Public disclosure of tax debt information

This guidance concerns both individual and corporate taxpayers.

If VAT, payroll withholding, or employer contributions are unpaid at the due date printed on the reminder letter and their total is at least €15,000, the tax debt will be published on the public protest list.

Advance information about the possibility of public disclosure of the tax debt is given on the reminder, which is included in the summary showing your tax payment status. The summary is updated in MyTax at the beginning of each month.

Where is tax debt information published?

Tax debt information is not published on tax.fi or other channels operated by the Tax Administration. Instead, we send the list of debts to Suomen Asiakastieto Oy, Dun & Bradstreet Finland Oy and Edita Oy at the end of the month that follows the month when the MyTax summary was created. The debts are then listed on the pages of Kauppalehti, Taloussanomat and the Official Gazette; they publish a protest list and keep it updated on their respective websites.

Not only the Tax Administration but also the enforcement authority may submit tax debt information for public disclosure on the protest list. The reasons for an enforcement authority to do so are: Enforcement proceedings with long duration, a conclusion made during enforcement proceedings that the taxpayer is unable to pay, or that the taxpayer is unknown. The enforcement authority does not apply the 15,000-euro threshold. Instead, it may submit lower amounts for public disclosure as well.

When is tax debt information not published?

No tax debt information is submitted for publication if the amounts referred to in the MyTax summary are:

• fully settled, or have a remaining balance below €15,000
• covered by a payment arrangement that the Tax Administration has approved
• Suspended due to an appeal procedure
• Suspended due to a stay of proceedings in connection with an appeal procedure  
• Covered by a debt adjustment program of a private individual, by a corporate restructuring program of a company, or by a temporary injunction of recovery action.  (If some tax debts remain outside the debt adjustment or corporate restructuring, submitting information on them for the protest list is possible.)

If none of the above factors are present, public disclosure of the taxpayer's tax debts is not prevented and they are automatically submitted for protest listing.

Facts made public on the Protest List

The following details are published:

• Taxpayer's name; if the individual is self-employed, his or her business name is shown also
• Business ID
• Municipality of domicile
• Amount of the unpaid taxes concerned (VAT, payroll withholding, employer's health insurance contribution)

If the taxpayer has a personal protection order, their municipality of domicile is not disclosed on the protest list.

Payment of a protest-listed debt, cancellation of publication 

When the taxpayer has paid the tax debts published on the Protest List in full, they can request the Tax Administration to notify the agencies the tax debt information was sent to that the debt has been paid. After information is sent out stating that a debt is paid, the bad credit score record is removed in 30 days.

Accordingly, the Tax Administration does not automatically notify the parties to whom the tax debt information was sent earlier. You, the taxpayer, must ask the Tax Administration to notify them. You can call our service number 029 497 028 (standard call rates) to ask the Tax Administration to do so.

The Tax Administration will cancel a Protest List entry on the taxpayer's request if the entry had been made due to an error on the Tax Administration's part. The agencies who publish the tax debt information will be notified of the cancellation.