Other income

Compensations paid to bloggers are always taxable income. If you write blog posts and receive a payment in money, give your tax card to the party that pays you. Always check that all the income you have received is included on your tax return. You can deduct work-related expenses from your income.

Examples of different types of income a blogger may receive and their taxation:

1. Sanni receives a product from a company and reviews it on her blog. Sanni can keep the product. The value of the product is €200. The entire value of the product is considered Sanni’s earned income. In the spring, Sanni checks that the income is included on her tax return. When checking the tax return, Sanni notices that a smaller product valued €70 she received for reviewing is not included on the tax return. Sanni supplements her tax return and reports the amount missing from her earned income.
2. Sanni is asked to write a product introduction to a company’s website according to the company’s instructions. She will be paid €500. This is considered Sanni’s pay, so she must give her tax card to the company for its payment. The income is automatically included on her pre-completed tax return sent in the following spring.
3. Sanni has agreed with a company that she will write articles for the company’s website and receive monetary compensation for her work. According to the agreement, the copyright will be transferred to the company. This income is Sanni’s earned income, so she must give her tax card to the company for the payment of the compensation. The income is automatically included on her pre-completed tax return sent in the following spring as a compensation for use.
4. Sanni established a company through which she sells advertising space and content for companies. Sanni’s business is entered in the prepayment register, so she can send invoices to her customers. She reports her income with the business tax return.

Are you an amateur photographer? Would you like to sell your photos and rights to use them, and accept photography gigs? The money you receive from such activities is considered your taxable income. Remember to give your tax card to the party paying you. For example, if you sell a framed photograph, you are selling goods, which means that you must report the income on your tax return yourself. You can deduct any expenses related to the generation of the income from the income.

Do you play poker in the European Union or the European Economic Area?

If the game is held within the EU or the EEA, the winnings are tax exempt. Within this area, the winnings are considered lottery winnings, which are tax exempt. You do not need to report tax-exempt poker winnings on your tax return. However, you cannot deduct any expenses you incur from getting the winnings in your taxation.

Is the game held outside the EEA?

If the game is held outside the EU and the EEA, you must pay taxes on all income you receive from the game. However, you can deduct any expenses you incur from getting the winnings, such as participation fees.

Report poker winnings from outside the EEA as other earned income in the tax return of the year in which you won the prize.

Do you play poker in the European Union or the European Economic Area?

If the game is held within the EU or the EEA, the winnings are tax exempt. Within this area, the winnings are considered lottery winnings, which are tax exempt. You do not need to report tax-exempt poker winnings on your tax return. However, you cannot deduct any expenses you incur from getting the winnings in your taxation.

Is the game held outside the EEA?

If the game is held outside the EU and the EEA, you must pay taxes on all income you receive from the game. However, you can deduct any expenses you incur from getting the winnings, such as participation fees.

Report poker winnings from outside the EEA as other earned income in the tax return of the year in which you won the prize.

Are you planning on breeding a litter of puppies? The money you get from selling the puppies is considered your taxable income. You can deduct all expenses related to generating the income, such as registration fees and veterinary expenses of the puppies. Report your income and expenses on your tax return in the section for other earned income.

Are you planning to give your dog to another person for breeding? The compensation you receive is considered your taxable income. Report the income on your tax return in the section for other earned income. 

Do you sell advertising space in your blog, a website you maintain, or your videos, for example? The income you receive from showing advertisements is considered your taxable income and you can deduct the expenses you incur from generating it. Report your income and expenses on your tax return in the section for other earned income. 

The sales of common goods used by your family are tax exempt if you do not receive more than €5,000 in a year from the sales.

Common goods include:

• Clothes
• Dinnerware
• Jewellery
• Furniture
• Household electronics
• Hobby supplies and equipment

The following are not common goods:

• Cars
• Motorcycles
• Boats
• Other similar vehicles

Tax must be paid on sales exceeding €5,000

If you receive more than €5,000 from sales in a year, the amount exceeding €5,000 is considered capital income on which you must pay a ‘capital gains tax’. ‘Capital gains’ means the difference between the selling price and the purchase price.

If you sell common goods other than those used by your family, you must pay tax on the money you receive if you receive more than €1,000 from all your sales. If this amount is exceeded, the entire amount is considered taxable capital income. This means that tax is not only paid for the amount that exceeds €1,000 but for the entire amount.

Losses from the sales of regular household items or other similar property intended for personal use cannot be deducted in taxation. This means that you cannot deduct a loss that you have incurred from the sale of a car or a motorcycle, for example.

The place of sale does not affect taxation

When selling used goods, it does not matter for taxation where you sell your used goods. The same rules apply to goods sold at traditional flea markets and yard sales, and through online second-hand or auction services.

Income from the sale of wood is capital income from forestry. The tax rate for capital income is 30%. If the amount of your capital income exceeds €30,000, you must pay 34% in tax on the exceeding amount.

Farm selling wood from its forest

If you or an agricultural partnership have a Business ID and you sell wood from your farm’s forest, you are considered to engage in forestry. Report the wood sales income on the separate the tax return for forestry.

You can sell wood in three different ways:

• In standing timber sales, the buyer takes care of the logging agreed in the logging agreement and transports the logs to where they are used.
• In sales at delivery price, the forest owner agrees to deliver the bought wood to the buyer on the agreed date.
• In cash sales, the wood is transported to the place of sale and sold to the buyer without making an agreement in advance.

Selling wood on your property

If you sell wood on your property (e.g. at your summer cottage), the income you receive from the sales is not taxed as capital income from forestry; instead, it is taxed as other capital income. Report the income you receive from the sales on your personal tax return in the section ‘Other capital income’. You can deduct any expenses you incur from the sales.

If you pick wild berries for human consumption and sell them yourself, the sales are tax exempt. If you receive pay for picking wild berries, the income is taxable earned income.

You can sell wild berries at a market or a roadside rest stop as long as your activities are not regular or professional. You can sell berries directly to restaurants or wholesalers without paying taxes. However, to qualify for the tax-exempt sale, the berries must be fresh. This means that you cannot mash them, add any sweetener to them or freeze them.

If you receive money for picking wild berries, it is always considered pay or taxable earned income. If you have signed an agreement on picking berries, your employer will withhold the percentage on your tax card from your pay as taxes.

Virtual currencies

• are virtual money that does not exist as physical coins or paper money.
• are currencies that you can use to pay for things online, which means you can use them like money.
• are transferred between users without the currency going through a bank that would help with the transaction.
• are valued according to supply and demand, which means that the central banks of countries do not determine their value.

Do you trade virtual currencies or otherwise use them?

You may get taxable income when you convert virtual currency to money or if you use them to pay for goods or services. Report the profits or losses from trading or using virtual currencies in MyTax in the section ‘Capital income – Capital gains’. Select ‘Virtual currencies’ as the type of capital and enter the requested information.

How to report gains and losses from virtual currencies in MyTax (vero.fi).

You can get more virtual currency by mining, which means that you give some of the processing capacity of your computer for use.  If you mine for virtual currencies, the virtual currency you receive is considered your taxable earned income (Proof of Work). Report the income on your tax return in the section for other earned income. You pay the tax in the year in which you received the income. In taxation, a value is calculated for virtual coins according to the exchange rate of the day on which you received them.

If you gain virtual currency from online games and then convert them to money or other property with monetary value, this is considered your taxable earned income. 

You can deduct any expenses you incur from gaining the income. Report the income in the section ‘Other earned income’ and the expenses from mining in the section ‘Deductions – Expenses for the production of income – Expenses for the production of other income than wage income’.

Investing means that you buy shares of companies, shares of funds, or property with the purpose of generating profit. When you sell such assets with a profit, you receive capital gain, which is capital income that you must pay taxes on.

The tax rates for capital income are

• 30% for up to €30,000
• 34% for the part that exceeds €30,000

If you sell your investments for a loss, you can deduct the ‘capital loss’ on your taxation. In practice, the Finnish Tax Administration deducts capital losses from your total capital income. If you do not have any capital income or the amount of your capital income is lower than your capital loss, the deduction is transferred to the next 5 years, which means that the deduction can be used in the following years.

If you receive less than €1,000 from the sales of securities in one year, you do not have pay tax on the capital gains. There are also restrictions on the deduction of capital losses: you cannot deduct a capital loss, if the purchase prices of the investments you sell in one year were less than €1,000.

Sometimes banks collect the tax directly from your investments and report them to the Finnish Tax Administration on annual information returns. In this case, you only need to check that this information is correct on your pre-completed tax return. If the information is missing from your tax return, correct the tax return by reporting the missing information.

If your bank does not withhold the taxes from a payment made to you, you can request the Finnish Administration to allow tax prepayments for you. Requests for tax prepayment can made in MyTax, in writing, by telephone, or by contacting the Finnish Tax Administration’s customer service. When you pay the correct amount of taxes in advance, you will not have to pay back taxes or interest.

Dividends and capital gains (and losses) from your investments are included on your pre-completed tax return. The Finnish Tax Administration received information on them from annual information returns. If the information is not included on your pre-completed tax return or if it is included but the Finnish Tax Administration requests for more information, report the dividends and capital gains and losses in MyTax. Tax-exempt sales must also be reported.

Are you an enthusiastic e-athlete? Wages, compensations and other rewards or reimbursements from e-sports are taxable income. Physical items with mostly sentimental value such as cups or medals that you receive as prizes are not taxable income.

Prizes from outside Finland are still taxable income in Finland, and their fair market value is determined according to the price level of Finland. ‘Fair market value’ is the price with which the prize would be sold in a shop.

If you receive the prize as money, remember to give your tax card to the payer. Check that the income you receive is included on your tax return and report any missing information. 

Do you own an apartment and plan to lease it? You get rental income if you let someone else use your apartment, car, boat or device and receive money in return. In addition to the rent, rental income includes any payments paid to you by the tenant, such as water expenses or parking space rent. Income you receive from leasing your apartment through an accommodation service is also considered rental income. Report rental income on your tax return.

Rental income is capital income whose tax rate is 30% for up to €30,000. If the amount of capital income exceeds €30,000, the tax rate for the exceeding amount is 34%. If you live in a rental apartment and rent the apartment forward, the rent paid to you by the subtenant is also taxable income.

An example of taxes paid on rental income:

You receive €460 per month as rent for an apartment. You pay a maintenance charge of €120 and €24 for water every month. The maintenance charge and the water charge are both expenses that can be deducted from the rental income.

This means that your annual taxable rental income is €3,792 [(€460 – €120 – €24) × 12 months]. Of this amount, you will pay 30% in taxes, which is €1,137.60.

Remember that you can deduct expenses from the rental activities in your taxation. For an apartment, such expenses include:

• Maintenance charges
• Water, electricity and heating expenses, if the tenant does not pay for them
• Real estate tax
• Repair expenses

You can also deduct in your taxation the annual interest of an ‘income generation loan’ related to the apartment. 

You can deduct these expenses from the date on which the rental period of your apartment starts. 

Income from occasional rentals (e.g. Airbnb) is also taxable capital income.

You can deduct any expenses you incur from such activities. However, you can only deduct the expenses generated during the rental period, such as expenses from finding a tenant and a part of the maintenance fee.

If only a part of the apartment is rented out, the expenses must be in line with the rental period and the floor area of the rented part.

Keep in mind that renting out an entire apartment, even for a short term, will interrupt your period of permanent residence in capital income taxation, in which a continuous permanent residence of two years is one requirement for a tax-exempt sale.

How to report the information online:

Report rental income on your tax return in MyTax. You can also report an estimate on your rental income after deductions in MyTax when you request a new tax card. In this case, you will pay your taxes on the income during the current year and not as back taxes. 

Are you in mandatory military or non-military service? The daily allowance for conscripts and the conscript’s allowance paid by Kela are tax-free social benefits, so you do not need to give your tax card to the Finnish Defence Forces or Kela.

The accommodation, food, clothes, health care and trips paid by the Finnish Defence Forces or your non-military service employer are tax-free benefits.

A dividend is a share of the profit of a limited liability company. Paying dividends is a way for companies to distribute the profit generated by them to their shareholders.  The taxation of dividend income depends on whether the dividend is distributed by a listed or an unlisted company.

Of divided paid by a listed company, 85% is taxable capital income and 15% is tax-exempt income.  Dividend paid by an unlisted company is taxed as earned income, capital income or both. A part of the dividend is tax exempt. The amounts of the taxable and tax-exempt income are determined by the percentage of the dividend from the mathematical value of the share, among other things.