Extensions for the company’s bills

If your payments to the Finnish Tax Administration are late, you will be sent a reminder of unpaid taxes as part of the monthly summary that appears in MyTax.

If you are unable to pay taxes or make payments by the due date but the debts have not yet been transferred to enforcement, you can apply for a payment arrangement in MyTax. If the Finnish Tax Administration agrees to the payment arrangement, it will draw up a payment scheme for your company and give you some more time for the payments. Pay the taxes or payments including the interest to the Finnish Tax Administration according to the instructions given to you.

While your company has a payment arrangement in force, the Finnish Tax Administration will not transfer the taxes included in the payment arrangement to enforcement. It will also not publish the tax debt included in the payment arrangement in the tax debt register or on a protest list. In addition, your company will not be removed from the Prepayment Register.

If you have missed due dates on invoices to the Employment Fund, employment pension insurance company or other insurance company, you will receive a payment reminder. If you are unable to pay the invoices by the due date on the payment reminder, try to negotiate an extension for them.

If you do not make statutory payments despite payment reminders, they will be transferred to enforcement and

• the Finnish Tax Administration will publish information on your company’s tax debts and failures to file tax returns in the tax debt register. It will also send your company’s tax debt information for publishing on the protest list.
• the Employment Fund, employment pension insurance company and other insurance company are likely to send the information to the protest list as well.

A failure to pay taxes or statutory payments may also result in your company getting a payment default entry in the credit register. Usually, the entry also prevents your company from participating in public procurement processes. It may also make it considerably more difficult to get external funding and, for example, to take out insurances.

You can reach out to the creditors directly and negotiate with each of them a plan for the payment of the debts. A payment plan is a good option when your company’s payment problems are temporary and its future prospects seem promising.

In the plan, you agree with the creditors on how you will repay your debt. Remember to assess the amount of debt your company and your finances can afford when negotiating payment plans.

If payment arrangements have not been negotiated, invoices are transferred to collection after payment reminders. 

If the debt collection agency uses a draft, i.e. a collection method with a threat of making the company’s payment difficulties public, and you still do not pay the invoices, they are reported to the public protest list and a payment default entry is made in the company’s credit information.

If you do not pay the debt despite voluntary recovery, the debt is transferred to legal collection. Taxes and other public fees can be transferred to enforcement without a decision. Other debts require a court decision before the debt can be recovered through enforcement.

Your company will get a payment default entry in the credit register if it fails to pay its invoices despite receiving payment reminders and demands for payment. An entry is also made if a creditor has applied for a court decision on non-payment. In practice, a payment default entry is usually entered no sooner than two months after the due date of the unpaid item.

The purpose of the payment default entry is to warn others about your company’s payment defaults:

• The entry limits your company’s operations in many ways: for example, taking out insurance is problematic or even impossible, the credit feature of your company’s debit card can be removed, the acquisition of telephone subscriptions is more complicated and it is usually difficult to conclude any kind of contract.
• The entry tells others that they are taking a higher-than-normal risk if, for example, they sell something to your company with an invoice.

At worst, a payment default entry may make it impossible to continue your business operations if the company’s reputation suffers so much that it becomes more difficult to get new customers and partners.

If the payment default entry on your company is the first one, you will receive a notification of it from the credit register. The payment default entry is usually displayed in the credit register for two to three years. You can remove your company’s payment default entry from the credit register by paying your creditor its receivables.

To remove a payment default entry from the credit register, pay your company’s debts to the creditor. Once you have paid the debt, you can ask the creditor to report the payment to the credit register or send a payment receipt to register controller Dun & Bradstreet Finland Oy. The payment default entry is removed from the credit register 30 days after the payment has been registered.

If your company does not always have money to pay invoices, find out how you could get more money.

For example, you can

• shorten the payment period of customer invoices if possible
• consider whether pricing should be changed to increase sales
• capitalise your company’s assets to the extent possible.

You can also try to increase your sales with discounts. If you are a member of an entrepreneur organisation, you can use the discount calculator of the Federation of Finnish EnterprisesOpens in a new window. to determine how discounts affect your business.