Concepts and definitions
- General government
The term "general government" in ESA 1995 denotes the public sector and includes central government, (federal) constituent states, local government, and social security funds. The Finnish general government sector includes the State, municipalities and intermunicipal authorities, the regional government of the Åland Islands, and social security funds. Unincorporated market producer enterprises owned by the state or municipalities are not included. The state sector includes the state budget economy and extra-budgetary funds.
Social security funds include all institutional units that administer the statutory social security system, such as the Social Insurance Institution, the Unemployment Insurance Fund, funds that manage unemployment and disability schemes, as well as companies, pension institutions, pension funds and public institutions (e.g. the Local Government Pensions Institution) that manage statutory employment pension insurance schemes. Finnish employment pension institutions are classified into the general government sector according to a decision given by the European Commission in January of 1997.
Not included in employment pension institutions are funds and foundations that manage voluntary pension. Prior to the statistical year 2000 these so-called "A" pension funds and foundations and the "A" parts of "AB" pension funds and foundations could not be separately itemised from data gathered from employment pension institutions.
- Net tax ratio
The net tax ratio expresses the tax ratio minus the proportion of GDP consisting of general government subsidy payments to the private sector and of income and capital transfers (except so called voluntary social benefits in kind).
- Social security contributions
Social security contributions (OECD Classification of Taxes heading 2000) covers all compulsory payments that confer an entitlement to receive a (contingent) future social benefit. These include a) employers' social security contributions, e.g. unemployment insurance and old-age insurance premia paid by employers, b) employees' social security contributions, e.g. unemployment insurance and old-age insurance premia paid by employees, employees' contributions to the National Pension Insurance scheme and to the National Health Insurance scheme, c) social security contributions paid by independent entrepreneurs and non-employed persons, e.g. old-age insurance premia paid by entrepreneurs.
The OECD Classification of Taxes heading "Social security contributions" covers only statutory social security contributions, and does not include voluntary social security (a sub-heading under D.611 "Actual social contributions" in the national accounts).
- Tax ratio
The amount of compulsory taxes and other levies collected by general government during the year, expressed as a percentage of GDP for that year.
- Taxes and other levies
In OECD statistics, taxes and other levies include compulsory, unrequited payments to general government, including compulsory social security contributions and customs duties, sugar levies and levies on agricultural goods collected by the member states on behalf of the European Union.
- Taxes on goods and services
Taxes on goods and services (OECD Classification of Taxes heading 5000) covers all taxes and duties levied on the production, extraction, sale, transfer, leasing or delivery of goods, and the rendering of services, or in respect of the use of goods or permission to use goods or to perform activities. E.g. value added tax, excise duties on alcoholic beverages, motorcar tax, vehicle tax, waste tax.
"VAT own resources" collected from EU member states are shown as a tax of the EU member states in the OECD tax statistics. In the national accounts, these amounts are shown as a tax of the European Union.
- Taxes on payroll and workforce
Taxes on payroll and workforce (OECD Classification of Taxes heading 3000) covers taxes paid either as a proportion of payroll or as a fixed amount per person, and which do not confer entitlement to social benefits. Not in use in Finland at the present time.
- Taxes on property
Taxes on property (OECD Classification of Taxes heading 4000) covers recurrent and non-recurrent taxes on the use, ownership or transfer of property. These include taxes on immovable property or net wealth, taxes on the change of ownership of property through inheritance or gift and taxes on financial and capital transactions; e.g. the inheritance and gift tax, the asset transfer tax, and the immovable property tax.
Official Statistics of Finland (OSF):
Taxes and tax-like payments [e-publication].
Helsinki: Statistics Finland [referred: 19.5.2013].
Access method: http://www.stat.fi/til/vermak/kas_en.html.
Statistics
- Description
- Quality descriptions
- Methodological descriptions
- Concepts and definitions
- Classifications
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