Tax Authority Discloses Turnovers and Number of Employees since April
Businesses have a new opportunity to check the Background of their transaction partners and to increase the transparency of their activities. Since 10 April, the Tax and Customs Board is publishing on their homepage the turnovers and quarterly numbers of employees in addition to the sums of taxes paid.
In the opinion of the Chamber, publishing of the data by companies once in a quarter helps making the competitive conditions more fair and allows valuing the employers who create jobs.
Director General of the Chamber, Mait Palts said that this is a step in the right direction. “Businesses want to have an honest business environment and publishing the number of employees and turnover will facilitate that. This functions primarily from the point of view of public control,” he said. “All possible measures for decreasing the ever-expanding tax hole and ensuring honest competition are always welcome and would expect more active presenting of such initiatives from politicians, officials as well as different organisations,” said Palts.
The sums paid are published for each quarter by the 10th date of the month following the quarter. The Tax Authority disclosed the data on taxes paid together with turnovers and number of employees for the first quarter on 10 April 2017.
Rivo Reitmann, Director General of the Tax and Customs Board said that the authority wishes to reflect the data collected from business back to them. “In addition to adding turnovers and number of employees to the table of taxes paid, we have also created a special tax data certificate with the help of which the transaction partners can give each other overviews of their economic activities,” said Reitmann.
The tax data certificate can include a company’s data on labour force, salaries, turnovers and tax arrears and such certificates can be sent directly via the e-tax office/e-customs with the digital stamp to the transaction partner. “In such manner, the transaction partners can increase assurance that the tax affairs of both parties are in order. This is to help to increase the probability that the transaction concluded will be a success,” explained Reitmann.
In order to get the tax data certificate, one has to log in to the e-tax office/e-customs and select Claims and Obligations > Certificates > Tax Data Certificate. The certificate can be drawn up for the data of an individual (salary data, employers, other revenue etc) as well as of a company (turnover data, payments made to employees etc), and it is possible to select whether to present all the data or a selection of them. Using the tax data certificate service is voluntary and the data will be sent by the person. More information of the tax data certificate is available at the homepage of the Tax and Customs Board.