A digital revenue system means our customers can take care of their tax, and any social policy payments they’re entitled to, in a way and at a time that works for them. Millions of straight-forward transactions happen with no intervention from us, providing customers with certainty sooner.
Overall, 81% of our customers found it easy to deal with us this year.
Customers are using our secure service, myIR, where they can do much of what they need to themselves. The number of user sessions has more than tripled over 4 years. This fast growth is in part due to customers accessing myIR on their mobile phones. It’s been a real plus for many customers. For instance, people receiving Working for Families Tax Credits can use myIR to check that their money is on the way, no matter where they are. They do not need to call us to get that peace of mind.
Call demand decreased 30% from last year as digital uptake continued to increase. At times, however, some customers had difficulty getting through to us. This was the case during some busy periods in the year when customers contacted us about their income tax assessments, COVID-19 relief options or the changes we’ve made to services. Also, calls can take longer because we aim to help customers get to the point where they know what to do next and what to expect, and they do not need to be transferred or call back. We’re achieving this for approximately 70% of calls.
While we're making it easy for people to move to our digital channels, we know there will always be customers who need more help. We're developing a strategy for how we support these customers, including working across government.
Improving digital services for businesses
We’ve been working with software providers to improve our digital services for businesses, tax agents and other intermediaries. Over the past 3 years, an extensive suite of new services has been launched to enable direct, 2-way interactions between external systems and ours.
The services are fast and easy to integrate with, and can handle high volumes of information. We’re seeing a big demand for the services from a growing network of software providers and intermediaries as they seek to assist customers in better managing their obligations and entitlements.
We’re always focused on further improvements to these services, and businesses are responding. The June 2021 cross-government Better for Business survey reported that businesses’ experiences dealing with us has markedly improved this year. Our score for service performance is the highest since this metric began in 2015.
As at 30 June 2021
- 81% of customers found us easy to deal with.
- 98% of 12.4 million returns were filed digitally.
- 79% of the correspondence we received was sent digitally.
- 98% of individual income tax payments were digital.
- 82% of donation tax credit claims were digital.