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Digital by Default, and Agent Services Update
www.ifa.org.uk
Julian Hatt, John McRae, Paul BennettHMRC
15.30 – 16.30
Overview of HMRC’s Digital Exemplars
IFA Conference – Birmingham
17 October 2013
Julian Hatt
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The drivers to act
• Government’s ‘Digital by Default’ agenda (reflected in HMRC’s Digital Strategy)
• Clear Ministerial appetite to transform our services and do more for SMEs – borne out by Autumn Statement 2012 and Budget 2013 investment
• Continued need to reduce HMRC costs and do more with less
• External pressure (Office for Tax Simplification, Administrative Burdens Advisory Board, business, tax profession) to make things quicker, easier and simpler for SMEs
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Supporting our Customer Centric Strategy
Shifting more contact to digital channels contributes significantly to each of HMRC’s strategic objectives.
It’s cheaper – self serve allows us to theoretically shift to a ‘frictionless’ relationship, or at least towards cheaper channels.
It’s better for customers – a true digital interaction is quicker, easier, and comparable with external experiences.
It drives revenue – digital by default services will allow us better to target interventions and manage risk on a transaction by transaction basis
Allows us to quickly target and segment – broadens our ability to deliver services by segment & influence behaviours (“nudge”)
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How are we doing it?
• Focus is on user needs rather than traditional requirements
• Delivery is iterative (start small and grow) rather than agreeing all the detail upfront
• Regular user testing throughout to inform development and design
• Ongoing improvement and iteration of the service
• Delivered via more flexible design/delivery process – ‘Agile’
HMRC is committed to delivering digital services that are so good that they will be our customers’ first choice for interacting with us
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The 4 Digital Exemplars
• Your Tax Account
• Agent Online Self Serve
• PAYE Online
• Digital Self Assessment
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Your Tax Account
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• We already provide a range of digital services for SMEs…
• but we know they want to be able to do more (e.g. send/receive information) digitally…
• and that some of the digital services we provide (e.g. webinars, tools, etc..) can be hard to find…
• so we are still some way from providing the fully joined-up, integrated experience for SMEs that would allow us to have a wholly digital relationship with them
Why are we doing something?
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Faster
Clearer
Simpler
Your Tax Account
• A new service for business customers that makes dealing with HMRC quicker and easier
• Personalised and tailored to individual business needs
• Provides all interactions with HMRC (transactions, information, advice) in one place
• Designed with business customers to be as easy as possible to use
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SME customer perspective • tax is not a priority, I’m busy running my
business• I want to do my taxes at a time that suits
me • doing my taxes can be confusing and
complex and finding the relevant help can
be hard• (for the compliant majority) I do want to
do the right thing, but I’m not always sure
I’ve got it right
HMRC perspective • collect the right amount of tax • serve SMEs at the lowest possible cost • remove the need/desire for them to call
us with simple questions or for reassurance• provide a good customer experience (for
compliant customers)• move resources away from correcting
error and onto evasion
A win-win … Compliant SMEs want to comply with their tax obligations with the minimum possible effort and feel confident they’ve done it right.
HMRC wants to deliver this (for compliant SMEs) via digital channels wherever possible in order provide a quality customer experience whilst reducing costs and errors.
“Your Tax Account” – Balancing our needs
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Via their personalised
homepage small business users …
Can access all the help they need via
links to……tailored
education…
…and interactive tools taking them
straight to the relevant
information for them
Can see an overview of their HMRC “account”…
…with links straight to action they
need to take……help finding
the right payment plan…
…and a personalised tax calendar
with digital alerts
Can get the answers to their questions quickly
and easily…as well as
receiving tailored outbound
communications from HMRC
…and receiving relevant key
messages from HMRC (and
potentially other Government
Departments) direct to their homepage
Can get direct access to all the
online transactions relevant to
them……without having to wade through content that isn’t relevant to them
What are we doing?
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Sequencing
We will be trialling a small-scale private ‘Beta’, which is integrated with our back-end systems, to conduct live user testing with a cross-section of SMEs – we are keen for agents to be included, as SMEs in their own right
When we have refined and expanded the service in light of user feedback and usage data from the Beta trial (and ongoing user testing and research) we will make it accessible to all SMEs as the place they go to transact with HMRC
Continuous process of development and enhancement of the service
Communiqué
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… if you’ll
show me
yours!
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Agent Online Self-Serve [AOSS]
Agents
• At least 8m customers use an agent to represent them – c4m individuals and 4m SMEs; 70% of businesses and 50% of ITSA individuals use an agent
• Customers choose an agent because of complexity, assurance, time saving, and part of being in business, etc.
• The majority use an agent for profit taxes, less so for PAYE and less still for VAT which are both regular parts of their business
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Agents on the digital agenda
Autumn Statement 2012 announced ambitious digital plans, which means we need to:
• know our agent population and the links with their clients’ behaviours
• reduce exposure to cyber crime by bogus agents
• move agents away from using paper towards transacting digitally with us
• enable authorised agents to digitally see and do what their clients can see and do
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Spending Review 2010 aim
Agents will be able to: • Register with us digitally
• Notify us of clients digitally
• View clients’ data online
• Use new digital services on behalf of clients
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PAYE Online
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PAYE Online - Background
• The first online service for 41 million individuals within PAYE
• 60 million calls, annually, to HMRC’s contact centres• 13.9m PAYE-related
• 4-5m of these are to query tax code
• 16% of these relate to car/van, fuel and medical benefits
• Costing customers £5 per call and HMRC £6 per call (longer calls)
• A Private Beta will start with changes to car/van benefits and bank interest
• Shift balance of the relationship away from employers and on to HMRC
• Currently forecasting that PAYE calls will reduce by 1.7m [12%]
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Digital Self Assessment
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Customer base
Self Assessment is a mechanism that covers a diverse range of areas;
The SA customer base is equally diverse including self employed, pensioners, trustees, partnerships, those with multiple employments, those with foreign income, minsters of religion and Lloyds Underwriters.
Each of these can be represented by an agent. They can also file and interact with HMRC through a variety of channels – online, telephone, post.
Income tax on employment income
Income tax on self employment income
Capital gains tax
Student loan repayments
Charitable giving
Tax reliefs and allowances
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Digital Self Assessment - Background
• Self Assessment is one of our flagship online services.• 80% of our customers choose to file online.
• However, only around 25% of the customer journey takes place online.
• We send customers letters at every stage of the process.• Despite filing with us online, we use paper to tell our customers about the outcome
of their filing.
• This is confusing and drives low-value contact at our contact centres.• 600k calls asking about repayments.
• 183k letters asking about letters.
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What is Digital Self Assessment about?
A complete, better digital experience
A lower cost Self Assessment system
Making it easier to understand
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