The Finnish Tax Administration has uncovered millions of euros’ worth of unreported sales and unreported wages during stepped-up surveillance of taxi firms since the spring of 2021.
Officials took a closer look at 850 taxi entrepreneurs, drivers and accounting firms that handled paperwork for them.
They found 8.7 million euros of income that had not been unaccounted for along with 4.3 million euros' worth of other errors that affected taxable income levels. Authorities also detected almost three million euros' worth of "dark salaries".
According to Jarmo Lahdenperä, a senior adviser at the Tax Administration specialised in the grey economy and tax fraud, typical forms of tax evasion include failing to record cash sales in the company's accounting, or not recording a month's worth of driving. Some operators also intentionally misuse or tamper with taxi meters in an effort to deceive tax officials.
During the crackdown, the Tax Administration teamed up with police, the Finnish Transport and Communications Agency Traficom and Regional State Administrative Agencies to inspect 500 taxi operators around the country.
The results indicate that not all cabbies who engage in taxi operations through international app systems are aware that it is their own responsibility to report the income received from taxi operations to the Tax Administration. Such applications include Uber and Yango.
"Many mistakenly think that the international company running the platform will report the income of all taxi operators to the tax administration of each country. This is not the case. The taxi operator is responsible for making sure that all income is reported to us,” Lahdenperä said in a statement on Wednesday.
Missing cab license can lead to 6 months in prison
Investigators also found situations where cab operators did not hold taxi licenses issued by Traficom. Due to a loophole in current law, tax officials cannot report unauthorised taxi driving to Traficom.
Operating a taxi without a license is punishable by up to six months in prison, but the Tax Administration's right to disclose information requires that the maximum penalty for the suspected crime be more than six months.
Lahdenperä argued that the maximum penalty should be increased by at least one day, which would permit authorities exchange information smoothly.
The use of taxi meters became mandatory again last autumn. However, Lahdenperä pointed out that authorities only have access to a small portion of the data generated by meters. The Tax Administration has called for all data from taxi meters to be collected and stored centrally and accessible by all supervisory authorities. This too would require legislative changes, though.
According to the Consumers' Union of Finland, average fares have risen by 40 percent while the number of passenger complaints has also risen sharply since the last major reform of the taxi sector in 2018.