and processes used in EGR maintenance
Enabling automatic input and updating of data
Shift from manual data input to verifications
Idea
Completing the direct links information with Fix-links only in those links where missing information is crucial (4% of all links)
Fix link will be presented to first upper parent in chain of control where the problem is not present anymore
EGR updating based only on these direct links
EG structure presented in flavour of EuroGroups Register ‘consolidation’
Timo Laukkanen
October 2007

8. Simplified presentation
Total EG owning share 67,7%
Known direct owning share 35,2%
Missing direct shares 32,7%
Simplified presentation
Timo Laukkanen
October 2007

9. Q: How to include unknown in-group relations to direct links database?
A: Inclusion of the corrections to missing information only to Fix table.
Fix
Timo Laukkanen
October 2007

10. New administrative data source for EG updating
Before 2006 Tax administration collecting data about group contributions
No reporting if no group contributions
Representing only part of EG links
No ownership or control
From 2006 onwards
Renovation of business taxation reporting
Recording owners of the shares (‘parents’) and shares owned (‘subsidiaries’). Including legal and natural persons
High hopes turning to big disappointment?
First year of recording data in electronic form, improving the quality in following years?
Timo Laukkanen
October 2007

11. New administrative data...
Despite the problems in data
Data usable for automatic updating of certain EG links, focusing on small EGs
Improve linking of individual entrepreneurs and enterprise => Improving accuracy of number of entrepreneurs => Improving BR ability to serve other statistics
BR and EGR still looking best way for utilising the data
Feedback to Tax administration
Thank you!
Timo Laukkanen
October 2007