Annual report - 2004 - Part 2
Implementing key government initiatives from the 2004 Annual Report
In 2003-04 we have been involved in implementing two key government initiatives.
E-government services
Inland Revenue is committed to delivering electronic services that are aligned with the e-government strategy. We want customers to be able to interact with us easily at their convenience, making it easy for them to comply with obligations and receive entitlements.
Our websites
www.ird.govt.nz
The most visited government website 8 is www.ird.govt.nz
8 Source: June 04 hitwise.com - Real Time Competitive Intelligence
It offers a range of services including over 40 interactive online forms and calculators and has a wide variety of information to help people meet their obligations and receive their entitlements. It also has an unclaimed monies list of people owed money from various organisations that are unable to make contact with claimants to pay them. Our website received about 26 million page views 9 for the year, an average of more than 70,000 page views per day.
9 Page views provides a more accurate indication of website usage for large and frequently visited websites than hits per day, which is more suitable for smaller websites.
This year Inland Revenue's website featured as a "hotspot" in NetGuide magazine. It was described as one of the best in the country and as the "first port of call for personal and business taxation"
Although we have received good feedback about our website we have identified the need to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the processes used to manage its content and improve its presence and usability. The work on this is well under way, with an improved site scheduled to be available in late 2004.
As well as our main website we also provide two websites for specific taxpayer groups: student loan borrowers and people interested in information on
tax policy.
www.taxpolicy.ird.govt.nz
Online since 1999, the tax policy website is a key tool in managing the government's generic tax policy process and delivering its tax policy work programme. It is a specialist site, publishing government discussion documents and issues papers seeking feedback on proposed policy changes, detailed information on proposed tax legislation, and regular news items on tax policy developments. It received about 400,000 page views for the year.
www.owezero.org.nz
This website was developed in May 2003 and receives an average of 177 hits per day. This year, we further developed the content of the site with a repayment calculator specifically for non-resident borrowers. The calculator shows non-residents the difference extra repayments can make in both the time and cost of their loan.
A new section, reading your statement, has also been developed for the website. It explains the different sections of the statement and the terms used. It includes examples of what a statement looks like so the borrower can compare it to their own statement.
Online return filing service
We have made considerable progress towards improving our online services to customers. We now have 38 different online forms and 5 online calculators and all major returns can now be filed online. This service allows taxpayers to file returns 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Of all the online returns available, eGST is the most popular. Since it was launched in June 2002, we have received over 220,000 10 eGST returns from over 30,000 taxpayers. We have also been improving the return as a result of customer feedback. For example, we have added a textbox to allow people to raise simple queries. This has proved popular.
10 As at 30 June 2004.
The eGST return was nominated as one of three finalists in the Computerworld Excellence Awards 2004 in the Excellence in the Use of IT in Government category.
The second most used online service is the eIR 3, launched in April 2003. From April 2003 to June 2004, around 8,500 eIR 3 returns have been received. We expect to see an increased uptake during the next annual return filing cycle.
Our online returns provide an additional service to e-file and our paper-based services.
Usage of all other e-services, such as online forms and our secure email service has been steadily increasing with each tax cycle.
Viewing your Inland Revenue account online
This year we launched look at account information service that allows student loan customers to securely view their student loan account online. We have received positive email feedback from borrowers
about the service.
We are now rolling out the look at account information service to other customer groups beginning with tax agents. As at 30 June 2004, half of our tax agents' client lists have been registered to use the service with 92% having used the service at least once since registering. We have also had positive feedback on this service.
At an Institute of Chartered Accountants of New Zealand tax liaison meeting, an agent said that now she and her staff had look at account information service, their telephone contact with Inland Revenue has dropped by 60%. She said it made a real difference in obtaining information from tracking transfers, small credits, penalties, balances and the like, and she was looking forward to further enhancements. Her agency is seeing quite a considerable time saving through having this information at its fingertips.
The next group of customers to have the option of look at account information service will be our Child Support customers.
Other services to assist customers, such as online viewing of our knowledge base, so taxpayers can more easily answer their tax and social assistance queries, are on our workplan for the next three years.
Online banking helps people pay on time
Our customers tell us that having the ability to both file and pay online is important. So our customers can make their payments through online banking, we have been working with individual banks. All the main banks now offer this service, with one exception and we are currently working with this bank to make the service available.
Working for Families
The Working for Families package was announced in the 2004 Budget. The package has three key aims:
- to make work pay by ensuring that people are better off by being in work and are rewarded for their work effort
- to ensure income adequacy, with a focus on low to middle income families with dependent children, to address issues of poverty, especially child poverty, and
- to support people into work by ensuring people get the assistance they should to support them into, and remain in, work.
We have been working in partnership with the Ministry of Social Development on the development and implementation of the family assistance component of Working for Families. The reforms will be brought in progressively over the next three years.
We are primarily responsible for delivering family assistance to working families, while the Ministry of Social Development is responsible for delivering family assistance to those families needing a benefit. Family assistance is the main way the government assists with the costs of raising children and increases the disposable incomes of low and middle income families. Working for Families will mean approximately 48,000 more people will receive family assistance from Inland Revenue over the next three years.
To enhance the delivery focus and implementation of family assistance and Working for Families, this year we established a new position, National Manager, Social Assistance Programme. The position is focusing management attention on the progressive enhancement of our existing systems and delivery platforms. This will ensure we provide a seamless service between Inland Revenue and the Ministry of Social Development for customers moving between work and the benefit system.
Date published: 16 Nov 2004
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