Improving Taxpayer Service and Facilitating Compliance in Singapore

Over the past ten years, the government of Singapore has sought to modernize and computerize Singapore. Tax administration was one area of public administration that clearly required modernization. In 1992 the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) was created to administer income and property taxes and a new value added tax called the Goods and Services Tax. Planning began to develop an integrated, computerized approach tax administration, which was soon reorganized on functional lines. This process has had made impressive results. In a survey, 95 percent of individual taxpayers, 83 percent of corporate taxpayers, and 93 percent of goods and services taxpayers said they were satisfied with IRAS services. This note discusses what Singapore has done to improve the taxpayer service and how it was done.

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Bird, Richard M., Oldman, Oliver
Format: Brief biblioteca
Language:English
Published: World Bank, Washington, DC 2000-12
Subjects:ACCESS TO INFORMATION, ADMINISTRATIVE EFFICIENCY, ADMINISTRATIVE PROCESSES, AUTHORITY, AUTOMATION, BACK END, CITIZENS, COLONIES, COMPLIANCE COSTS, CORRUPTION, DIVIDENDS, EMPLOYMENT, EVASION, FINANCIAL INCENTIVES, FISCAL, GOVERNMENT AGENCIES, IMAGING, IMAGING TECHNOLOGY, INCOME, INFORMATION SERVICES, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, KIOSKS, LEVELS OF GOVERNMENT, LEVIES, MODERNIZATION, NEW TECHNOLOGY, PEM, PROPERTY TAXES, PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, PUBLIC FINANCES, PUBLIC SECTOR, PUBLIC SERVICE, REVENUE ADMINISTRATION, SERVER, TAX, TAX ADMINISTRATION, TAX ARREARS, TAX COMPLIANCE, TAX REFORM, TERMINALS, WEB SITE TAX ADMINISTRATION AUTOMATION, ELECTRONIC TECHNOLOGY, INTEGRATED SYSTEMS, AUDITING, TRUST (PSYCHOLOGY),
Online Access:http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2000/12/891714/improving-taxpayer-service-facilitating-compliance-singapore
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/11406
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Over the past ten years, the government of Singapore has sought to modernize and computerize Singapore. Tax administration was one area of public administration that clearly required modernization. In 1992 the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) was created to administer income and property taxes and a new value added tax called the Goods and Services Tax. Planning began to develop an integrated, computerized approach tax administration, which was soon reorganized on functional lines. This process has had made impressive results. In a survey, 95 percent of individual taxpayers, 83 percent of corporate taxpayers, and 93 percent of goods and services taxpayers said they were satisfied with IRAS services. This note discusses what Singapore has done to improve the taxpayer service and how it was done.