1. The use of VAT for short term statistics in the Netherlands: Results right now
Pieter Vlag
senior statistical researcher
Statistics Netherlands – Business Statistics

2. Introduction Background Business units in the Netherlands Methodology
Results
Quality issues to be resolved

3. Background Law “statistics Netherlands” Sense of urgency
Obligation to use registrations. Only surveys,..... if statistical output cannot be derived from administrative sources.
Sense of urgency
Resolution “Aptroot” in General Assembly;
no surveys for small and medium sized companies

4. Administrative data in THE NETHERLANDS (major sources)
Employment / wages: used by “social statistics”
-> data from tax office + “UVW” (social benefits)“
-> monthly base
2. VAT: to be used by STS (2009)
-> period
a. In general,VAT-declaration on a quarterly base
b. Two exceptions:
b1. Large companies and “special cases”: VAT-declaration on a monthly base
b2. Very small companies VAT-declaration on a yearly base
3. corporation tax: partly used for SBS

5. Enterprise Units in the Netherlands
Statistical Units
Fiscal Units (VAT) ? ?
Fiscal units (VAT) differ from fiscal units used by corporation tax/ wages
Until so far : “improvement” of statistical units in Business Register
Future: : use fo fiscal units in statistical proces

6. (month; quarter; year) (month; quarter; year)
Methodology: general context
survey (complete)
large enterprises
FOCUS STS !!
Employment
reg.
(month; quarter; year)
Turnover
VAT-reg.
(month; quarter; year)
year:
complete coverage
(SBS/STS)
survey
adm.
source
consistente input voor ec. groeiraming + SBS/STS (NOPS)
Combination with other variables (year / SBS) - macrolevel

7. Methodology: VAT-registration (1)
Results: 2005; 2006; afterwards
LEFT: VAT-registration
RIGHT:
VAT-registration, corrected for
large enterprises
b) foreign enterprises with transit trade

8. Methodology: VAT-registration (2)
Results: 2005; 2006; afterwards
Construction: current results:
Construction: results based on VAT:
Lower aggregate: data cleaning necessary
Periodicity: quarter / month no complete coverage

9. VAT: periodicity Results: 2007 - afterwards
FIGURE RIGHT: coverage turnover
-> almost complete coverage for quarterly estimates (=based on monthly and quarterly VAT-declarations)
-> for monthly estimates NO complete coverage

10. Methodology for current year
6 steps to determine growth rates !

11. Quality issue 1: timeliness
Retail trade:
Large enterprises tend to declare VAT
at a later stage:
How to measure quality in production?

12. Quality issue 2: growth rates months - quarter
Retail trade:
Early estimates based on monthly VAT-declarations may differ from
definitive estimates based on monthly AND quarterly VAT-declarations
How to measure quality in production ?

13. CONCLUSIONS
Statistics Netherlands will use VAT for STS in nearby future
Methodology and process is (more or less) known
Some quality issues have te be resolved !