Report by the Working Group for Tax Measures of the Finnish Tax Administration, Finnish Customs and Finnish Vehicle Administration

Summary

The working group examined ways to more effectively levy car taxes, excise duties, VAT on imports collected by the Finnish Customs as well as vehicle taxes, car taxes and fuel taxes collected by the Finnish Transport Agency. The working group examined different models for executing these taxes and the effects of the various models on customer impact, economic efficiency and productivity. The main emphasis was on exploring the advantages and disadvantage of bringing together the tax measures of the agencies in a centralized manner.

The working group concluded that the taxation procedures and processes for all the taxes examined are similar. This makes it viable to achieve greater benefit by bringing together these tax functions in one organization, and the working group deems the Tax Administration as the most appropriate in this case, because it is currently responsible for levying numerous types of taxes. In the working group’s view, by bringing these taxes under one umbrella it would be possible to better harmonize legislation related to the taxes and create uniform tax systems and allow effective use of the tax account system.

The proposal would also make it possible to boost productivity at least in the longer term and improve efficiency and customer impact, as a single authority would be responsible for the taxes. It would also make it possible to better develop competence and skills in work related to taxation. It would clearly bring cost savings at least in the longer term too, as only one authority would need to upgrade and develop information systems related to taxation.

The working group determined that it is not expedient at this point to transfer the collection of the vehicle tax executed by the Finnish Transport Agency. Vehicle taxes are levied based on a daily rate and largely dependent on the registration data of each individual vehicle and any changes in the data. It was not deemed financially expedient to transfer these systems to the Tax Administration.

The implementation of the proposal involves the transfer of around 250 employees calculated for 2009 from the Finnish Customs to the Finnish Tax Administration.

Language versions

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