Diapositiva 1

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The Tax Authority Source as an example of the use
of an administrative source as a statistical one
Session 11 Use of administrative data in the
statistical system 15 October 2008
Fulvia Cerroni - Viviana De Giorgi (Istat)
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The Tax Authority Source as an example of the use
of an administrative source as a statistical one
Agenda
Part 1 Introduction to the Tax Authority Source
(Sector Studies), background and
motivations. Part 2 The statistical criteria
for quality quality evaluation of a source and
Sector Studies key points Part 3 The
criteria applied to Sector Studies the quality
assessment Conclusions and further
developments References
3
The Tax Authority Source as an example of the use
of an administrative source as a statistical one
Agenda
Part 1 Introduction to the Tax Authority Source
(Sector Studies), background and
motivations. Part 2 The statistical criteria
for quality quality evaluation of a source and
Sector Studies key points Part 3 The
criteria applied to Sector Studies the quality
assessment Conclusions and further
developments References
4
The Tax Authority Source as an example of the use
of an administrative source as a statistical one
Background and motivations

• use of administrative sources in place of or
  together with statistical surveys
• applying the guidelines and concepts of quality
  also to administrative data in order to use them
  as statistical one
• wider use of administrative source in official
  statistics
• reducing the statistical burden
• fiscal data assessment for different uses
• Sector Studies gather much more information on
  small and medium-sized enterprises than other
  available surveys
• the Sector Studies database is available since
  the taxation year 2001

Part 1
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The Tax Authority Source as an example of the use
of an administrative source as a statistical one
Sector Studies characteristics

• they are a survey instituted by the Italian Tax
  Authority in 1996 for evaluating the capacity of
  enterprises to produce income and knowing whether
  they pay taxes
• questionnaire consisting of questions on
  accounting data, occupation, structural and
  specific aspects of the business activity
• reference population about 3 million small and
  medium-sized enterprises
• enterprises liable to Sector Studies industrial,
  commercial and manufacturing income owners and
  VAT number proprietors for specific sectors of
  activity, though there are some exclusion and
  non-enforceability principles
• more than 200 different questionnaires, each of
  them for homogeneous groups of enterprises
• all enterprises have in common at least the
  accounting table, composed of more than 35
  numerical questions, which is similar to the
  economic account of a balance sheet

Part 1
6
The Tax Authority Source as an example of the use
of an administrative source as a statistical one
Agenda
Part 1 Introduction to the Tax Authority Source
(Sector Studies), background and
motivations. Part 2 The statistical criteria
for quality quality evaluation of a source and
Sector Studies key points Part 3 The
criteria applied to Sector Studies the quality
assessment Conclusions and further
developments References
7
The Tax Authority Source as an example of the use
of an administrative source as a statistical one
Quality evaluation of a source statistical
criteria
Part 2

• Standard quality indicator (Statistics Canada)
• Relevance
• Accuracy
• Timeliness and punctuality
• Accessibility and clarity
• Comparability
• Coherence
• Most of these principles are defined for censuses
  and sample surveys, though they can be applied
  also to the processing of administrative records
• Different interpretation and indicators can be
  applied to the same concept.

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The Tax Authority Source as an example of the use
of an administrative source as a statistical one
Quality evaluation of a source Sector Studies'
key points

• collaborative climate with the Tax Authoritys
  experts and a well understanding of the context
  of Sector Studies (legislation, objectives and
  needs)
• documentation of the sources processing in
  order to use it as a statistical one
• continuous check of the level of quality
  (definition, coverage, frequencies and other
  attributes)
• presence of the fiscal code for matching with
  other sources
• presence in Istat of the small and medium
  enterprise sample survey to take as benchmark
  source
• availability of an up-to-date Italian business
  register as a reference population
• though
• biases due to the fiscal purpose of the source
• liability for privacy and statistical secret
• no control on the production process at the Tax
  Authority
• analysis of the only section of accounting data
• non-complete use of this source

Part 2
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The Tax Authority Source as an example of the use
of an administrative source as a statistical one
Agenda
Part 1 Introduction to the Tax Authority Source
(Sector Studies), background and
motivations. Part 2 The statistical criteria
for quality quality evaluation of a source and
Sector Studies key points Part 3 The
criteria applied to Sector Studies the quality
assessment Conclusions and further
developments References
10
The Tax Authority Source as an example of the use
of an administrative source as a statistical one
Quality assessment relevance

• An administrative archive is relevant to the
  needs of the potential users if it contains
  relevant units, relevant variables, relevant
  definitions and relevant classifications, that is
  they are able to reflect user needs.
• the units of Sector Studies are relevant as they
  concern the small and medium sized enterprise,
  that are the milestone of the Italian Economy
• the accounting variables and definitions of
  Sector Studies are relevant once they have been
  assessed as statistical ones (Bernardi et al.,
  2008)
• the classifications of Sector Studies are
  relevant since they are similar to the
  statistical ones
• possibility to work out a brief questionnaire to
  be given to the actual users of data (National
  System of Accounts Department), to having traces
  of the usability of data

Part 3
Sector Studies are relevant to the main
estimations of Italian National System of
Accounts and also to the replacement/integration
of the small and medium-sized enterprise sample
survey data
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The Tax Authority Source as an example of the use
of an administrative source as a statistical one
Quality assessment accuracy
Accuracy indicates the potentiality of an
instrument of correctly reflecting reality and it
is considered to be of great importance for the
quality of a statistical source. We measured
the accuracy of Sector Studies through checking
whether they identify the population of units
belonging to the universe of small and
medium-sized enterprises in a picture as near as
possible to the real one in terms of frequency of
enterprises, persons employed and turnover (year
2005)
Part 3
Sector Studies data are enough accurate in
reflecting the Italian Business Register
Population
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The Tax Authority Source as an example of the use
of an administrative source as a statistical one
Quality assessment timeliness and puncuality

• Punctuality refers to the time lag between the
  release date of data and the target date when it
  should have been delivered Eurostat, 2003a
• for the moment, there is no possibility to
  calculate any indicator of punctuality
• Timeliness of information reflects the length of
  time between its availability and the event it
  describes Eurostat, 2003a.

Part 3
Timeliness is about 18 month after the end of the
taxation period
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The Tax Authority Source as an example of the use
of an administrative source as a statistical one
Quality assessment accessibility and clarity
Part 3

• Clarity and accessibility concern how easily
  users can access the information held on the SS
  archive.
• For the moment, the possibility to physically
  access SS data and view elementary records is
  allowed only to the administrative archive
  department, which holds the SS source, and to the
  NSA departments only for a limited set of
  records.
• Meta-information is provided to NSA researchers
  and to all other potential internal users through
  documents and papers.
• For external users we disseminate only the
  results of specific studies and at the end of the
  experimental use in the estimations of the NSA
  indicators Istat will disseminate the outcomes.

Accessibility and clarity are covered by internal
users opportunity to access data and
meta-documentation
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The Tax Authority Source as an example of the use
of an administrative source as a statistical one
Quality assessment comparability
Part 3

• Comparability aims at measuring the impact of
  differences in applied statistical concepts and
  measurement procedures when statistics are
  compared between geographical areas, non
  geographical domains, or over time Eurostat,
  2003b
• comparability over time is possible, as all
  changes in legislation, target population and
  manual instructions try to respect the core of
  the questionnaire. The collaborative climate
  between Istat and the Tax Authority is very
  important.
• a set of variables which have no modification in
  the reference period
• a set of variables whose modification occurred
  only to clarify the compiling instructions
• geographical comparability is not possible, as
  neither there is a similar European survey nor a
  norm that can be compared

Comparability over time is guaranteed by a
collaboration between Istat and The Italian Tax
Authority
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The Tax Authority Source as an example of the use
of an administrative source as a statistical one
Quality assessment coherence
Part 3
Coherence of statistics indicates their adequacy
to be reliably combined in different ways and
various uses. It focuses on the joint use of
statistics produced for different primary
purposes Eurostat, 2003a The field we chose to
assess is the coherence between the primary use
and the secondary use we want to apply, in order
to listing discrepancies and make the source as
coherent as possible primary use fiscal
purpose secondary uses main estimations of
Italian National System of Accounts (current
experience) small and medium-sized enterprise
survey data replacement and integration (future
testing, now they are only used for comparisons)
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The Tax Authority Source as an example of the use
of an administrative source as a statistical one
Coherence assessment secondary uses

• first column secondary uses
• second column statistics to be assessed
• remaining columns list of factors that define
  the properties the statistics should satisfy (any
  other one can be added to the heading list)

Part 3
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The Tax Authority Source as an example of the use
of an administrative source as a statistical one
Coherence assessment indicators

• A1, A2 single indicator for each factor (rows)
  and each specific statistics (columns)
• A3 global indicator for the secondary uses

Part 3
Sector Studies are enough coherent to the
secondary uses identified for the time being
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The Tax Authority Source as an example of the use
of an administrative source as a statistical one
Conclusions

• Sector Studies are relevant to the main
  estimations of Italian System of Accounts and
  also to replacement/integration of the small and
  medium-sized enterprise sample survey data
• Sector Studies data are enough accurate in
  reflecting the Italian Business Register
  Population
• Timeliness is about 18 month after the end of the
  taxation period.
• Accessibility and clarity are covered by internal
  users opportunity to access data and
  meta-documentation
• Comparability over time is guaranteed by a
  collaboration between Istat and The Italian Tax
  Authority
• Sector Studies are enough coherent to the
  secondary uses identified for the time being
• The SS archive appears to have a very good level
  of statistical quality, in terms of relevance,
  timeliness, accessibility and comparability over
  time. As regards coherence and accuracy they are
  enough appreciable.

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The Tax Authority Source as an example of the use
of an administrative source as a statistical one
Further developments

• Assessing the Sector Studies source statistical
  quality for survey frame
• Assessing the Sector Studies source statistical
  quality for replacing data collection uses
• Future uses in editing and imputation of the
  Italian Business Register variables
• Essential requisites
• permanent checks of definitions, concepts,
  coverage, frequency, timeliness and other
  attributes is done in order to keep under
  control, over time, legal or economic changes
  that can distort time series
• keeping active the collaboration between Istat
  and the Tax Authority, so assuring that the
  incoming data quality keeps less or more the
  same, in spite of changes

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The Tax Authority Source as an example of the use
of an administrative source as a statistical one
References

• Bernardi A., Cerroni F., De Giorgi V. (2008a). A
  methodological process for assessing variables
  coming from administrative sources an
  application to the Tax Authority Source (Sector
  Studies). Contributed Paper of European
  Conference on Statistical Quality in Official
  Statistics. Rome 8-11 July 2008.
• Bernardi A., Cerroni F., De Giorgi V. (2008b).
  Validazione delle unità di una fonte
  amministrativa. Schema teorico ed applicazione
  alla fonte Studi di Settore. Istat, internal
  document (Italian). Rome, July 2008.
• Eurostat (2003a). Definition of quality in
  statistics. Document n Eurostat/A4/Quality/
  03/General/Definition.
• Eurostat (2003b). Standard Quality Report.
  Document n Eurostat/A4/Quality/03/
  General/Standard Report. Luxembourg, May 2005.
• Eurostat (2005), Quality in Statistics. Doc. n
  ESTAT/02/Quality/2005/9/Quality Indicators.
  Luxembourg, May 2005.
• Fourth Council Directive 78/660/EEC of 25 July
  1978 based on Article 54 (3) (g) of the Treaty on
  the annual accounts of certain types of
  companies.
• Statistics Canada (2003), Statistics Canada
  Quality Guidelines. Fourth Edition. October 2003.

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Thank you for your attention For further
information Fulvia Cerroni cerroni_at_istat.it Vi
viana De Giorgi degiorgi_at_istat.it