Financial and Taxation Statistics for Enterprises

Detailed information for 2008

The objective of this annual series is to cover business activity within a calendar reference period. These statistics are used in two broad ways. First they provide a measure of financial position and performance of incorporated businesses by industry aggregations. Second, they are used as the benchmark for the quarterly estimates of corporate profits in the Canadian System of National Accounts (CSNA).

Data release - February 15, 2010

• Description
• Data sources and methodology
• Data accuracy

Description

The data presented herein comprise financial statements typically prepared by incorporated businesses to record their financial position and performance. The data include: asset, liability and equity items encompassed in a balance sheet, revenue and expense items as reported on an income statement, a reconciliation of profit to taxable income and taxes payable, along with several common financial performance ratios.

These statistics are used in two broad ways. First, they provide a measure of financial position and performance of incorporated businesses by industry aggregations. They are used by a wide variety of economists and industry analysts in both the private and government sectors. Second they are used as the benchmark for the quarterly estimates of corporate profits in the Canadian System of National Accounts (CSNA).

Reference period: Calendar year

Subjects

• Business performance and ownership
• Corporate taxation
• Financial statements and performance

Data sources and methodology

Target population

The statistical unit for this program is the enterprise. An enterprise can be a single corporation or a family of corporations under common ownership and/or control, for which a set of consolidated financial statements are produced.

These enterprises are classified according to the 2012 North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). In the case of simple enterprises, the enterprise and the establishment coincide and both are classified to the same industry. However, there exist many multi-establishment enterprises whose establishments may belong to one or more industries. Such enterprises are classified to the predominant industry of their establishments. For example, a petroleum enterprise may be involved in exploration, mining, refining, shipping and retailing of petroleum products. Under NAICS, such an enterprise is classified to the individual NAICS code that relates to the activity that provides the most value-added.

It should be noted that NAICS Canada data compiled on an enterprise basis cannot be directly compared with NAICS Canada data on an establishment basis.

The financial and taxation statistics cover all incorporated enterprises within the domestic economy of Canada, including federal and provincial government business enterprises (GBEs), but excluding enterprises classified to Management of Companies and Enterprises (NAICS 55); Religious Organizations (NAICS 8131); Political Organizations (NAICS 81394); Public Administration (NAICS 91); as well as Funds and other Financial Vehicles (NAICS 526). GBEs are public sector enterprises engaged in operations of a commercial nature. In addition, non-profit enterprises considered to be part of the incorporated business sector are also included. Unincorporated businesses are not included.

This program's statistical enterprise data, based on the NAICS codes, have been aggregated into 67 special industry groupings. Other levels of aggregation may be available upon request on a cost recovery basis.

Instrument design

This methodology does not apply.

Sampling

Data are collected for all units of the target population, therefore, no sampling is done.

Data sources

Data are extracted from administrative files and derived from other Statistics Canada surveys and/or other sources.

Three sources of data are combined to form a census of all units in the population of interest.

These consist of :

- Annualized data from the Quarterly Survey of Financial Statements (QFS, record number 2501) obtained from the Industrial Organization and Finance Division at Statistics Canada.

- Data from a survey of provincial or federal level government business enterprises (GBE) that operated in the business sector obtained from the Public Sector Statistics Division at Statistics Canada.

- Administrative corporate taxation data in the form of T2 Corporation Income Tax returns and the General Index of Financial Information (GIFI) obtained from the Tax Data Division at Statistics Canada.

Information from all three data sources was provided in different formats with different sets of variables. In order to merge the data files, it was necessary to transform all three data sources into a common set of variables that contained a complete set of financial statement information. Certain details were omitted in the process due to the unavailability of data from all sources.

While QFS and GBE data were collected at the enterprise level, the administrative corporate taxation data, on the other hand, were collected at the non-consolidated single legal entity level. Data for single legal entities belonging to a corporate family (multi-legals) are then rolled up to the enterprise level.

The objective of this annual series is to cover business activity within a calendar reference period. Data derived from the Quarterly Survey of Financial Statements approximate the calendar period. The government business enterprise data reflect fiscal periods which often are governed by the April to March fiscal year of governments. The administrative data used from Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) are based on financial statements filed along with annual income tax returns by corporations. Historically, data from fiscal periods ending at any time between January and December were included in the reference year. However, beginning with 2004 and 2003 revised, data from income tax returns for fiscal periods ending between April and March have been included in order to better represent business activity in the calendar period.

Error detection

At the micro level, several checks are performed on the data to verify internal consistency and identify extreme values. At the macro level, the data are subjected to a detailed quality review process, including a comparative analysis to prior year; material errors are thereby identified and corrected.

Imputation

Imputation for complete non-response is performed by two general methods. The preferred and most common method makes use of historical information about the non-responding unit and current trends in principal characteristics of similar units. When historical information is not available, such as in the case of births, a donor of similar size and industry is substituted for the missing unit.

Estimation

Since data are obtained from one of the three data sources for each enterprise in the population of interest, estimates are derived from the simple tabulation of data.

Due to certain financial reporting constraints, data for enterprises in the insurance industry could not be obtained through the administrative data source. Data for the industry are therefore derived using QFS weighted estimates rather than a census.

Quality evaluation

The combined survey results are analyzed before publication. In general, the analysis includes a detailed review of the individual responses (especially for the largest enterprises), a review of general economic conditions as well as historic trends and comparisons with other data sources.

Disclosure control

Statistics Canada is prohibited by law from releasing any information it collects which could identify any person, business, or organization, unless consent has been given by the respondent or as permitted by the Statistics Act. Various confidentiality rules are applied to all data that are released or published to prevent the publication or disclosure of any information deemed confidential. If necessary, data are suppressed to prevent direct or residual disclosure of identifiable data.

The confidentiality of the reported statistics is protected under the provisions of the Statistics Act. For this reason, statistics are released in aggregate form only, with no potential identification of individually reported information. The confidentiality provisions of the Statistics Act override the provisions of the Access to Information Act to guarantee the confidentiality of reported data of individual respondents.

Revisions and seasonal adjustment

Each year, the previous year's data are revised. With the introduction of NAICS 2007 for reference year 2006, data were revised back to 1999.

The data series is not seasonally adjusted.

Data accuracy

While considerable effort is made to ensure high standards throughout all collection and processing operations, the resulting estimates are inevitably subject to a certain degree of error. There are two categories of errors in statistical information - sampling errors and non-sampling errors.