In 1997, the Revenue Commission were facing an administrative nightmare: For that year alone, its tax offices handled in excess of 850,000 phone enquiries from tax payers and their agents looking for information, forms, etc. It represented a lot of paper, a lot of people, and a lot of time.
In response, the Board of the Revenue Commissioners decided that there had to be a better, more efficient, more economic way to conduct its business. Embracing the electronic marketplace, it came up with the Revenue Online Service. This is an interactive, Web-based system that enables business tax payers and their agents (accountants or tax consultants) to file returns and make payments, obtain details of their revenue accounts, calculate their tax, and conduct their tax affairs electronically 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
In September 2000, the concept became reality and the Website ROS or the Revenue Online Service (www.ros.ie) went live. Two years on, the site has become the flagship for the government’s public services agenda. Internationally, the site has received the plaudits from both consulting firm Accenture and the European Commission who have bestowed on it best practice awards.
Bullet-proof security
To sign up for the service, a user must go through a three-step registration process. With the system safeguarded by a PKI solution implemented by Baltimore Technologies, a user must first apply for a Revenue access number (RAN). This is then returned to the user by land mail. Using the RAN number, the user must then apply for a system password at the site. This again is returned to the user by land mail. Once they get this, the user can then go and retrieve a digital certificate from the site, which then gives them full access to the service.
The holder of the digital certificate is the administrator. They can also request sub certs for other employees in the organisation so that they too, can visit the site, download forms and fill them out. The security catch with the sub cert is that the holder is obliged to get their forms signed off by the holder of the main digital certificate, before they can be submitted to ROS.
ROS services
Once a business user or their agent is registered with ROS, they can electronically file VAT 3, VAT annual return details, P30 monthly, P45, P35 annual, and as a recent edition, the income tax Form 11, the corporation tax CT1, the environmental levy or ‘plastic bag’ tax and financial withholding taxes covering the government’s special savings scheme and dividend payouts.
Automatic calculation
Built-in calculators do the maths for the user as they fill in the forms on the site. Before, using the traditional paper-based method, there was an error rate of 25 to 30 per cent in form returns. ‘This can’t happen now,’ says ROS communications manager Derek Spiller. ‘Because the tax facilities are built-in, the user won’t be able to go any further until the correct details and calculations are filled in. There are validation checks throughout so the error rate should disappear completely.’
For the income tax Form 11, a built-in mini-calculator allows a user to calculate benefit in kind like car allowance and mortgage relief. If they get the mandatory figures wrong, the system will point out the error.
Popular service
To measure the success of the site to this point, strategy manager Margaret Whelan estimates that over 250,000 payers are already in the system, either on their own or represented by their agents. In excess of 138,000 tax queries have come through the site saving on an estimated 100,000 phone calls. Most impressively, over 100,000 tax returns have been filed including VAT, P30 and a small number of income tax forms. The site has also processed the collection of €4billion and the payment of €297million.
Whelan projects that by 2005, over 50 per cent of all business tax and VAT returns will be submitted through the system. But significant growth in the service’s popularity may come more quickly than that: Whelan continues ‘Until this year we didn’t expect significant take up until October 2003. It was a key date for income tax filers whereby they would be using a new set of account menus. But because of some new changes in procedures for income tax filers this year, we’re actually expecting to see a significant uptake in the use of the service for the Form 11 for income tax this October instead.’
Business benefits
There are several key advantages for a small business to switch from paper filing to ROS. For a start, the electronic method is faster. Forms are submitted and receipted almost immediately—almost unique in the world to a tax administration system.
It’s also convenient. Tax and VAT payments can be made by laser card or by direct debit instruction from the site. Longer forms like the Form 11 and CT1 can be downloaded, and filled out offline saving on dial-up Internet charges. Also, the 24/7 dimension to the service means that it’s always open to managers and accountants looking for tax information.
Whelan says the service is ideal for small business managers who want to sit down at night or at the weekend to do their returns in the peace and quiet. If they forgot to ring the tax office to check their positions, they don’t have to wait until the next morning to find the information they need. They can also log onto the site to see what their accountant is doing for them.
As a final carrot to using the service, small companies with a tax liability of more than €5000 will get a three week extension for their income tax returns by submitting them online through ROS. These returns are due by the end of October.
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