VAT mark in Finland is ALV or MOMS

The standard rate in Finland is 24% (before July 7th 2010, it was 22%), with another two kinds of tax rates:

13% ( before July 1st 2010, it was 12%)

9% ( Before July 1st 2010, it was 8%)

Tax Refund Scope:

• Travel expenses (hotel accommodation, catering, transportation, communications)

• Construction costs of exhibition stand

• Real estate services expenses (leasing, construction, tearing down and repairing of house, intermediary services, employment of auctioneers, architects, lawyers, surveyors, engineers, audit services, property assessments, surveys)

• Development and exploration costs (oil, natural gas, minerals)

• Conditions surveys and research expenses of land and sea-bed (earthquakes, geology, geomagnetism)

• Related expenses of overseas offices, representative offices and liaison offices (house rental, utilities, office furniture, decoration, etc.)

• DROP-SHIPPING (purchasing, transportation and manual operation expenses that produced by purchasing goods from one EU country and delivering to another)

• Import tax

• Subcontract

Non-Tax Refund Scope: 

• Business and entertaining hotel, gifts consumption

• Private consumption; e.g.: hotel breakfast

• Expenditures produced by goods-purchasing and services provided by travel agency

Minimum Tax Refund Amount: 

Quarterly: 400 euro

Annual: 50 euro

Valid Period of Tax Refund: 

• Invoice of the current year (subjecting to the date of invoice) needs to submit tax refund application before June 30th the next year; For example: if the date of invoice is December 30th, 2010, this invoice must be submitted to the Finnish tax bureau before June 30th, 2011 for tax refund application. 

Documents Required for Tax Refund: 

• Certificate of Authorization (handled by our company and your company just needs to sign and seal)

• Tax Registration Certificate (handled by our company, signed and sealed by your company )

• Copy of Tax Registration Certificate (with official seal)

• The original invoice (electronic version of the invoice is also acceptable)

Processing Period: 

• The processing period published by Finnish tax bureau is 6 months. Usually Chinese companies can receive the tax refund payment within 6 months after submitting tax refund application.

• Even if the Finnish tax bureau has inquired all the documents within 4 months since they received the tax refund application, according to the Finnish tax laws, the tax refund payment mustn't be delivered earlier than 4 months since the receiving day of tax refund application. Therefore, Chinese companies often can receive tax refund payment within 4 to 6 months.