1. 8.9.2005Reeta Koukkula Data sources used in the production of Short Term Business statistics

2. 8.9.2005 2 Reeta Koukkula Finnish tax system 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 Value added taxation

3. 8.9.2005 3 Reeta Koukkula 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 Value added taxation

4. 8.9.2005 4 Reeta Koukkula 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 Employer payments

5. 8.9.2005 5 Reeta Koukkula 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

6. 8.9.2005 6 Reeta Koukkula 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 2 m data input and sending to Statistics Finland 2 m 5 d data combined and partly checked Employer payments data one month faster

7. 8.9.2005 7 Reeta Koukkula 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

8. 8.9.2005 8 Reeta Koukkula 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

9. 8.9.2005 9 Reeta Koukkula 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.

10. 8.9.2005 10 Reeta Koukkula 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.

11. 8.9.2005 11 Reeta Koukkula 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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17. 8.9.2005 17 Reeta Koukkula 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.