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carried out robust selection exercises aimed at having people with the right skills in business critical and key leadership posts. The impact of this programme of work will be to streamline processes, improve performance, make decisions more effectively, and be clear who is accountable for what and stop duplication and waste. As part of the UK Civil Service, HMRC is also expecting to implement any changes that emerge from the developing Civil Service Reform Plan, the details of which have not yet been established.

The USA reported a series of organisational reforms had been made in recent times. Return Integrity and Correspondence Services (RICS) is a new umbrella organisation that brings together Units responsible for the Accounts Management Taxpayer Assurance Program, Earned Income Tax Credit, Health Coverage Tax Credit and the Office of Taxpayer Correspondence. These organisations individually work in the overall administration, education and outreach, fraud detection and revenue protection process. By combining these programmes into one organisation, the IRS expects to see increased efficiencies in the refundable tax credit administration, better coordination across the pre-refund process and focus on pre-refund revenue protection. Further reforms were advised concerning Large Business and International-described later in this chapter under “Large Taxpayer Operations” and “Office of Professional Responsibility” and the “Return Preparer Office”. Details of these latter reforms are set out in Chapter 8.

Office networks for tax administration

The design of a revenue body’s office network faces a number of competing objectivesthe provision of services that are reasonably accessible to the majority of taxpayers and staff and cost minimisation goals driven by demands for greater operational efficiency. Particularly over the last decade, various initiatives largely underpinned by technological advances have facilitated substantial reform of revenue bodies’ office networks in many countries.

Historically, the office networks of revenue bodies in many countries were comprised of large numbers of regional and/or local offices to carry out the full range of functions required for effective administration of tax laws. Factors driving the need for these large networks included the large number of taxpayers to be administered, their geographical spread and the general objective of providing services that were reasonably accessible to the majority of citizens and businesses who needed them. Over recent decades, a number of developments have seen significant changes to both the size and nature of revenue bodies’ office networks in many countries. Significantly:

Government mandates for increased efficiency: In response to demands by Governments for increased efficiency and responsiveness, office networks in many countries have been reconfigured into a smaller number of larger offices to achieve “economies of scale”. In some countries, management structures and lines of reporting have been streamlined, involving for some the elimination of a regional layer of management.

Technology-driven changes in information processing work: The advent of new technology has seen steps taken by many revenue bodies to concentrate some routine/seasonal functions (e.g. the processing of tax returns and payments) into large dedicated processing centres, centralising much of this work.

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Technology-driven changes enabling enhanced service delivery: Driven by objectives to improve both the efficiency and quality of taxpayer services, many revenue bodies have taken steps to make more effective use of the various service delivery channels available to them (e.g. phone, walk-in offices, and Internet) for delivering services to taxpayers. This has included the use of dedicated call centres to replace/reduce the need for in-person inquiry services and/or distributed phone inquiry services, the introduction of more efficient tax payment methods (e.g. direct debits, and on-line payment via the Internet), negating the need for revenue bodies to offer in-person payment services, and use of the Internet to provide comprehensive information, guides and forms for taxpayers.

Developments based on “whole of government” approaches: The delivery of some government services on a “whole of government” basis has in some countries seen the emergence of government shopfronts delivering some tax-related services that were previously delivered via local offices. For example, Australia reported the introduction of a cross-agency co-location strategy which has seen some ATO customers receiving information and assistance at shop-front sites of other Australian Government agencies. Among other things, this has contributed to a downwards trend in face to face visits to its own offices.

Tables 2.3 and 2.4 display data on the make-up of the office networks used for tax administration surveyed countries and the staffing numbers at each level of the network. Some of the more noteworthy observations and common features apparent from the data provided are set out below:

Office networks in quite a few countries, particularly within Europe are relatively larger, in comparison with the set up in many other countries, in part it would seem as a result of their responsibilities for the collection of local real property and/or motor vehicles taxes; however, quite a few revenue bodies in some of these countries (e.g. Czech Rep., Greece, and Portugal) have signalled their intention to significantly reduce the size of these networks while others have already taken steps to do so (see Box 2.1).

Over half of surveyed revenue bodies have established dedicated information processing centres for bulk information processing work; around 20 revenue bodies make use of dedicated call centre operations for handling taxpayers’ inquiries and providing information, and outwards bound inquiry work.

Across surveyed bodies, there is enormous variation in the relative size of the headquarters function,2 reflecting a variety of factors, for example a more centralised approach to the national management of tax administration operations and large in-house IT functions. The practice of maintaining large HQ operations (i.e. aggregate staffing in excess of 15% of total staffing) appears particularly prominent in countries such Argentina, Australia, Canada, Hungary, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, and USA.

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Table 2.3. Office network for tax administration role-number of office types

Revenue bodies’ office network for tax administration (number of formal operational units) at end 2011

For notes indicated by “/ (number)”, see Notes to Tables section at the end of the chapter, p. 98.

Source: CIS survey responses.

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Table 2.4. Office network for tax administration role-number of staff and office type

For notes indicated by “/ (number)”, see Notes to Tables section at the end of the chapter, p. 99.

Source: CIS survey responses.

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