A cooperative is required to keep records and pay taxes for its activities. Taking up its business must be notified to the Finnish Tax Administration.
The cooperative’s incorporation on notified on Form Y1. The same form is used to file the cooperative at the Trade Register of the Finnish Patent and Register Office and the different registers of the Finnish Tax Administration, namely Tax Prepayment Register, Employer Register and VAT filing register for the VAT liable. At the same time, you are required to submit the information necessary to calculate the prepayments according to the estimated turnover and the taxable income of the cooperative.
For paying salaries, the cooperative has to be filed at the Employer Register as a regular employer if there are at least two employees paid regularly and uninterruptedly during one year or if at least six employees are working with interrupted employment periods.
The cooperative must be filed at the Prepayments Register, if it conducts business or pursues a profession, just to mention some examples. Any payer of work compensation can verify the status of worker or service provider on-line by contacting the public YTJ information service or by telephone at the Tax Administration.
More information is available on the website of the Tax Administration or from customer service points. The forms and their filling instructions are available from YTJ information service.
As soon as the notification of incorporation has reached the Finnish Patent and Register Office, the ELY center, the Digital and Population Data Services Agency, or the Tax Administration, the notification is filed in the Business Information System, and the entity is given a business ID, the so-called Y-tunnus. This ID must be used when dealing with the Tax Administration and in the letters and forms (orders, offers. Invoices) of the undertaking.