Guidance for requesting adjustments to prepayments, corporate taxpayers

The Tax Administration calculates your prepayment on the basis of what you have reported on your latest tax return for the latest tax year, or on what you reported on a submitted application form. A tax year covers all the accounting periods that have an end date during the calendar year. Because income tax returns are expected to be submitted separately for each accounting period, several tax returns may be the source of the amounts, facts and information that the Tax Administration uses for the taxpayer's prepayment calculations. Requests for revised prepayments are accepted if your prepayments are too high/low for the accounting period that has ended last, or if they are too high/low for the current year, and also if they are too high/low for the following year. You can also send us a request for a prepayment calculation if no prepayments have yet been imposed.

The goal is to match the prepayments to your future tax liability as accurately as possible. The official decision and the set of invoices (ennakkoveropäätös in Finnish; beslut om förskottsskatt in Swedish) show information on the calculations and the due dates of the instalments.

Contents of the application form and its enclosures

To get a calculation of an amount to be prepaid or to have your existing prepayment decision changed, you should fill out an application form and send it to the Tax Administration electronically. Use MyTax. Alternatively, you can send the application through Apitamo/ApitamoPKI-interface. To send it on paper is not accepted unless you have a special reason for it.

You should only fill in the column for the tax year that is relevant to your request.

Enclosures are not mandatory. The Tax Administration sends you an information request if more information is needed.

Your completed form must give details on taxable income and deductible expenses for the entire year if you are submitting it for having your prepayments lowered during the current year. However, if you are submitting it for having your prepayments increased, it is enough if you just give an estimate of taxable income for the entire tax year.

To make the prepayments higher, lower, or to have them cancelled

You can have your prepayments increased if you find that the amounts will be too small. You can have them reduced if you find that they are too high. It may also be that the tax office will cancel your prepayments. This would happen if it is likely that no income tax will be imposed for your business.

The deadline for requesting increased, reduced or cancelled prepayments is before ten months have elapsed after the end of the tax year. However, our data processing system cannot handle application forms that arrive to the Tax Administration just before the taxpayer's assessment is finalised. For this reason, we recommend submitting the form no later than when nine months after the end of the tax year.

Corporate taxpayers' tax year ends when the calendar year's last accounting period ends. For example, if a business has set 30 June 2018 as its accounting period end date and there is no other accounting period ending in 2018, the end date of its 2018 tax year is 30 June 2018. Consequently, the recommended deadline for an application regarding the 2018 prepayments is 31 March 2019. However, if this business were to have another accounting period ending the same year, 1 July 2018 to 31 December 2018 for example, the end date of the tax year would be 31 December 2018 and the recommended deadline date would be 30 September 2019.

Asking for new or increased prepayments after the tax year has ended

You can pay an "additional prepayment" after the tax year to supplement your prepayments and avoid the interest that would have to be paid otherwise. No interest will be charged for additional prepayments made during the first month after the end of the tax year. After the end of the tax year, you must apply for prepayments by submitting a prepayment change request.

If such a request or a request for increased prepayments is made after the tax year has ended, you can select a convenient due date. The default due date is three weeks after the date of the decision. Users of MyTax can select any banking day prior to the default due date. However, it cannot be earlier than the date of the decision.

Information on how request forms are handled

The decision on prepayments will be available for viewing in MyTax as soon as your request has been processed. Electronically submitted forms are dealt with as closely to "real time" as possible. MyTax shows the prepayments that the Tax Administration has imposed, including the details on their payment.

If you have paid too much by mistake, we will refund any excess prepayments to you after approximately one week. You do not have to request this refund. If a refund is made before the end of the first month after the end of the tax year, no interest is added to it. The size of the instalment does not change for the month when a revised calculation is performed, unless the prepayments total decreases so that the current month's instalment is no longer necessary. If you submit your request before the monthly due date, the instalment for that month can be removed if you ask for it. To ask for removal, you must enclose a free-form letter with the request form.

The prepayment calculation

To complete the form, you must list the profits or losses separately for each one of your sources of income, as required by law, if you are requesting prepayments in respect of the year that ended (the "For previous tax year" column on the left). If you are requesting prepayments for the current and/or the next year (the middle and right columns), you must give estimates for the entire year and for each one of your sources of income.

Under each income source, you must report the total profits or losses for all the accounting periods that end during the tax year. If you are requesting prepayments for the current tax year or next tax year, you must also present a calculation that outlines how financial results will be formed. The first step is to specify your taxable revenue. Then you deduct the deductible expenses from it. The resulting difference is the estimated taxable income for your combined sources of income.

Result derived from the business source of income

Enter revenue minus expenses on this line.

Profit derived from the personal source of income

Enter the revenue minus expenses that relates to your personal income source.

Profit derived from the agricultural source of income

Enter the revenue minus expenses that relates to your agricultural income source.

Taxable revenue

Sales/Turnover

Enter amounts from your accounting records.

Financial revenue

Enter the taxable or partially taxable dividends and interest payments you receive, profit shares from partnerships and consortia, and any similar revenue items.

Other business revenue

Enter the taxable revenues that relate to your fixed assets, your receipts of public subsidies, rental income and any similar items.

Tax-deductible expenses

Goods and services

Enter your purchases of goods and services during the accounting period and include an amount reflecting the change of your inventory.

Payroll expenses

Enter wages, fees, pensions and other personnel costs.

Depreciation and write-offs

Enter your deductible depreciation and write-off expenses.

Financial expenses

Enter your interest payments, group subsidies if you pay any, and any comparable expenses.

Other business expenses

Enter rental or other expenses for your business space, supplies, business travel and marketing and other comparable expenses.

Total

Enter the difference between taxable revenue and deductible expenditure.