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How the Australian Taxation Office is driving digital communication to Australian taxpayers

RevenueDelivering Public Service for the Future

Accenture has helped the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) reduce its reliance on legacy paper based communications and boost its ability to “speak” to clients digitally. This has allowed the ATO to transform its outbound communications, improving its customer service and complying with the Australian Government’s Digital First policy.

The ATO needed to increase its use of digital channels when contacting taxpayers to help them manage their tax affairs more efficiently. In addition, the agency had to enhance its use of digital channels to meet new Australian Government policy requirements. To achieve these goals, in 2014, Australia’s revenue collection agency collaborated with Accenture to help deliver its pivotal Digital Outbound Release (DOR) project.

DOR successfully integrated the ATO with myGov, a whole-of-government (WoG) system. This increased the agency’s use of digital channels and enabled tax advisors to access their clients’ digital correspondence with the ATO. As a result, the ATO has gained a solid foundation for delivering public service for the future.

Client Profile The ATO is Australia’s federal revenue agency, responsible for collecting more than A$300 billion each year from taxpayers. Its ~18,500 employees administer tax and superannuation for 26 million customers in Australia and overseas.

The OpportunityPrior to 2014, the ATO did not send any client-specific correspondence digitally. It only used digital communication channels for sending limited ad hoc news and information. This hampered the speed and efficiency of communications between the agency and taxpayers.

The ATO understood that by boosting its use of digital technology – such as email, SMS and the digital correspondence report for tax agents – it could improve customer service and reduce the number of interactions with clients. It also needed to align its operations with Australia’s changing regulatory environment. Under the Australian Government’s Digital First policy, by 2017, all government agencies must use digital channels as the primary avenue for communicating with customers and delivering services.

In response, the ATO launched the DOR project to establish a permanent enterprise digital outbound capability. The goals of this project were to rationalise around 50 document templates so they could deliver them to customers electronically (as a first step towards the rationalisation of their complete template library (~3500)) and to enable sending correspondence in formats such as email and SMS.

To achieve this, the ATO selected Accenture – harnessing a long-term collaboration that has already successfully delivered numerous projects.

SolutionDuring the project definition and roll-out, Accenture played a major role in developing and implementing technology and processes that established the appropriate foundation for the ATO’s digital communication needs.

In particular, Accenture integrated the ATO’s systems with myGov, allowing Australian taxpayers to receive ATO correspondence digitally through a single, secure electronic mailbox. This correspondence contains links to ATO systems, giving customers efficient payment and processing options.

Accenture also worked with another of the ATO’s technology partners, HP, to create a robust and effective digital platform for sending non-secure communications to clients via email and SMS. For this part of the project, Accenture took on project management and testing roles, and created a platform that accommodates all of the agency’s paper-based communications needs in the near term.

Finally, Accenture delivered an online, real-time report accessible through the existing Tax Agent Portal. This allows tax agents easy viewing of all electronic communications sent to their clients.

The Results DOR was successfully delivered in March 2015, on time and within budget. Today, the ATO is communicating with taxpayers using digital channels in a way that was not possible before DOR.

During the first week after going live, the agency made contact with all 3.3 million myGov account-holders to introduce the new ways to communicate with the ATO. Within three weeks of DOR being deployed, more than 76,500 pieces of ATO correspondence were sent digitally rather than by post. By moving to electronic forms of communication, all parties can send and receive key communications more quickly.

In addition, as it is now easier for clients to correspond with the ATO, they could be more likely to comply with their obligations.

This is just the start of the ATO’s digital communication journey. DOR has created the foundation for the ATO’s permanent enterprise digital outbound capability – a functionality-rich platform that will drive the agency’s digital journey and act as a springboard for future initiatives.

“DOR has allowed us to create an effective enterprise digital outbound capability to drive electronic communications with taxpayers, and help us achieve the broader Reinventing the ATO Digital Strategy. This is something for all of us to be proud of!”

Michael Heath, Assistant Commissioner and Deputy Release Sponsor for DOR, ATO.

About AccentureAccenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, with more than 336,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries. Combining unparalleled experience, comprehensive capabilities across all industries and business functions, and extensive research on the world’s most successful companies, Accenture collaborates with clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments. The company generated net revenues of US$30.0 billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2014. Its home page is www.accenture.com.

Find out more about how your government can go from looking digital to being digital by delivering public service for the future: www.accenture.com/digitalgovernmentau-nz

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