Brigid McBride HM Revenue & Customs, UK Building a modern digital tax system Foro Conexión, 25 August 2015
Our business Revenue 517.7 billion 26.6bn of additional tax revenue brought in a new record 4% revenue growth per annum over last 5 years 41m personal users Workforce reduction 22% 2011-2016 5m Tax Gap 34bn business users 2
HMRC needs to change over the next 5 years Improved service More compliance revenue Lower cost base 3
Making tax easier: the start of a journey A fundamental transformation of the way in which taxpayers interact with the tax system a bold vision for a new, modern tax system, which will make it far easier for all taxpayers gov.uk/government/publications/making-tax-easier 4
Making tax easier for small businesses Integration - calculation and payment of tax becomes embedded within everyday business systems through the use of software/apps promoting voluntary compliance Simplification of our policy, products, and processes across different taxes, helping businesses feel as though they are paying a single tax Personalisation of services - digital account to help business customers comply by targeting support and information based on customer insight Customers can see their tax bill in near real-time and they can pay-asthey-go, giving them more certainty about their tax position 5
Business Tax Account live and being expanded Launched last year and ramping up users rapidly now more than 2.6 million 82% satisfaction rate Huge amount planned for 2015/16 and beyond including: Access via account to sales tax Access via account to corporate tax New service to allow payrolling of certain taxable benefits And a new service for agents: Will mean agents can undertake a range of actions for clients In private beta since April Currently inviting more volunteers into the testing Some great feedback already 6
Personal Tax Account in early testing Withholding taxes - services initially available include: Company car benefit service Medical benefits Check your Tax Estimate Ability to view tax calculation online Plans to add much more and quickly - during the rest of 2015/16 we will: Integrate other personal taxes Add a tax calculator Add repayments of payroll taxes Also includes Trusted Helper service family member or friend can act on someone s behalf 7
Helping make third party software even better A brand new API Strategy Ushering in a new era of closer collaboration with software developers Will help developers innovate and bring new products to the market Means more choice for customers and improved compliance for HMRC And a raft of commitments: A launch event for the Strategy (September) Launch a new Collaboration Zone (October) Start releasing new tools for developers (early 2016) 8
Digital Transformation is more than a website! Running the largest virtual call centre on the planet, and have introduced an online chat service to support customers Scanning all inbound mail for individual customers at point of receipt and distributing it electronically. The peak processing volume so far is 6,500 items an hour Centralising the printing of all outbound letters Processing complex transactions into the legacy systems by robots rather than manually by staff Online Chat 9
New channels are increasing our productivity Tweets Webchat Digital post handling +18% 9.3% 20.8% x3 +5% 10
Delivering in a truly Agile way Two HMRC Digital Delivery Centres London and Newcastle Continuous customer involvement during design of all new digital services Customer usability labs in both centres Dedicated labs for bigger projects User researchers embedded in each team 11
Next steps: 2015 and beyond By early 2016, we ll give access to digital tax accounts to: 5m businesses 10m individuals Enabling more people to deal with us online, e.g. claim tax credits New digital service for Agents New ways of contacting HMRC: Social media Chat SMS Secure messaging 12
Thank you Follow our progress at hmrcdigital.blog.gov.uk 13