2006 NASCIO Recognition Awards Digital Government: Government to Business (G2B) Rhode Island Business Tax Service

Transcription

1 2006 NASCIO Recognition Awards Digital Government: Government to Business (G2B) Rhode Island Business Tax Service Executive Summary The Rhode Island Division of Taxation offers one of the most comprehensive suites of online business tax filings in the nation. Through the Rhode Island Business Tax service, nearly 60 different tax types can be filed via the Web and the telephone using IVR (Interactive Voice Response) technology. With over one billion dollars processed through the online Business Tax service proves that businesses not only expect, but prefer to conduct business electronically. The Rhode Island Department of Administration s Division of Taxation s use of innovative technology has replaced error-prone manual correspondence and document processing methods with intelligent applications that generate work products with greater speed, accuracy, and consistent quality. Businesses have embraced this forward movement of egovernment by opting to perform 20% of its business tax filings online. Businesses are able to file 57 different tax types via the Internet and 53 of these tax types via the telephone. Businesses can pay monthly and quarterly withholding tax, monthly and quarterly sales and use tax, insurance premium tax, motor vehicle fuel tax, cigarette stamp tax, corporate tax, hotel tax, monthly and quarterly meals and beverage tax, and retail sales tax just to name a few. A full list of business tax types can be found on the following Web page: Additional tax types can be added very rapidly to the filing system.. The online tax filing template was built for the quick addition of new tax types as they become available for the online service suite. Within minutes, authorized agency users have the ability to add tax types to the online service with simple input into a database table. In 2004 alone, 38 new tax filing types were added resulting in an amazing 523% increase in payments processed from In 2005, ten additional tax types were added to the online service resulting in an additional 99% increase in tax payments processed through the electronic service from the previous year. The RI Business Tax service offers businesses the flexibility to complete the tax filing now and pay later. Businesses can warehouse tax payments for up to 90 days with the online system allowing for convenient budgeting of business tax payments. H&R Block estimated that efiling of personal income taxes rose 8% from 2005 to 2006 the RI Business Tax service saw a nearly 100% increase in usage!

2 Project Description The Rhode Island Business Tax service, which started out as a pilot project in May 2003 with only two tax types, has grown into one of the nation s most extensive suites of business tax filing and payment services due to it s breadth of nearly 60 tax types available for electronic filing. Before the emergence of the online service, a business would send a check for withholding and sales tax, for example, through the mail. Payments received by the Division of Taxation were batched and entered into the taxation database. Payments were then sent to a cashier for deposit that would then go to the bank. The online Business Tax service has completely eliminated this time consuming and arduous process. What once took as long as 10 days to process a tax payment, now only takes minutes. A user must first register with the Division of Taxation prior to using the service. This is done through an online registration form in which the user must provide a company name, address, contact information and banking account information from which payments will be debited. To ensure that the banking information is valid and to minimize errors in key stroking, the bank account is immediately pre-noted for authorization. A standard formula is used to provide the user with their online username and the business selects its own password. Once the account has been created, and the bank account has been pre-noted, the business need only select which tax it would like to file using a drop down menu. The company information is conveniently pre-populated with the information stored in the database thus eliminating the need and time for data entry. The user then verifies this information and selects the date they want the tax filing payment to be withdrawn from their account. The filing process is now complete. Payment amounts are automatically calculated and the user may opt to warehouse a payment up to 90 days from the filing date. In addition to the incredibly simple filing process and convenient pay now or pay later option, the customer is able to retrieve a variety of reports through the online service. These reports provides information on tax filing payments that are pending, filing payments that have been cancelled and they may also view an entire history of tax filings paid through the online service. The flexibility of the system also permits a business user to cancel pending payments, if necessary. For some businesses, this is their entire accounting process for tax filings and payments to the state of Rhode Island. The technology used to create the RI Business Tax service is a custom blend of PHP, Apache, MYSQL, and Perl. The front-end of the application is custom built using PHP programming language and the back-end is a mix of Perl, PHP and Shell Scripting to create fixed length text files that the Division of Taxation mainframe can consume and process.

3 Log-in Screen Service Selection Screen

4 Improvements in Operation of Government and Benefits Realized Agency commitment has been vital in creating the efficiencies provided by the Business Tax service. The staff of the Division of Taxation has demonstrated a deep willingness to rapidly make new tax types available and assist users during their online service experience, which has truly lessened agency workload. With substantial cuts in budget and staff, the productivity provided by online services lets automation do most of the work. To what extent has online automation made a difference? Over $1 billion dollars has been processed through the online tax filing service. The agency has benefited hugely by streamlining an internal process of manual input of tax filing and payment information. Approximately 100% of all business taxes that are filed through the EFT (Electronic Funds Transfer) section of the Division of Taxation are now unified and accessible conveniently through one Web location. The agency can easily manage a majority of the tax types through a Web administrative interface. The administrative site functionality includes search functions by date, tax type and by business account. Administrators may also add, delete and suspend accounts. The password salvage tool allows for the quick retrieval of a lost password. Other features include the ability to view all payments processed by day, by filer, and by time and date. The agency may also download a CSV (spreadsheet) file to compare to their daily batch filings as an added internal check for easy reconciliation. Additional benefits include reduced processing costs for the state, faster updates to taxpayer records, and improved accuracy of tax records. We have eliminated errors in posting because fewer hands are used to process these payments, said Dan Clemence, Principle Revenue Agent, We are able to process all the transactions that we receive through the portal with almost no manual intervention. More and more businesses are also filing their taxes on time due to the ease of the electronic service and the ability to set-up scheduled payments. Businesses also benefit from online service delivery. In addition to filing and paying business taxes, users can keep their account information current with the ability to update address, contact and banking information. Users may also change their password information at any time, cancel warehoused payments not yet processed and gather reports of filings and payments previously processed. The RI Business Tax service initially launched with a pilot group of 300 users. The service has since increased to over 8,200 registered businesses users. That s an average of 2,600 new users per year! Businesses not only benefit from exceptional service delivery, they benefit from exceptional agency serviceability as well. The customer help desk for online support lies at the agency level. The flexibility to warehouse payments and the ability to set-up scheduled tax payments allow the business owner to effectively manage other aspects of their enterprise.

5 Realized Return on Investment The success of the Rhode Island Business Tax online filing service can be seen in numbers: The Rhode Island Business Tax online filing and payment service was first launched in May 2003, for a pilot group of 300 users to file Sales, Use and Withholding tax through the online service. The service was launched to the entire business community several months later with the launch of the Meals and Beverage online tax filing. During 2003, 11,000 filings were processed for a total of $46 million dollars collected. In early 2004, 8 additional tax types were added. The service was re-launched in November 2004 with an updated Web front-end and new telephone filing system along with 38 new tax filing types. This gave users the ability to file 48 tax types via the Internet and 46 over the telephone. In 2004, 49,233 transactions were processed for close to $287 million dollars in payments. In 2005, online transactions and payments processed continued to increase and exceed expectations. The launch of 9 additional tax types upped the amount of online tax types available to 57. In just a year, transactions increased an impressive 82% with 89,537 tax filings completed online and payments increased a whopping 99.7% with over $573 million dollars processed through the service. The Rhode Island Division of Taxation approximates that 24% of ALL tax revenue is processed through the online service. The Rhode Island Business Tax Service project was created without taxpayer expense by the Department of Administration, Division of Taxation, in collaboration with RI.gov, the state s official web site provider, as part of a zero-dollar partnership between the State of Rhode Island and New England Interactive, LLC.