Incomes Register glossary
A party who has a legal obligation to pay wages and take out insurance for employees. The actual employer is the party who has hired the employee and in whose name the employee works.
Authorisation
The right to act on behalf of another with regard to certain matters. Payers grant authorisations in the Suomi.fi e-Authorisations service. The data user's Master User authorises other persons within their own organisation for the data user's roles.
Basic role
The basic role defines the search criteria with which the data user can search for reports in the e-service.
Benefit recipient
Benefit recipient refers to a natural person or a death estate to whom/which a pension or benefit is paid. A benefit recipient may also be referred to as an income earner. A benefit recipient may also be a foreign death estate that is treated as an organisation in taxation. In the benefits payment report, the person entitled to the benefit is reported as the benefit recipient even if the payment is made to a substitute recipient.
A payer is regarded as a casual employer if one of the following is true:
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- The payer only has one employee.
- The payer has up to five employees whose employment contracts do not cover an entire calendar year.
Employers who pay wages sporadically do not have to register with the employer register. Casual employers are only obliged to submit the employer’s separate report to the Incomes Register for the months during which they pay wages or reimbursement of expenses.
However, casual employers may register with the employer register voluntarily. If they do so, they will be considered equivalent to regular employers and must submit the employer's separate report each month.
Certificate
A certificate is an electronic verification that is used to identify the organisation providing or using the data and to ensure the integrity of the records. The Incomes Register's certificate service issues the certificates needed for using the technical interfaces.
Data access profile
A description of data disclosed from the Incomes Register to a data user for a certain purpose of use. The definition of a data access profile is based on the act on the incomes information system (laki tulotietojärjestelmästä 53/2018). An organisation's data access profile is defined in cooperation with the Incomes Register Unit.
Data access right
The statutory right to obtain certain data from the Incomes Register for a certain purpose of use. The disclosure of data is prescribed in section 13 of the act on the incomes information system (laki tulotietojärjestelmästä 53/2018).
Data permission
The decision by the Incomes Register Unit on the forwarding and disclosure of data to a certain data user. The data permission consists of an administrative decision and its appendices, where data access profiles, data user's roles and services are defined.
Data provider
Data providers are all companies and other operators that are subject to the obligation to report data to the Incomes Register laid down in the act on the Incomes Register. Data providers include employers, benefit payers and substitute payers.
Data user
In the Incomes Register, data users are the organisations and authorities to which the act on the Incomes Register (Laki tulotietojärjestelmästä 53/2018) grants the right to view and search for data reported to the Incomes Register. These parties may only use the data in the extent and for the purposes laid down in the act.
Data users provide advice to employers and other data providers on employer obligations and payments. In addition, data users steer the interpretation of the legislation in their purview.
Data user role
The data user role consists of the data access profile and the basic role. The data user's Master User authorises other persons within their organisation for the data user roles. The basic role defines the search criteria with which the authorised person can search for reports in the e-service. The data access profile defines what report data is displayed to the person.
Data user’s Master User
A person designated by the data user organisation who handles administrative matters in the Incomes Register, for example, authorises the persons in their organisation to act in selected data user's roles.
According to terminology provided in Palkkahallinnon sanasto, employment relationships are divided into contractual employment relationships and public-service employment relationships.
In the public sector pensions act (julkisten alojen eläkelaki 81/2016) (JuEL), the employment relationship is defined more broadly: Employment relationships covered by the act include not only contractual and public-service employment relationships, but also assignments, positions of trust and contracts concluded with carers and family day-care providers. In addition, atypical or short-term employment relationships for which a written employment contract is not necessarily made – for example when a nanny or a handyman is hired – should be reported to the Incomes Register.
E-service
In the Incomes Register's e-service, you can, for example, report data on an online form, search and browse data on submitted reports and send files to the Incomes Register via the upload service. The Suomi.fi authentication is used to log in to the Incomes Register's e-service.
Income earner
Income earners include all those who receive earned income, pensions or benefits.
Incomes Register
The Incomes Register is a national electronic database. It will contain a comprehensive range of individual level data on earned incomes, pensions and benefits.
Incomes Register Unit
A Tax Administration unit responsible for the operation of the Incomes Register.
International specialised agency
A specialised agency established with an international agreement. Such specialised agencies include the European Chemicals Agency ECHA, the Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission HELCOM, the World Institute for Development Economics Research, and the International Organisation for Migration IOM.
A system that ensures the payment of employees’ claims arising from an employment relationship in the event of the employer’s insolvency.
Payment date
The day on which the income earner can access the salary, benefit or pension, e.g. it can be withdrawn from their account.
Payers must submit data about payments made to the Incomes Register within 5 days of the payment date. If the 5th day is on a Saturday, Sunday or other holiday, you can report the data on the following business day.
A payer is regarded as a regular employer in the following situations:
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- The payer regularly pays wages to at least two employees.
- The payer regularly pays wages to one employee and also pays wages to at least one other employee whose employment is fixed-term or short-term.
- The payer pays wages to at least six employees whose employment contracts are fixed-term and short period.
Employers who pay wages regularly must register with the Tax Administration’s employer register before they begin wage payments. A regular employer must submit the employer’s separate report to the Incomes Register for each month.
Special role: Wages paid by own organisation
If the person has been granted the special role 'Wages paid by own organisation', their search results will also display the wages paid by the data user's own organisation. The special role is not included in the role of data user.
A payer who pays wages or another payment using their own funds on behalf of the party that has the actual payment obligation (actual employer). Usual substitute payers include enforcement agencies, wellbeing services counties, Kela, Centres for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment (ELY Centres) and bankruptcy estates.
Substitute recipient
Substitute recipient refers to a recipient of a payment to whom a benefit or part of a benefit is paid instead of the benefit recipient.
A substitute recipient should be reported to the Incomes Register if a payment is made to another benefit payer based on right of recourse (recourse payment) or if a benefit is paid to a recipient other than the actual benefit recipient for any other reason.
Technical interface
The technical interface is an integration established between different systems. As an example, an electronic connection is built between payroll software and the Incomes Register, allowing data to be transferred between the two applications. The Incomes Register has three interfaces: real-time Web Service, deferred Web Service, and SFTP. Using the interface requires a certificate.
Temporary employer is a concept used by earnings-related pension providers, describing whether or not the payer has taken out a pension insurance policy from an earnings-related pension provider. The employer arranges pension provision for its employees either as a temporary employer or contract employer.