Incomes Register in Finland

Transcription

1 Incomes Register in Finland Arto Leinonen Project Manager Ministry of Finance Iceland, Hella

2 Employer obligations in Finland Finnish Tax Administration EMPLOYER Calculation of salaries and contributions R E P O R T S The Social Insurance Institution Unemployment Insurance Fund Employee Pension Insurance Companies Insurance Companies Unemployment Funds Central Statistical Office of Finland Municipalities Employment and Economic Development Offices + Other reports and wage certificaties to smaller information users 2

3 What is the Incomes Register? The Incomes Register is a centralised national register for incomes information on individual level. It covers the following incomes: wages, salaries, pensions and benefits. The Register is a joint project between the Ministry of Finance and the Finnish Tax Administration (FTA). The FTA is in charge of system implementation and will be responsible for system administration once it is up and running. Technical solution is provided by Digia Finland. Technical project has started in December 2016.

4 Schedule: overview First launch: 1 st January 2019 Wages and salaries paid and associated transactions must be submitted to the system (no transition periods). Limited number of information users (next slide). Second launch: 1 st January 2020 The service will expand to include pensions and benefits. Extension of information users (next slide). Further development after year 2020 defined in visionary level. More services, more information (dividends, interests )

5 Incomes Register Information users Employees / Citizens Payslip & money Information providers Wage and salary information 2019 employers accounting firms other payroll administration companies Pension and benefit information 2020 The Social Insurance Institution Employee Pension Insurance Companies Unemployment funds Insurance companies etc. Incomes Register The Social Insurance Institution Municipalities Finnish Centre for Pensions Finnish Tax Administration Unemployment Insurance Fund Earnings-related Pension Insurance Companies and Institutions Unemployment Funds Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment administrative sector Occupational Safety and Health Administration The Education Fund Accident and Traffic Insurance

6 What are we trying to achieve? Strategic objectives and metrics National objectives Lower admin burden for businesses Improved public sector efficiency Improved public sector transparency and quality of services Incomes registry objectives Ease of use High level of automation Correct and real time info, always available Joint solutions Metrics for objectives Info provider satisfaction Amount of manual work % of volume handled automatically Info user satisfaction Coverage and adoption rate of technical interfaces 24/7/365 availability and performance Amount of separate, overlapping solutions 9/29/2017 6

7 Incomes Register: overview Employers, social benefit and pension contribution payers, insurance companies and other comparable payers submit income data in the system. The data is in most cases provided by the payroll solution provider or the accounting company, but the employer or other payer is always liable for the notification. All contributors submit data by payments and by employer/income receiver. Immediately after each payment and ordinarily not later than 5 days after the payment day. Possible to submit the data already before the payment day (after the payer has calculated the payments in its own systems). Some pieces of information can be submitted monthly by the 5 th day of next month (e.g. fringe benefits without money payments). Households (as employers) have always right to submit the data once in a month by the 5 th day of the next month after the payment day.

8 Incomes Register: overview The FTA is the controller (in accordance with GDPR) of the entire Incomes register (operation of the data system, data storage, data security etc.), but the payers are liable for correctness of the data and correction of emerged errors in data that they have provided. For the authorities, the Register does not expand the right to access the information provided by the employer or other comparable payer. The authorities can only access it if they would be entitled to do so based on legislation concerning their own administration. Individual citizens can browse their data, gaining access to "real-time" information on their wages, salaries, pensions and benefits. Citizens have access to same data/information as authorities. Contributing and using the data is free of charge.

9 Incomes Register: overview The data is submitted to Incomes Register on one single "notification" that contains necessary information for all information users. Some parts of information are voluntary, because they are only needed in handling of benefit applications within the social security (affects e.g. unemployment funds). Days of absence, labor agreements, contracted working hours, part-timing etc. If the voluntary part of information has not been submitted to Incomes Register, it is asked separately from employer when (and if) the information is needed. Reason for this procedure is that the obligatory notification of this information would have caused too much administrative burden for small(est) employers and households.

10 Incomes Register: overview Most of the data will be transferred automatically from digital accounting systems. Also possible to submit the data (manually) via web-service. For exceptional reasons possible to give the information on a paper form. Probably used by small(est) employers and households. Not recommended and not "advertised". One form about every payment to each employee. Forms are digitized immediately after receiving.

11 Legislation Incomes Register requires whole new legislation that has been drafted since spring 2015 in cooperation with all stakeholders of Incomes Register. Ministry of Finance is responsible for drafting the law. The government proposal is now (after 2½ years of hard work) in practice ready for parliamentary proceedings and it will be given to parliament in a few weeks. It has been a huge work to achieve compatibility with the existing legislation. The new "Lag om inkomstdatasystemet" should (and is hoped to) take effect from the beginning of 2018 (= before the system testings are starting).

12 Sanctions for failures to submit data A schematic administrative fee if the data has not been provided by the 8 th day of next month after payment day (= not connected with the 5 th day after payment day). Fee is quite small in minor delays; 3 euros per day and per employer for the first 45 days (after 8 th day of next month). Maximum is always 135 euros. After the first 45 days the amount rises so that 1 per cent of the gross income that has not yet been reported is added to the schematic fee. Fee is not imposed if the reason for the failure is in the data systems of the Incomes Register (technical problems etc.). The fee is not deployed during the first year (starts from ). During 2019 the main target is in guidance to follow the time limits.

13 Technical information Programming interface language is English. Data format is XML. Submitting and viewing data through the user interface always requires user identification. Payment data on salaries and wages will be transferred in the Incomes Register from 1 January 2019 and data on benefits and pensions from 1 January Deployment applies immediately to all system users without transition periods. Every employer must be ready to submit data from

14 Technical schedule: wages and salaries June 2017 Application programming interface released for salary and wage data November 2017 Test plan release January 2018 Systems ready for testing (provider interface, storage and user interface) March 2018 Testing of salary and wage data begins January 2019 First launch

15 Contact Ministry of Finance, Project Manager: Media: Communications Manager Ms Maria Björklund Read more: If you have any questions please don t hesitate to ask - we are happy to help you!