The IOTA Workshop on Facilitation of Taxpayer Touchpoints shared a unique perspective on member experiences, best practices of actions and strategies to improve and integrate unnecessary taxpayer touchpoints. The digital workshop was organised between 20th and 21st April 2022 and welcomed 84 registered participants from 28 IOTA member countries.
The event aroused an outstanding interest among the speakers, with a total of 16 tax officials from 12 IOTA member countries and one speaker from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) giving presentations covering various topics during the two-day workshop.
Communicating, interacting, and facilitating engagement with taxpayers is important for improving customer experiences and encouraging voluntary tax compliance. This is managed and supported through several touchpoints, or points of contact, varying from face-to-face interactions, phone calls, letters, websites, e-services, and other ways tax administrations interact with taxpayers. Difficulties with these touchpoints may arise, for example, because of a lack of understanding on the taxpayer's side, or when tax administrations' processes are not working as they should.
Some examples of how tax administrations effectively facilitate touchpoints could be well-working taxpayer support processes, effective collaborations, collection of relevant analytical data to support understanding of taxpayer behaviours, successful e-services, or any other systems that enhance and make smoother the interaction between the customer and tax administrations. The workshop was focused on the creation of and logic behind these solutions, rather than on legislative changes or purely technical aspects.
The digital workshop started with a presentation on the Framework of facilitation of the taxpayers’ touchpoints where Mr. Rex Arendsen from OECD presented the “Digital Transformation Maturity Model”.
The presentation was followed by a session on the Overview of the facilitation of the taxpayers’ touchpoints offering the following topics:
- “Armenian Approach to the Facilitation of Taxpayer Touchpoints" by Ms. Liana Movsisyan & Ms. Marianna Shirinyan
- “The Spanish experience in the facilitation of the taxpayers’ touchpoints" by Ms. Gema Jimenez
- “An overview of taxpayer touchpoints within the Dutch Tax Administration” by Mr. Wop Leeuwen.
On the first day of the workshop, the question on the “Strategies, approaches, and methods to facilitate or reduce taxpayer touchpoints” raised a great interest among the tax officials, where several country presentations reflected on the topic:
- “ATGO – Manage your activity” by Ms. Ana Quintela, Portugal
- “Accessible and personalized services, strategy & Citizen Relationship Management: Implementation and evolution of Taxpayer Touchpoints“ by Mr. Dirk Vyverman, Belgium
- “One-stop shop service” by Mr. Steve Lahos, Luxembourg
- “New service solutions and channels for customers” by Mr. Gintaras Arbutavičius & “The virtual assistant of the STI – SIMAS” by Mr. Šarūnas Gurklys, Lithuania
The second day of the workshop started with a discussion on how to develop customer-centric touchpoints positioning the client’s needs in the focus of the tax administration’s strategy design with the following presentations:
- Poland: ”Multichannel approach in National Revenue Administration in Poland” by Ms. Katarzyna Prus-Malinowska
- Ireland: “Customer Centric Delivery for our older Customers” by Ms.Emma Brennan
- Italy: “From customer satisfaction to the customer experience” by Ms. Emilia Trastullo
During the plenary sessions on the second day, a number of tax administrations reflected on the topic “Best practices for effortless and effective interaction with the taxpayers” with the following presentations:
- “Learning how to measure customer needs” by Ms. Åsa Jenslin and Mr. Elias Tejnung, Sweden
- “Direct personal contact via video with citizens and businesses” by Mr. Robert Lommers, the Netherlands
- “Model for Customer Contacts in Finnish Tax Administration by Mr. Janne Myyry, Finland
All the plenary sessions were followed by a Q&A discussion.
The presentations are available for registered IOTA website users on the event’s webpage while group discussion notes and the recording of the event will be provided within a week after the event.