Why do the unit counts differ between quarterly and calendar year data?
One reason for this is that many small taxpayer accounts only report annually, and therefore only appear in the fourth quarter and annual Quarterly Business Review (QBR) reports. However, most unit count differences occur because of businesses that report seasonally (e.g., several months or one or two quarters) and businesses that open and close during the year. While all these businesses will appear in the annual QBR report, they may only appear in one or two of the quarterly reports. As a result, individual quarters do not accurately indicate the total number of businesses that may have reported to the Department during the entire year.
