70 Claim for eliminating double taxation, instructions for completing the form, 2019
Submit this form to claim credit for foreign-paid taxes in your Finnish income taxation. The form can be e-filed as an attachment to your tax return for the year (in MyTax or through other electronic channels). If your company has paid taxes to foreign countries during the tax year, fill in the amounts in the appropriate fields. In addition, if taxes were paid abroad relating to earlier tax years and this has not been credited previously (due to a low amount of the income tax payable to Finland (so that the foreign tax was so high that it could not be subtracted from the income tax to Finland)), you can fill in the appropriate space on this form to demand credit.
The form (with further information) is available on the ‘Forms’ page
Enclose documentation with this form, indicating how much tax was paid to the foreign country, when and how it was paid, and what has been the basis for the foreign taxes.
If you want to provide additional information relating to the credit being claimed, you can enclose a free-text letter. Such information is needed in various circumstances including the situation where a company has received interest income or royalty income from sources in another EU country, and tax has been withheld at source. Indicate the legal entity form of the payer of interest or royalties and the ownership percentage in that legal entity that your company holds in it.
Further information: the Directive on interest and royalties (2003/49/EY).
If income was received from a Controlled foreign company (CFC) or from a permanent establishment in a foreign country, you must additionally enclose Form 74 (for the CFC) or Form 75 (permanent establishment).
Credit may be given for foreign-paid taxes for earlier years
If you have not yet received credit for taxes paid to foreign countries in earlier tax years, you can demand credit for them as well.
You can only use this form if such credit has not been given previously because the tax payable to Finland has been lower than the foreign-paid tax subject to crediting.
If, on the other hand, it would have been possible to give you credit for the foreign tax already in the year when you paid it, but your company did not file a claim for credit at that time, you cannot use this form. In this case, your company must submit a claim for adjustment for the tax year for which your company had paid the foreign tax.
If the foreign tax could not be credited previously, during the correct tax year, you must complete Form 70 in the usual way for the 2019 tax year, giving details for the foreign taxes relating to 2019. When completing your income tax return for the 2019 tax year, enclose a free-text account containing information on any foreign taxes for earlier years that remain uncredited. However, that enclosure is not necessary if your company already submitted the relevant information on the foreign taxes during the year concerned.
If it would have been possible to give your company credit for the foreign tax during the correct tax year but your company failed to submit information on it and did not demand credit, you must file a claim for adjustment.
Your free-text account and your claim for adjustment must both contain the following details:
- The amount of income
- The expenses relating to the income
- The amount of tax that credit is claimed for
- The name of the source country for the income, i.e. the country from which income was received
- The date when you paid the foreign tax, and the name of that tax (in Finnish and either in the local language or in English)
- The category of the income, such as dividends, royalty or interest, etc.
- The withholding rate set out by the provisions of the tax treaty
- The conversion rate for the foreign currency, if the income and the tax are not expressed in euros
- If applicable, an account explaining the circumstances of a fictive credit
Detailed instructions
Total amount of tax that credit is claimed for
Enter the total of all the taxes for which your company demands credit during the tax year.
This space must be filled in, if you submit information on new taxes that should be credited, i.e. you demand credit for taxes that were not reported to the Tax Administration before.
Do not fill in this space if you already informed the Tax Administration of all the foreign taxes that should be credited (either during the 2017 tax year or later, because the necessary information is already stored in the Tax Administration’s database).
If you submit Form 70 on paper and you have completed several forms, you should only enter the total amount on just one of your paper forms.
I demand to receive credit for the taxes reported for earlier years that are creditable but have not been credited before.
Tick the “yes” box as appropriate.
If either in 2017, or during a later year, you already informed the Tax Administration on these taxes, and you are not demanding credit now for any new taxes (that you have not informed the Tax Administration previously of), you should not fill in the other spaces on Form 70. The Tax Administration will process the information you give here, combining it with your previously submitted reporting.
Country code of the country of source
Give the name of the country from which the income was received.
Date when foreign tax was paid (ddmmyyyy)
Enter the date when the company paid the foreign tax.
Name of the tax to be credited
Give the name of the foreign tax you paid (in Finnish and either in the local language or in English).
Income category
These boxes are for the proper classification of the income (for example, dividends, interest, royalties, income derived from immovable property, capital gains received for the selling of assets/property, or business income).
Withholding rate based on tax treaty
Enter the percentage rate of withholding as laid down in the tax treaty between Finland and the country where the income is sourced, having looked up the proper rate in the treaty article that concerns the category of the income. If Finland and the country have no tax treaty, leave the field blank.
Exchange rate
Enter the rate used when converting the foreign-sourced income into euros.
Amount of income (including paid taxes)
Enter the gross income received from the country without subtracting the tax paid to that country, and without subtracting any expenses relating to the income.
Expenses relating to the income
Enter the appropriate expenses for the production of income, for the maintenance of the income, and interest; these expenses are tax-deductible in Finland.
Amount that should be credited
Enter the part of the tax you paid to the foreign country that your company claims credit for when its Finnish tax assessment is processed. Transfer the sum total of the different foreign taxes, from the spaces where you had entered them, to this space, field no 551.
The calculation for the maximum amount to be credited will be made in accordance with the following rules *):
- The calculation is based on the sources of income concerned.
- No higher credit can be given than the amount that Finnish tax rules would require as the tax to be imposed for the income concerned.
- In the same way, no higher credit can be given than the tax payable to Finland on the income derived from the same source of income. For example, if the source of income has resulted in a loss and as a result, no taxes to Finland are payable on that source of income, there can be no crediting for such tax paid to a foreign country.
- The amount remaining un-credited can be deducted from the taxes that relate to the same source of income during five upcoming tax years if the taxpayer claims deduction. Unused credits are processed in chronological order, taking account of the maximum permissible amount to be credited.
- Finland will only give credit for a tax that has been imposed in accordance with the provisions of the applicable tax treaty. If the country imposed a tax higher than that set out in the treaty, your company must submit a claim to the tax authorities of that country in order to demand refund of the excess amount.
*) The Finnish act on elimination of international double taxation (Laki kansainvälisen kaksinkertaisen verotuksen poistamisesta 1552/1995) and the tax treaties for the avoidance of double taxation between Finland and other countries.
Tax that should be credited
It is only possible for Finnish tax authorities to give credit for foreign-paid taxes when the paid amount has been a final tax, or when an advance tax has been paid that matches the final tax. Check the appropriate box.
If the amount of the final tax that you already paid to the foreign country should change, or if you claimed credit for a foreign advance tax that turns out to be not in line with the final tax that it was intended to match, you must inform the Tax Administration of the new amounts.
The tax treaty assumes fictive credit
Some of Finland’s tax treaties contain provisions allowing taxpayers to claim credit for taxes that the source country has not collected. If credit is given, it is called a fictive credit. You should only fill in the “Amount of foreign taxes paid” with an amount that your company actually paid. If fictive credit is allowable, you should include in the “Amount that should be credited”. In this case, tick the box for “The tax treaty assumes fictive credit”.