What Inland Revenue is doing to ensure it is ready to support customers in the lead up to and after Release 3

Transcription

1 What Inland Revenue is doing to ensure it is ready to support customers in the lead up to and after Release 3 Meeting customer demand and ensuring services work as expected through the changes being introduced in April 2019 is a priority. A lot of work is underway to ensure that both before and after go-live customers know what the changes mean for them and that they have the support they need as they experience new ways of doing things. Before go-live Testing services and processes A comprehensive testing plan is in place and Inland Revenue is making good progress. Approximately 70,000 tests will be run, covering all aspects of new systems and processes, and Inland Revenue has already completed around 54,000 of these tests. Business system testing (making sure START works as expected) is currently underway and will be largely completed, as planned, before Christmas. A small amount of business system testing will continue into January The next phase of testing is scaled business simulation testing (practicing go-live stepby-step, including the migration of data and processes following go-live). This will take place during January to March Three mock go-live tests will be run. These will take place during January to March 2019 and are in effect a practice run for go-live weekend, including rolling back changes in the unlikely event this is necessary. Accelerating engagement with key stakeholder groups Engagement with key stakeholder groups has intensified since August Senior managers from the Customer and Compliance Services groups are working closely with the Transformation team to ensure key stakeholder groups are ready for change - including Personal Tax Summary intermediaries (PTSIs), tax agents and software providers, and employers. PTSIs Currently, PTSIs work with their clients, the majority of whom are salary and wage earners, to determine whether they have an end-of-year refund. If they do, PTSIs request a PTS from Inland Revenue on behalf of their client and then confirm it. PTSIs pass the refund on to their client, after deducting a fee. Subject to the legislation being passed, the business model for PTSIs will fundamentally change as customers will automatically receive any tax refunds they are entitled to directly from Inland Revenue. Some PTSIs will cease trading and others will offer more value-add services as tax agents. Regardless of whether a PTSI is continuing in business or not, Inland Revenue needs upto-date contact and bank account details for their clients. This will ensure people receive any refunds they are entitled to directly into their bank account as quickly as possible. 1

2 Inland Revenue has proactively engaged with all 31 PTSIs to ensure the department has a clear view of the future business intentions of PTSIs. This has now been completed and the process of obtaining contact and bank account details for clients of PTSIs is underway. Tax agents and software providers Inland Revenue is tightly integrated with the five providers of practice management solutions for tax agents (Reckon, MYOB, CCH, Xero and TaxLab), with daily information feeds of transactional data and large volumes of returns being passed through these interfaces. Work is underway in several areas to ensure tax agents can continue their businesses uninterrupted after go-live: E-File Transactional data services Delegations E-File is used by tax agents to send information to Inland Revenue, including returns, changes to their client lists and client contact details. Once Release 3 has gone live, E-File will be repointed from FIRST to START so E-File needs to continue to work as it currently does for the providers of practice management software and their clients. Inland Revenue is currently working through testing plans for E-File with Xero, MYOB, TaxLab, Reckon and CCH. Transaction data services (TDS) enable software providers to obtain client transactional information from START and make it available within their own software. This in turn allows this information to be provided to their clients, particularly tax agents. Four of the five providers of practice management software are expected to complete testing shortly. The fifth provider has begun test preparation. Tax agents will need to ensure they have set up the appropriate delegations in the new system, so they can continue to access their clients information after go-live. Inland Revenue s Community Compliance and Account Management teams are working with tax agents to ensure they know what they need to do by when. Employers From 1 April 2019, employers will be required to file employment income information every payday. Employers will be able to file employment information through their software, upload files through myir, or complete an onscreen form. For a limited group (those with small payrolls, new employers, and those with an exemption), paper filing will still be available. In total, there are approximately 213,000 employers and 2.5 million employees in New Zealand. 2

3 Inland Revenue is working with providers of accounting and payroll software to ensure their software supports filing employment information directly from their software. Just over 100 software providers and payroll intermediaries have been identified with a product in New Zealand. The majority are providers of payroll software (85+) who are currently engaging with Inland Revenue to develop and test interfaces for payday filing. The top ten providers are advancing through the testing process. They account for approximately 100,000 employers with 1.6 million employees out of the total market served by software providers covering approximately 1.8 million employees. Paper is currently the dominant method of collecting PAYE information for the remaining 700,000 employees. The customer engagement activity described below is helping employers to understand what they need to do by when, and what their options for payday filing are. Inland Revenue itself adopted payday filing on 5 September 2018, becoming the first New Zealand government agency to do so. As such, the department is now able to share experiences and lessons learnt with customers and other government agencies. Customer engagement activity A range of activity will help ensure customers are ready for the changes being introduced in April Employers A multi-channel, targeted campaign for employers began in late August: On 29 August 2018, direct mail/ was sent to all employers including an invitation to seminars being run around the country beginning from 3 September From mid-september through to November 2018, Inland Revenue s Community Compliance team are running 300 seminars on payday filing around the country. On 15 October 2018, the second wave of /direct marketing included links to how to videos and an animated video on benefits of payday filing for employers and their employees. During November and December 2018, advertising will begin, and Inland Revenue will send employers another direct mail/ with a link to a downloadable PDF explaining how to switch to payday filing through myir. From February to April 2019, direct mail/ and advertising will continue. A two-phase advertising approach will support the introduction of payday filing: During November to December 2018, advertising will focus on building on the awareness created by the first two waves of direct marketing (sent in late August and October 2018). From February to April 2019, advertising will focus on encouraging customers to switch to payday filing before 1 April

4 A range of media will be used, including digital (video, online banners, paid search), social media, radio, print, radio interviews, and ethnic media. Individuals A multi-channel, targeted campaign to individuals is about to kick off. Inland Revenue will use a range of media, including radio, print, video on demand on key news outlets, digital and social channels, ethnic media and paid search. From mid-november 2018, s will be sent to wage and salary earners to encourage them to visit the Changing for You website. A three-phase advertising approach will build awareness and encourage individual customers to act: During November to December 2018, advertising will focus on building awareness about the changes coming (subject to legislation). From February to April 2019, the focus will be explaining the changes in more detail. From April to June 2019, the focus will be on driving customers to act (check their details are up to date, register with myir). Resourcing to support customer demand Inland Revenue has estimated the effects of the changes on its work volumes and expected customer contacts and is planning to expand its workforce to manage increased demand post the go-live and throughout the 2019 peak period. Between March and July 2018 (the busiest part of the peak period), Inland Revenue answered approximately million calls. Based on current modelling and assumptions Inland Revenue expects to receive approximately million calls during March to July This represents an additional 346,000 calls compared to this year, an increase of approximately 23%. The 2019 forecast volumes are based on information available as at 02 November 2018, including the expected impacts from Release 3. An additional 325 staff are currently being brought on-board from Inland Revenue s temporary labour force to manage this anticipated demand, as has been the case during previous end-of-year filing periods. This is to ensure they are fully trained in new systems and processes before go-live in April By way of comparison, during the 2018 peak period Inland Revenue brought on board an additional 200 people from the temporary labour force. Inland Revenue is therefore increasing its temporary labour force for 2019 by 62.5% compared to As a contingency plan, in the event of heavier than forecast customer demand, Inland Revenue would redeploy people from other areas within the business. 4

5 After go-live Early life support The three months after go-live is known as early life support (ELS). During this period Inland Revenue provides extra support to both customers and staff. Building on what worked well for the first two releases, Inland Revenue will: Have additional staff available to respond to customer queries as noted above. Continue to engage with customers and stakeholders through its Account Management and Community Compliance teams as required to resolve any issues customers may be experiencing. Put in place a desk-side support team to support customer-facing staff as they interact with customers. Appoint key users who will triage issues at their site and participate in twice daily conference calls to ensure issues affecting customers and staff are visible and being prioritised appropriately. All customer issues that cannot be resolved up front by the on-site customer support teams will be logged in the ELS portal. The portal enables staff to raise issues and track them through to resolution and find workarounds and quick reference guides. Formal customer resolution plans are also documented in the portal. 5