Harmonised high-quality activities
Our processes ensure that our customer and employee guidance is harmonised and nationwide. Customers can see this as equal and even-handed processing.
Our customer service model addresses each customer as an individual without any discrimination. We have already trained more than 1,000 employees regarding the model.
We respond to our customers’ individual needs by providing a broad service channel range and constantly developing customer solutions based on customer understanding and targeted at different customer groups, including young people and immigrants. We develop our services with our stakeholders.
Our equality and non-discrimination plan for our customers is available at the vero.fi website.
Automation improves the efficiency of taxation
The use of automation is a necessity in taxation due to the large data volumes processed. Automation improves the equal treatment of customers and the efficiency of taxation. We have estimated that, if it were not for automation, we would require new employees equalling roughly 2,000 annual work units. This would cost at least €110 million a year.
The automation used by the Finnish Tax Administration is based on precise pre-defined processing rules. We can only solve cases using automation if the decision does not require any specific consideration.
The new legislation prepared in 2022 and confirmed in 2023 ensures a legal basis for automated decision making in the Finnish Tax Administration. As a result, we can also expand the use of automation to car taxes and excise duties, and to decisions on claims for adjustment. By reducing necessary routines, employees can focus on more demanding and complex tasks that require consideration and assessment.
Tax control is effective
The Finnish Tax Administration’s control and supervision cover tax audits, the monitoring of incoming tax returns, and the provision of information and guidance.
In our tax control, we uncovered €534 million in undeclared taxes, up by 36% from 2021. The highest amount of taxes was levied based on tax audits, totalling €329 million. This showed an increase of roughly 50% from the previous year.
Even though the number of tax audits has decreased, their total amount has increased for years now. The reason for this is that we have been able to target audits more accurately. In addition, tax auditors conduct certain audits as lighter control or guidance measures which helps allocate more time to audits that produce the highest benefits. As a result, customers who follow the correct procedures or simply require guidance can avoid any laborious administrative measures.
Most of our control measures originate from the monitoring of incoming tax returns and other tax control conducted in conjunction with regular tax assessments. In the monitoring of tax returns, more than €200 million in undeclared taxes were uncovered, up by roughly 20% from the previous year.
Certain tax information is public
Only tax information defined separately in legislation is public. As a rule, tax documents and the information they contain are confidential.
With regard to individual taxpayers, we have needed to coordinate the publicity of tax information with the EU General Data Protection Regulation, which protects personal data. Public information about individual taxpayers is available on customer terminals at tax offices and by telephone.
According to the standard practice, we provide media services with information about individuals with more than €100,000 in earnings after the publication of income taxation for journalistic purposes. In 2022, the Supreme Administrative Court defined that taxpayers cannot object to the disclosure of their information to media services.
Public information about the income taxes of corporate entities is published at vero.fi in a downloadable and reusable format. We also compile extensive statistics on taxation.
In 2022, a legal amendment was made to expand the scope of publicity to reviewed tax decisions. Information on reviewed tax decisions will be public regarding the 2023 tax year, and the legal amendment will be applicable from September 2024. The publicity of information on reviewed tax decisions improves the quality and accuracy of public information, promotes the better fulfilment of personal data protection, and improves taxpayers’ legal protection.
Case: Congestion in claims for adjustment subsiding
In recent years, the transition to the flexible and individual preparation in individual taxation and the deployment of off-the-shelf software for taxation have decelerated the development of our productivity. The congestion in the processing of claims for adjustment started to subside in 2021, and the reduction of the backlog has made good progress. The total number of claims for adjustment in the backlog decreased by roughly 40%, and the share of claims for adjustment processed within six months increased from the previous year’s 22% up to 50%.
During the year, we received some 135,000 new claims for adjustment (2021: 154,000), and 179,000 claims were completed or removed as unnecessary. The number of employees in processing tasks has been increased temporarily to reduce the backlog. We have analysed the underlying reasons for claims for adjustments and found ways to reduce their number by further developing tax processes and the use of MyTax services.
Administrative courts issued 1,459 decisions on claims for adjustment in taxation. Decisions issued by the Assessment Adjustment Board were confirmed in 90% of cases.