The pandemic and the voice of the user in the TA
Chapter 6. Providing Services to the Taxpayers
ICT as a Strategic Tool to Leapfrog the Efficiency of Tax Administrations
The Tax Administration (TA) has evolved in different stages, distinguished at times, with a strong emphasis on control, at others in the facilitation of compliance, in both cases with the use of technology and now with a special emphasis in the use and quality of the data available, while the taxpayer complies in the paper or digital modalities. The constant throughout this process is that at the end of the day, we are faced with a service provided by the TA and always rated by an internal or external user as good or bad, while the user has no option to select another service, since it is provided by a tax authority which, might listen or not to his claim for improvement of the service, inasmuch as his obligation is to comply.
At this time, the world has been held up by a virus which although lacking a voice, has been heard, without using technology has flooded the Internet and the social media with information and applications which have claimed our urgent attention. The health sector and scientists have called it COVID 19 or coronavirus which, if we would give it a fiscal or tax profile, I would propose the following:
In sum, it will lead us to a great and profound cultural change in our way of seeing, acting and thinking.
The TAs have evolved thanks to the “viruses” that have entered in our organizations and have infected us with new information regarding the way of doing things, sowing the epidemic of anxieties and little by little they have led us to reconsider the way we act in order to bring about a change.
Undoubtedly, in these times of social isolation there is space for reflection and analysis of a large number of economic activities. Again, there is an opportunity for reconsidering the way in which the TA acts and opening spaces for listening to the taxpayers and internal users of the TA, for considering their participation in the design and development of the tax services in a more active manner, seeking to allow them to comply with their tax obligations or use the internal systems of the TAs in a more accessible and simple manner, through the use of technology and the data already existing in the TA.
Continuing with this analogy, it is compelling to read the document published by CIAT: “ICT as a Strategic Tool to Leapfrog the Efficiency of Tax Administrations”, which becomes that “virus” of knowledge that should contaminate tax officials and taxpayers and which allows us a 360° vision of the way in which tax processes are conceptualized with the application and use of technology, and which represents the many years of experience of a large number of authors.
The document is extensive and with a great wealth of tax knowledge and I recommend that its chapters be read one by one, to understand its scope with the use of information technology. In particular, I wish to refer to Chapter 6, which deals with the way in which tax services are developed and designed with a focus on the taxpayer. However, I would invite to reflect on the two main directions of the services. Although it is true that the use of technology allows for developing more and better services, there are two sides therein. On the one hand, there is the end user, in this case the taxpayer and on the other, the TA internal user in all and every one of the tax processes, whether the taxpayer file, current account, returns filing, electronic invoicing, collection, auditing or foreign trade, just to mention some.
Technological tools are of great help to the TAs to facilitate compliance, but they may also serve to complicate it, by deviating the taxpayer and the internal users away from their use, for which reason it is essential to listen to the voice of the taxpayer and the internal user in their development and implementation.
This is where the knowledge “virus” should pervade the TA officials and the designers and developers of services, in order that they may become aware of the already scored experiences of successes and failures, but above all, the participation of the voice of the taxpayers and internal users of the services offered by the TA.
A clear example of how services are managed may be found in the use of such tools as the CRM (Customer Relationship Management); namely, the way in which the relationship with the taxpayers is managed, in tax terms, and the great accumulation of information they contribute to the TA in each of their interactions, as well as the way in which it is necessary to take advantage of them for improving the services. That is where Chapter 6 provides practical examples and success cases of its implementation.
In this hyper-communication era, there has been an exponential increase in the modalities of contact with the taxpayer and the necessary question is, whether the service being provided is adequate for the taxpayer segment for which it is intended, or whether the service we are providing is rather aimed at an intermediary tax specialist, with technological and legal skills that allow him to intervene with the end user, thereby increasing the cost of its use, either for the filing of a return, the preparation of an electronic invoice or the receipt of an electronic notification in a tax mailbox.
The use of technological tools is a great wager by all the TAs throughout the world and it will be necessary to continue evolving, listening to the taxpayer and internal user’s voice wherein undoubtedly, the document published by CIAT: “ICT as a Strategic Tool to Leapfrog the Efficiency of Tax Administrations” affords the great opportunity to learn about and close the gaps of the “virus” and the “pandemic” of tax knowledge, by means of this valuable tax management tool.
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