BACK-BREAKING administrative burdenresulting from tax
regulations is one of the key features of most economies. Reducing it is
a serious challenge. About two-thirds of OECD countries had serious
burden reduction targets as of December 2009, with tax laws being a key
focus area.
The latest OECD report reveals that while there are no —silver
bullets for achieving significant burden reduction, the revenue bodies
increasingly in co-operation with other government agencies, have many
avenues to pursue to successfully achieve the challenging targets that
have been set. Based on a survey of 20 countries and related research,
the key findings are as follows:
* Regulatory management reform to improve the framework of the
administrative system;
* Organisational re-engineering (including process redesign);
* Use of information and communication technologies (ICTs);
* Pre-filling of personal tax returns (for some entailing the
preparation of fully completed returns for a majority of taxpayers);
* Increased use of electronic filing and payment (often facilitated by
the introduction of mandatory requirements);
* Use of modern call centre operations and technology making it easier
for taxpayers to get the specific information they need when they need
it;
* Expanding the range of services and information available to
taxpayers on-line, especially giving them on-line access to their own
personal information; and
* Automating VAT invoicing requirements (a potential market of 18
billion invoices per annum in Europe alone).
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