United Nations Public Service Awards Case Studies

In 2002, IRAS conducted our medium-term Corporate Planning Exercise (CPE), in which we charted our strategic direction for the next 5 years. At this exercise, we aligned our business objectives to the new vision and set about identifying emerging challenges to better prepare ourselves to achieve our goals.

The business challenges identified were increasing demand for:
> excellent customer service delivery
> more e-services as the Singapore population becomes more e-savvy
> higher level of tax compliance

Our information systems planning programme that took place in tandem with the CPE also highlighted technical obsolescence issues that could affect IRAS’ business operations within a few years.

In anticipation of these challenges, IRAS embarked on an integrated approach to improve our service delivery to our taxpayers. We aim to leverage on technology and also to explore ways to simplify our processes to improve service.

As part of our revamped IT system, IRAS implemented a new personalised internet portal, known as myTax Portal, making it easier and more convenient for taxpayers to interact with IRAS electronically. MyTax Portal offers a plethora of e-services for taxpayers, such as allowing them to pay their taxes and view their tax assessments and statement of accounts online. In particular, the hallmark of myTax Portal is the new e-filing system for Individual Income Tax (IIT).

Before this new IIT e-filing system, employee taxpayers had to track, compile and ensure the accuracy of their tax information before submission to IRAS. Employers had to issue statements to employees as proof of their employment income. This new system relieves both employees and employers of these onerous tasks by pre-filling taxpayers’ tax returns.

Taxpayers can log into myTax Portal to view their pre-filled income and deduction information if their employers participate in the Auto-Inclusion of Income System (AIS). The AIS automatically captures taxpayer information through regular data matching exercises with the original sources of the data (i.e. employers, charitable organisations etc) electronically. The information captured is then automatically included into the taxpayers’ tax returns. Currently, we have about 3,800 employees on AIS, accounting for 1.01 million employees’ records or approximately 67% of our taxpayer base. Other tax information automatically “included” include dividend income and certain tax reliefs.

Taxpayers’ experience is significantly enhanced as they can e-file within two clicks of the mouse. This simplified filing process is made possible by the extensive pre-filling of tax information.

Committed to increasing taxpayers’ convenience, we further simplified our process by implementing the No-Filing Service (NFS). Employee taxpayers having a straightforward tax position – where their salaries are already transmitted by their employers to IRAS under the AIS and where their claims for personal relief have remained unchanged for the past two years, do not have to submit a tax return. Under this service initiative, no return is sent to these taxpayers and no filing is required of them as well. Instead, they receive their assessment notices directly, following a NFS letter informing of their non-requirement to file. This greatly simplifies the filing obligations of these eligible taxpayers.

What is the initiative about? (the solution)
MyTax Portal for IIT e-filing: > Increases Taxpayers’ Convenience The pre-filled return in myTax Portal reduces the compliance costs for the taxpayer by relieving him of the need to track and supply information to IRAS. Taxpayers who have no additional information to report can simply log in and e-file their returns with one click of the mouse at myTax Portal. In addition to the savings in time and effort spent on completing returns, taxpayers also benefit from this round-the-clock system where they can access any information immediately. Quote from a taxpayer filing his taxes from US: - “I have finished filing my tax returns for both US and Singapore. I took about 1-1/2 days to complete all the transactions for my tax returns for US… I was hoping to spend less than 2-3 hours to e-file my Singapore tax returns. To my surprise, it took only 2-3 minutes for me to complete the whole e-filing. There is no question on how efficient Singapore e-systems are. It was a breeze… all the information I had given last year was probably used to fill out most of the details automatically and the earnings/deductions are directly provided to IRAS by my company. So I had to click a few buttons and it was done… I did not even have to use my keyboard except for logging in.” Quote from local taxpayer: - “Hi, it was a breeze to file taxes this year and it is fantastic to be able to see the amount from employers who are on the auto-inclusion scheme. The user interface was easy to navigate and the response time is great. Thanks for all the enhancements!” Taxpayers’ positive reception of this service enhancement is clearly visible from the increasing take-up rate of myTax Portal. The total number of e-filed cases for myTax Portal in 2006 is 915,897, 9% higher than the 839,367 e-filed cases in 2005. In 2007, IRAS achieved a landmark number of over 1 million IIT e-filers. That means 4 out of every 5 taxpayers chose to e-file their taxes via myTax Portal. > Increases Operational Efficiency MyTax Portal leverages on the technological focus of AIS to capture accurate and complete information at source. This leads to faster assessments of these pre-filled returns and the time taken to complete all assessments for individual taxpayers is now less than 6 months. NFS: NFS makes fulfilling tax obligations a non-event for eligible taxpayers. The base of eligible taxpayers benefiting from NFS grows with the expansion of the AIS. For 2008, NFS will benefit approximately 286,000 taxpayers, or a promising 19% of Singapore’s individual taxpayer base. As taxpayers need not file, this leads to reduction in filing contacts during the peak filing period. NFS also increases operational efficiency as significantly less PIN mailers and physical returns are being sent out and the processing of returns of eligible taxpayers can be expedited without any manual intervention.

Who proposed the solution, who implemented it and who were the stakeholders?
The nature of our service delivery enhancements calls for efforts from various divisions across IRAS. The pre-filled returns system was initiated during IRAS’ Corporate Planning Exercise (CPE) to leverage on technology to serve taxpayers better. A project team was set up with members from various divisions to study the feasibility of the system. During the feasibility study, the project team concluded that the pre-filled returns system would be implemented under the Inland Revenue Integrated Network (IRIN) Program, an organisation-wide IT-revamp project that was about to commence development at that time. The IRIN journey traced its roots back to IRAS’ vision for the new millennium. The Information System Planning (ISP) Blueprint Study is one initiative undertaken to address the corporate goal of leveraging on appropriate advanced technology to achieve its vision. The objective of this Blueprint Study is to map out strategic directions and to provide recommendations for the information technology (IT) infrastructure and application to be implemented in IRAS for the next 5 years and beyond. Therefore, in 2003, having completed all the necessary reviews, IRAS embarked on IRIN project to leverage on new technology to bring new capabilities for IRAS to achieve its corporate objectives. To drive the IRIN Program, under which myTax Portal was implemented, an Information Systems Planning Office (ISP Office) was set up comprising IRAS’ IT personnel, users from divisions across IRAS and personnel from the IRIN vendor consortium (Accenture, NCS, Avanade). The successful launch of myTax Portal, complemented with numerous simplifications to individual income taxation and the expansion of AIS to more employers, prompted IRAS management to set up a project team with members from Individual Income Tax Division, Infocomm Division and Law Division to study the feasibility of the NFS. This project team is also tasked to see NFS through to implementation.

Describe how and when the initiative was implemented by answering these questions
a. What were the strategies used to implement the initiative? In no more than 500 words, provide a summary of the main objectives and strategies of the initiative, how they were established and by whom.
The key business objectives of implementing myTax Portal and NFS are to enhance taxpayer service, reduce compliance cost of taxpayers and enhance long-term cost-effectiveness. >Enhance Taxpayer Services/ Reduce Compliance Cost of Taxpayers --Issue/ Opportunity: New service excellence drivers that emerged: >> Requirement for one-stop, multi-channel, near 24x7 availability, integrated customer self-service >> Requirement for proactive and zero contact service --How our enhancements help: MyTax Portal provides self-service access for the taxpayer to a comprehensive suite of essential transactional, enquiry and account management functions. Using myTax Portal, taxpayers can view their account summary, returns status, and arrange for payment plans, among many other e-services. Harnessing IRAS’ external value network to proactively establish taxpayer income sources and reliefs via AIS simplifies the transactions for taxpayers. This enables IRAS to be more proactive and personalised in its service. IRAS also improved our ‘service’ by minimising our contact with taxpayers through ‘pre-filled return’. As a result, accuracy is also improved due to fewer incorrect or incomplete forms from taxpayers. This development in turn leads to our exploration of the NFS initiative, which eliminates the need for targeted taxpayers to e-file their returns. This further enhanced the taxpayer “experience” by significantly reducing taxpayers’ compliance cost. >Enhance Long-Term Cost Effectiveness --Issue/ Opportunity: With the high Internet access rate in Singapore, there was great potential to use e-filing. There are significant cost reduction opportunities by migrating taxpayers to e-services. --How do our enhancements help: Our service enhancements help reduce cost of administration in the following ways: >> Online information and forms available on myTax Portal offers more self-service that reduces need for high cost face-to-face channels, letter or phone enquiries. >> Reducing the number of cash or cheque payments by encouraging electronic payment such as GIRO (i.e. an automated debit system) and online payment via myTax Portal. >> Pre-filled tax returns also help reduce errors and processing cost. >> Reduction of contacts and load on IT system with targeted taxpayers not required to submit their returns.

b. What were the key development and implementation steps and the chronology? No more than 500 words
The major milestones in chronological order is as follows: 2001 IRAS embarks on ISP Blueprint Study and Feasibility Study of Implementing a Pre-filled Returns System 2003 IRAS begins IRIN development 2005 Launch of myTax Portal for IIT e-filing 2006 Feasibility Study of Implementing NFS Framework 2007 Pilot implementation of NFS

c. What were the main obstacles encountered? How were they overcome? No more than 500 words
Challenges faced when implementing myTax Portal: MyTax Portal is implemented as part of the IRIN Program, a massive IT project which revamps the entire IT system for IRAS. The challenges met during the development of IRIN are hence typical of an extensive IT project, such as gaps in expectations between users and consultants that warrants better communications and meeting aggressive development deadlines that is resolved only by strong staff commitment. - Communications Communications about the project and solution was actively and regularly pushed to users. Regular publications ensured that users were informed about the IRIN project, the new concepts in the IRIN solution and the functions that would support these concepts. Users were also kept aware of the progress of the project and clearly understood the role they played in the successful implementation of IRIN. In addition, department-level sharing sessions were conducted pre-go-live to demonstrate management support, increase positive anticipation for IRIN, and educate users about their role in the crucial days leading to and post-go-live. - Strong Staff Commitment Strong senior management support and commitment with a clear vision inspired strong commitment of both the developers and users as they put in long hours including weekends and public holidays to see through the rollout of IRIN. Challenges faced when implementing NFS: -Change taxpayers’ mindset This initiative is a radical shift from the traditional filing process that has been in existence for many years. It was a challenge to change the mindset of taxpayers that submission of a return is no longer required. Although the general consensus, based on sessions with the Taxpayer Feedback Panel and Taxpayer Focus Groups, viewed the new initiative as a positive change, concerns that IRAS would raise the assessment based on wrong information were highlighted. Besides allowing taxpayers to verify their income and reliefs data via myTax portal, separate helplines and e-mail boxes were setup to cater to enquiries from this group of taxpayers. IRAS also emphasizes the phrase “not required to file” in the NFS letters in response to concerns of penalty for not submitting a return. -Ensure minimal tax loss To minimise potential tax losses, IRAS selects target groups carefully ensuring that the necessary and accurate information are available to calculate the tax liabilities for the target groups. As with any new initiative, publicity and education programmes/efforts have to be mounted to educate taxpayers to file if there are any changes to the auto-included employment or/ dividend income or changes to relief claims. This is highlighted in the NFS letters.

d. What resources were used for the initiative and what were its key benefits? In no more than 500 words, specify what were the financial, technical and human resources’ costs associated with this initiative. Describe how resources were mobilized
Besides replacing the obsolete technologies and products in our old system, there was a deliberate review and assessment of the technologies that are deployed in IRIN. IRIN adopts a standards-based, component-based architecture, which allow a “best of breed” suite of products and software components to be used in the project. At its peak, IRIN project involved over 600 personnel including IRAS, and the vendor consortium. A key success factor for IRIN Program was to immerse users into the project full-time, thereby providing the project team much needed business and operations knowledge first hand. More than 200 experienced users were seconded to the project. An almost equivalent number of contract staff was recruited to fill the posts vacated by these users to ensure day-to-day operations at the business divisions were not affected. In sum, the financial costs for the development of our entire new organisation-wide IT system, inclusive of the implementation of myTax Portal that is also used by taxpayers paying Corporate Income Tax, Goods & Services Tax and Property Tax, amounted to approximately S$181.25million. In comparison with the resource-intensive IRIN project, implementing NFS only effected minor changes to the IT system to exclude the NFS group of taxpayers from receiving their tax returns and from non-filer actions. For taxpayers who want to file, they can still e-file using the existing e-filing system. In this project, 2 personnel were deployed to man the dedicated helplines and email-boxes set up to cater to NFS enquires.

Is the initiative sustainable and transferable?
The highlight of our service delivery enhancements is to provide taxpayers with a convenient channel to file their taxes and to simplify the tax filing process, making fulfilling tax obligations almost a non-event for taxpayers. MyTax Portal is built based on Singapore’s tax system and therefore, cannot be transferred directly to other administrations. However, the experience and the knowledge gained from development and implementation of the system can be transferred to other countries. IRAS actively contributes to transferring knowledge of our experience and our systems to tax administrations in other countries. Within 2 years, we have shared our knowledge and experience with at least 13 other foreign tax administrations. At the 27th Commonwealth Association of Tax Administrators (CATA) conference in Mauritius from 13 to 18 August 2006, IRAS presented on the sub-topic "Leveraging on Technology for Integrity Management", which highlighted IRAS exploitation of technology, including the use of AIS, to get accurate third party information for tax assessment purposes. On the local platform, IRAS continually educate our taxpayers about myTax Portal, and to encourage more employers to enroll in our AIS in particular, through seminars. This ensures the sustained expansion of our employment income database, which is imperative for pre-filling returns for as many taxpayers as possible. IRAS has also shared with Singapore’s National Healthcare Group (NHG) on the NFS initiative as this showcased our innovation efforts as well as our commitment to excellent taxpayer service. IRAS is also looking forward to sharing our experience from implementing this initiative at an impending visit by the Fiji Islands Revenue & Customs Authority (FIRCA). Furthermore, NFS clinched the Bronze medal, beating 12 other local public agencies at the prestigious PS21 ExCEL "“Simple Ideas, Extraordinary Results” Convention 2007 on 1 Nov 2007. This Convention is held every year to recognise the effort of public agencies who have contributed significantly to the improvement in the Civil Service by participating actively in continuously improving and innovating in their work. In addition, the NFS project team won for their initiative the “Most High Impact Award” at Ministry of Finance (MOF) Productivity Day 2007. MOF Productivity Day is an annual event held to recognise and reward the 7 agencies within the MOF Family for their active participation in Innovation and for implementing outstanding projects/suggestions in their agencies in the past financial year.

What are the impact of your initiative and the lessons learned?
The technological focus of the AIS embedded in the new e-filing system in myTax Portal increases IRAS’ operational efficiency to the point that we have eliminated our backlog of assessment cases. This new system also help us to achieve our corporate objective by enhancing our level of voluntary compliance through the automated capture of as much required tax information from source as possible, reducing the possibility of non-compliance. More importantly, IRAS has translated all these into better service for our taxpayers by making it easier for them to fulfill their tax obligations through the provision of myTax Portal such that the taxpayers can make their contribution to nation building anytime, anywhere, and at their convenience. In addition, our partnership with taxpayers means that we at IRAS make a conscious effort to reduce the cost of compliance for our taxpayers with the AIS. Our extensive use of technology to match taxpayer information with third party entities enables us to reduce the time needed by the taxpayer to complete his return. The accuracy of the information we acquire through this matching processing also means that taxpayers have faith in our assessment of their tax obligations. With more employers participating in the auto-inclusion scheme in the future, more taxpayers will stand to benefit. The development of myTax Portal inspires IRAS internally to develop new initiatives to benefit our customers. The NFS initiative not only provides a convenient way for taxpayers to fulfill their tax obligation, it also helps IRAS to alleviate the filing load during the Individual Income Tax peak period. It is a reflection of IRAS’ continual commitment in seeking improvements to bring about greater taxpayer satisfaction and convenience to taxpayers. It is with these enhancements that IRAS is able to make quantum improvements in our service delivery to taxpayers, bringing us a step closer to achieving our vision of being the “leading tax administration in the world”.


Institution Name:		Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore
Institution Type:		Government Agency
Contact Person:		Li Fen Chin
Title:		Assistant Commissioner(Corp. Development Div.)
Telephone/ Fax:
Institution's / Project's Website:
E-mail:		lifen@iras.gov.sg
Address:		55 Newton Road
Postal Code:		307987
City:
State/Province:
Country:		Singapore

The Problem

Solution and Key Benefits

Actors and Stakeholders

(a) Strategies

(b) Implementation

(c) Overcoming Obstacles

(d) Use of Resources

Sustainability and Transferability

Lessons Learned

Contact Information