2003 Singapore Quality Award Winner Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore
The Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) provides services in administering, assessing, collecting, and enforcing payment of taxes. It administers 7 tax types that account for 60% of the Government operating revenue. IRAS also advises the Government and represent Singapore internationally on matters relating to taxation. The senior executives in IRAS have demonstrated visionary leadership and commitment in driving IRAS to the forefront of tax administration. The organisation's strategy of achieving voluntary compliance through excellent taxpayer service and the twin approach of harnessing technology and people competencies has yielded impressive results. Today, tax processing is highly automated and voluntary compliance is close to 90%. The World Bank has cited IRAS as a model in tax administration. This is in recognition of its success in harnessing technology and the competencies of its people to manage one of the most cost-effective tax administrations in the world. IRAS has instituted a structured planning framework for the development of its short-term (one- year) and medium term (five-year) plans. A balanced scorecard approach has been adopted to set corporate goals that focus on cost effectiveness of tax administration, customer service and compliance, operational efficiency, and staff competence and satisfaction. The corporate goals are cascaded into Divisional workplans and targets. The organisation has demonstrated an impressive track record in harnessing technology to support its business processes. For example, document imaging is widely employed and integrated with the main operational system. Data is captured once and at source, thus ensuring the reliability and efficiency of data collection. The innovative capacity of IRAS is exemplified by it being one of the first tax administrations in the world to introduce tax filing via the Internet system on a large scale in 1998. Usage has increased by more than 700% over 5 years. By the end of the E-Filing period on 18 Apr 03, a total of 903,849 tax returns were efiled, constituting 60% of the total number filed, compared to 55% last year. For its efforts in harnessing IT, IRAS has received accolades from international bodies like the World Bank, and was awarded the 1996 National IT Award. Through the introduction of E-filing and its subsequent associated systems like auto-inclusion, IRAS has managed to increase the speed of assessment and tax collection drastically. With people as its most valued asset, IRAS places much attention on the development and needs of its employees. The organisation has put in place a comprehensive leadership succession planning initiative to sustain its leadership system. Staff with leadership potential are identified early in their career and exposed to various development opportunities through a structured system of job rotation, management training and development, participation in challenging projects, and external attachments. Many of the key positions in the organisation are occupied by staff that have benefited from this succession planning system. IRAS has adopted multiple channels for employees to contribute to innovation, teamwork, and the achievement of the organisation's objectives and goals. These include cross-functional teams, suggestion scheme, quality action circles, and the Golden Bits Initiative. Under this initiative, employees can email innovative suggestions to the Commissioner of Inland Revenue. To support the experimentation of innovative ideas, the Assistant Commissioners are empowered to fund ideas up to $100,000 under the Divisional Innovation Fund, and the organisation uses the Eye on I Fund for funding above $100,000. For example, the project on Flex-Answer sponsored under the Innovation Fund has significantly reduced the number of queries for processing by channeling common queries to an internet based information resource. To support its commitment for excellent taxpayer service, IRAS uses a wide variety of listening and learning strategies to gather regular feedback from taxpayers. These include taxpayer surveys, taxpayer focus groups, taxpayer feedback panel, and mystery caller programme. For example, 20 taxpayer focus groups were formed to gather inputs from customers on its new generation information systems, and the feedback was promptly acted upon. The focus on the customer is also evident from the fact that the information collected from tax forms has been reduced from 8 pages to 2 pages over the years. More than 90 per cent of the taxpayers were satisfied with the services provided by IRAS. In a 2002 New Zealand Benchmarking study of 15 leading tax authorities, IRAS was rated the best on key indicators such as taxpayer per staff member, cost per taxpayer, percent tax return by internet channels, and percent training expense to total expense. The cost per taxpayer for IRAS has decreased from $58.6 in 1998 to $51.4 in 2002. The performance of IRAS on speed of assessment was also better than that for tax authorities of countries with broadly similar tax regimes like Australia, Hong Kong and the United Kingdom. On winning the 2003 Singapore Quality Award, Mr Koh Cher Siang, Commissioner of Inland Revenue, IRAS said: "We are honoured to join the select group of Singapore Quality Award winners. This prestigious award recognises the role of IRAS in helping taxpayers play their part in nation building. It testifies to the determination of IRAS to make taxpaying a uniquely different experience for our taxpayers. And this award is for all the IRAS people and their strong 'can-do' spirit. Together we make it happen! The SQA is a journey for us. We will continue to find ways to better partner our taxpayers in nation building - from our services, to our processes, our systems and our people. We will continue to find ways to make it easier for you to fulfill your tax obligations. The taxpaying experience will be simple and convenient. We will continue to make your contribution to nation building a fulfilling one."
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