News item | 31-01-2022 | 16:27
The Tax and Customs Administration wants to build on the confidence of citizens and entrepreneurs. In order to do this properly, it is important to identify problems and bottlenecks early and transparently and to provide practical solutions that help people further. An important step has been taken in this regard with the publication of the first Implementation Status and the 2022 Annual Plan.
State Secretary of Rij:
“The Tax and Customs Administration is responsible for more than 300 billion euros a year in taxes and national insurance contributions. The trust of citizens and entrepreneurs in the organization is crucial. Employees of the Tax and Customs Administration realize this like no other. That is why we ensure that citizens and entrepreneurs receive more help. and that they are explicitly involved in the development of better services, for example through citizen panels.”
In order to build trust, it is important to take signals from within and outside the Tax Authorities seriously. The Execution Status lists these signals unfiltered. Both signals from the tax authorities and signals about the services and implementation by the tax authorities.
Follow up on signals
Attention to building trust is one of the four red threads in the Stand of the Execution. In addition, the quality of communication with citizens, the maintenance of ICT and the complex legislation and regulations are central.
The Tax and Customs Administration has already started to pick up on the signals. One of these is improving the official declaration process. This is started when a taxpayer does not file an income tax return after several requests. The Tax and Customs Administration then estimates on the basis of the available data how much tax must be paid and imposes an assessment. There were several signs that this process is having a hard time for a number of people. Various options have therefore been worked on to improve this process. For example, since 2021, early contact has been sought to offer assistance in the event of imminent absenteeism, and research is being conducted into how more customization can be applied when imposing fines.
More personal help
The signals from practice are also used for the Tax and Customs Administration’s Annual Plan. For example, the Tax and Customs Administration organizes more contact with the taxpayer, the administration is made easier for entrepreneurs and there is a more personal approach for people who (threaten to) get into trouble.
For example, support for citizens and entrepreneurs takes place via 10 support centers that were recently opened throughout the Netherlands for tailor-made advice to taxpayers. In addition, the number of desk employees is also being expanded. The aim is to personally help 250,000 people at these counters by 2024: five times more than before the corona pandemic.
In addition, the special team appointed at the Tax Authorities to help people dealing with an accumulation of problems, the so-called Stella team, will be further strengthened. The Tax and Customs Administration will identify possible payment problems early to prevent people from getting into trouble, for example by calling people on their own initiative if they have not filed a tax return. Employees receive training to quickly recognize such situations. To further support entrepreneurs, the Tax and Customs Administration is simplifying the administrative burden and offering various digital tools.
The basics further in order
In order to be able to pick up improvements and ambitions from the Annual Plan, it is essential to have the processes in order. It is important that the Tax and Customs Administration complies with legislation and regulations. And that the outdated IT landscape, with no fewer than 900 applications, is being modernized. The Tax and Customs Administration will continue to work on this in 2022. Among other things, by reducing overdue maintenance and improving information management. For example, the Tax and Customs Administration is working on a digital receivables overview, of which a prototype has already been tested in the summer of 2021. In addition, citizens and businesses will have more and more documents available in the portals of the Tax Authorities in 2022. Digitizing forms is also an important part of this.