„Common Challenges, Smart Solutions – Digital Transformation of Tax and Customs Administrations from IT and HR Perspective” was the title of the international academic conference jointly organised by the National Tax and Customs Administration of Hungary and the National University of Public Service. IOTA participated at the two-day event which was held in Budapest, on 20-21 November 2019.
Eleven European tax administrations participated in the event: Hungary, Slovakia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Czech Republic, Serbia, Georgia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Azerbaijan and Ireland.
Representatives of the private sector and of international organisations, such as DG TAXUD, World Cusotms Organization and the Intra-European Organisation of Tax Administrations also participated. All participating tax administrations are members of IOTA as well.
The Opening addresses were held by
- Brig. Gen. Gábor Kovács Prof. Dr., Vice-Rector of the NUPS
- Ms. Csilla Tamás Czinege, Director General for Taxation Issues of the NTCA
- Mr. František Imrecze, Executive Secretary of IOTA (video message)
- Mr. Tejo Kusuma, Technical Officer, WCO Compliance and Facilitation Directorate
- Ms. Birgit Reiser, Head of Sector, European Commission DG TAXUD
Five panels gave the core topics of the conference:
- Challenges of Digitalization and E-Commerce
- Cross-Border E-Commerce
- HR and Organizational Development in the Digital Era
- Common Challenges in Research and Development
- Intelligent Solutions Supported by Science
František Imrecze, the Executive Secretary of IOTA could not participate personally but he sent his video message. He talked about tax revenue sustainability in the current digital era. He highlighted that digitalization is inevitable and it is both the challenge and the solution for the Tax and Customs Administrations. He also mentioned that there are many great solutions and initiatives in the IOTA membership representing a successful digital transformation. He talked about voluntary tax compliance and that tax authorities need to achieve collaborative compliance arrangements with digital businesses.
He continued his video message with mentioning some of the best practices of IOTA members in the field of structural reforms. Azerbaijan made changes in the organizational structure to improve the utilization of workforce capacities assuring higher efficiency of tax collection and Georgia centralised tax process definitions to assure that the field structure focuses predominantly on core tax functions.
Roman Bichevoy, International Taxation Expert from IOTA gave a presentation on the „Tax official of tomorrow”. Mr Bichevoy talked about HR and Organizational Development in the Digital Era.
He described that many IOTA tax administrations focus on several key competencies that the tax official of the future should posssess, inlcuding creative problem-soving, self management, comprehensive mindset and cognitive flexibility for continuous learning. He highlighted that in order to achieve this, tax administrations need to adapt their HR processes and learning&development programs to hire, train and retain the most valuable asset of the organisations which is human capital.
Overall, the NTCA International Conference, that was first organised in 2013, addressed multiple challenges that tax administrations face during the era of digital transformation as well as discussed practical solutions of how to best prepare for such transformation from organisational, IT and HR point of view.