Taxes The dead rise in the taxpayer’s income listings in a confusing way – Underlying the system reform

Tax Administration the system reform has led to a confusing situation in the public tax records of the deceased. A person previously registered as a estate may appear in the most recent tax information in their own name without the estate entry.

Deaths created in and after the tax year 2019 do not end up in public tax data at all. The mere name of a person reads, even if it is actually the estate.

The estates may have even risen to the top of the leaderboards. For example, in the tax year 2019 three estates were among the 20 with the highest taxable income.

One of the high-income estates had time to appear as an estate at first, but later only a personal name has appeared in public tax information.

It’s about is a reform of the tax administration system.

The taxpayer entered the word estate in connection with the name of a person who had died for decades in Finnish or Swedish. If the estate was undivided and taxable at the end of the year, the information ended up in the public tax records.

Thus, before the tax year 2019, the public tax data showed with certainty that the object of taxation is the estate and no longer a natural person who had already died. In Finnish, the entry that appears in connection with the name is the estate or the abbreviation kp and in Swedish dödsbo, sterbhus or the abbreviation db.

Public tax information is available at the tax office or by telephone from the taxpayer. For the highest income earners, income and tax information is available, for example, from Helsingin Sanomat’s tax machine.

Read more: All a thousand people who have requested the encryption of their income are now in Helsingin Sanomat’s tax machine – public tax data was collected manually

Some years ago, the tax administration reformed its information systems. The information on the estate was no longer automatically attached to the name information, but the information on the estate began to be treated as information separate from the name.

Specialist in the Tax Administration Staff and Legal Unit Taito von Konow says the new approach “corresponds to the wording of the law”.

He refers to the Law on the Disclosure and Confidentiality of Tax Information, which states that personal information includes the name of the taxpayer, the year of birth, and the province. When the estate information is no longer associated with the name, it does not automatically end up in public tax information.

“The name information does not contain any attribute that would further determine the status of the person. Names are regulated by the Names Act, ”von Konow explains.

According to the tax administration, information about new estates is therefore no longer in practice public information.

Specialist von Konow does not take a direct position on the question of whether it would be appropriate to return the information on the estate to all the estates in order to obtain a correct and reliable picture of taxation.

“It is good to be aware that a customer is on the tax register when a person lives and also after death. This means that the appearance of a person’s death information should be regulated separately, in which case this is a matter of law, ”von Konow explains.

No legal preparations are reportedly underway to restore the estate information.

Information the estate has not been removed from all public tax records, but the old undivided estates will also continue to live as public estates until they are divided. Statistics from the tax administration show that, for example, in the tax year 2020, there will be information about the estate in connection with the names of about 130,000 people.

“After the tax year 2018, the estate has not appeared in the name if the person has died after 2015. The tax administration does not have figures on how much of this information is available, nor on how much of it has been and is not visible in the past, ”says von Konow.