Fair taxation

SDGs 8, 10 and 16

Fair taxation also has a positive impact on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 8. We promote this goal by monitoring any shortcomings, for example. Eliminating the shadow economy and any violations in working life, and ensuring fair competition enable work and economic growth.

The UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 10 seeks to reduce inequalities in and between countries. Target 10.3 has been defined as follows: Ensure equal opportunity and reduce inequalities of outcome, including by eliminating discriminatory laws, policies and practices and promoting appropriate legislation, policies and action in this regard.

We promote these goals by means of effective tax processes, guidance and control. Tax control and guidance aim to ensure that all taxpayers know how to meet their obligations and are able to do so.

UN Sustainable Development Goal 16 aims for peace, justice and strong institutions. Target 16.3 aims to promote the rule of law at the national and international levels and ensure equal access to justice for all.

We build trust between business partners and in public procurement. The measures we use include monitoring the registration of companies and the meeting of obligations, tackling the grey economy and maintaining the public tax debt register.

We promote the accuracy of taxation internationally. We are involved in developing the international exchange of information, and carry it out in the best possible manner.
In addition, we ensure that obtaining information on taxation is guaranteed as required by law. We disseminate public taxation information, maintain and publish statistics on taxation, and publish our financial statements.

Transparent guidance and control

Proactive guidance

Proactive guidance refers to contacting certain limited customer groups with the aim of ensuring that customers act correctly and on time and through this, ensure the tax revenue. Proactive guidance is implemented through means such as letters, SMSs, telephone, advance discussions and training events.

In 2024, we sent nearly 1.1 million guidance letters (2023: 4.5 million). The decrease was due to the shifting the focus to other steering instruments to reduce paper mail. We made 4,913 telephone calls to guide customers (2023: 4,048), including new entrepreneurs, companies, associations and berry farms. We also sent text messages to our taxpayers to remind them of current issues, such as the deadlines for reporting and paying value-added tax. In 2024, we sent 163,169 SMSs (2023: 138,055).

Tax control

In tax control, we carry out so-called desk audits and tax audits. Desk audits involve the Finnish Tax Administration making changes to the customer’s tax assessment after having noticed errors or shortcomings in the information provided by the customer. Before making any modifications, the customer is asked for an explanation of the matter. In tax audits and the efforts to combat the grey economy, the means and sources of information used are more versatile, and the customer’s activities are usually investigated more thoroughly compared to desk audits.

Tax audit resources are used flexibly to tackle tax risks or risk phenomena that are recognised in our guidance and control plan, new and already known. We choose the most appropriate measures as the guidance and control measures, ranging from lighter preventive measures to tax audits, according to the nature and significance of the tax risk.

In 2024, a total of 4,354 different types of control measures were completed (2023: 5,372). This decrease is explained by the fact that a control project was carried out during the comparison year 2023, which used a higher number of control measures that were much more lightweight than tax audits. There were a total of 1,429 tax audits (2023: 1,371).

In 2024, we imposed a total of EUR 296 million in taxes on the basis of the control measures (2023: EUR 163 million). The figure for 2024 included individual cases with high significance in euro terms that had no equivalents completed during the comparison year 2023.

Smooth registration for customers and changes in the registration position are prerequisites for launching and continuing business activities. Our task is to ensure the preconditions for the prepayment, employers and VAT register and to ensure that the registers are up to date.

In 2024, we removed some 19,100 customers from the VAT registers on the initiative of the authorities and prevented the registration of approximately 5,000 customers. In 2024, we removed just over 22,000 customers from the VAT registers on the initiative of the authorities and prevented the registration of approximately 5,900 customers. In the efforts to combat the grey economy, we also blocked and removed operators not meeting the criteria set for registration from the prepayment and VAT registers. There were 2,760 such cases (2023: 2,437).

Registration has also played a key role in monitoring sanctions against Russia and in combating identity fraud.

Publicity of tax information

According to the standard Finnish practice, after the completion of income taxation, we provide the media with information about the income taxation of individuals in electronic format. In 2024, the limit for disclosing the data was raised to EUR 120,000. The public information about the income taxation of corporate entities is published on vero.fi in a downloadable and reusable format.

The publicity of the information on the income taxes of individual and corporate taxpayers and real estate tax expanded in September 2024, when we began publishing monthly data on changes in taxpayers’ income and property taxation. Data on review of tax decisions will be public from the tax year 2022 onwards. The aim is to improve the accuracy of public information and combat the shadow economy.

We also produce detailed statistical data on taxation in a manner that is unique in international comparison.

Metrics and goals

We monitor our successes and develop our operations using the following metrics and goals:

¹⁾ Customer attitude survey, September–October 2024 (n = 950). Since 2022, the survey has differed from previous surveys in that it uses a five-tier response scale including a neutral option (neither agree nor disagree), compared to a four-tier scale without any neutral option in the previous surveys. The actual figures have been converted into a statistically comparable format.

¹⁾ In 2022, the calculation method was changed so that the figure includes the actual debiting of income tax from audited natural persons, considering progressive taxation, whereas an assumed tax rate of 20% was previously applied to income increases made during tax audits. The direct impact of capital gain tax findings was not addressed previously either. Considering the calculation changes above, the adjusted tax impact of measures carried out in 2021 would have been EUR 234 million.

Highlights from 2024: Information on taxation and economic crime for young people

Responsible membership of society and combating the grey economy are key themes in our communication to young people about to enter the labour market and in the early stages of their careers.

In 2024, we updated the content of the verokampus.fi website for young people to make it easier for young people to manage their own tax matters. The tax campus provides understandable tax information for different life situations. On the website, we provide information on topics such as tax cards when being hired for the first summer job or what young people should consider if they employ themselves as a light entrepreneur. The Tax Campus uses a positive tone: what would a responsible citizen and a responsible employer do?

A brand new section, “How does the Finnish tax system work?” shows all the things enabled by tax revenue, i.e. how taxes and other levies are used to build a safe society that takes care of its members. In the section for teachers and those working with young people, we made ready-made task packages on taxes that can be used during lessons. The tasks are aimed especially at lower secondary school pupils and their parents.

We also inform young people about crime related to the grey economy. Our aim is to help young people understand that criminals may try to exploit them in economic crimes. At the same time, we will explain the consequences of seeking easy money linked to criminal activity. We selected a true crime-style podcast series “Money Crimes podcast” as the method. The podcast was produced in Swedish and English using advanced speech synthesis.