Changes in the periodic tax return data used in turnover indices
In addition to our data collection, the production of turnover indices employs to a significant degree the Tax Administration's periodic tax return data covering nearly all business activity in Finland. Periodic tax return data consist of value added tax and employer's contributions data.
From the data for January 2017, enterprises whose annual turnover is under EUR 500,000 can report their monthly value added tax as payment-based in place of accrual-based reporting. At the same time, the name of the periodic tax return becomes self-assessed taxes. Earlier, value added tax has been, as a rule, reported immediately when the invoice was sent to a customer. If the enterprise moves to payment-based accounting, it makes a report only when it has received payment for its sale. From the perspective of turnover indices this means that the accumulation of data may slow down from one to two month, the temporal assigning of sales in the data may change and comparability may weaken. As it is not possible to know in advance to what extent the new reporting practice is adopted, we have prepared for data changes with different methodological alternatives. The extent of the adoption of the new reporting practice and its effect are followed monthly.