Inland Revenue Department services

Victor Spiteri felt he should hard-heartedly criticise the services offered by the Inland Revenue Department on three different occasions (April 21, 22 and 26) with disparaging remarks and innuendoes showing disrespect to the Customer Care staff and other IRD employees and officials who in their vast majority are dedicated persons and committed to offer their best service to the 200,000 plus clients (registered taxpayers) of the Inland Revenue Department.

Mr Spiteri felt aggrieved by a claim he received from the department for the payment of the provisional tax which, as he said, was about three times what it should have been. Mr Spiteri also said that he did not even receive an acknowledgement to his e-mail enquiring about this claim. Although a formal acknowledgement was not issued he was immediately prompted that his e-mail was successfully delivered and in fact he was given a reply within two working days. It was explained to him that if the PT amount claimed by the department (which according to legislation is based on the tax liability of last return filed, i.e. Year of Assessment 2005) is considered to be higher than his tax liability for the current year, he could file a PT Reduction form and determine and pay his PT liability for the year as determined by himself without the need of any consent. This was also explained in the back part of the PT notice which Mr Spiteri had received from the department. Mr Spiteri felt that since in the previous year on which the PT benchmark was based he had a one-off tax liability connected with the sale of a property, the computer should have recognised this fact and ignored it when determining the PT request. It must however be borne in mind that the software is not developed to identify the circumstances of a single taxpayer but has to cater for the different scenarios of thousands of income tax declarations. This is the reason why taxpayers have been given the right to adjust the PT claimed without the department's consent and without the risk of suffering any penalties for short payment.

The PT Reduction form can either be obtained from the Customer Service of the Department or downloaded from the IRD website. Being a computer enthusiast, as I understand, Mr Spiteri opted for an electronic copy, but unfortunately it seems that things did not go as he wished as he did not manage to download the form. Again Mr Spiteri felt that he should attribute this failure to the IRD website. However let me state that the website, developed by IT professionals, now has been in use for more than four years and forms have since been downloaded from the website regularly and the department has never received any complaints of Mr Spiteri's sort. Can it be that the software loaded in his computer is not sufficiently updated?

This year the department is encouraging individual taxpayers to access the IRD services through the internet from the comfort of their homes, a service that has been offered and successfully made use of by corporate taxpayers during the last five years. In the case of individual taxpayers an electronic identity (e-ID) is currently required to access one's own tax information related to payments, statements and tax returns' status as from year 2002 (Year of Assessment 2003) onwards. As from this year, individual taxpayers will also be able to submit income tax returns online supported by interactive help and getting immediate confirmation of any taxes due.

The e-ID, which is administered by a central agency and not by the IRD, is the only official electronic identity available. Furthermore the e-ID conveniently provides access with one login and password to other government personal services such as those of the VAT Department (e-VAT) and the Ministry for Social Policy. Other methods, although considered, will not provide the same convenience of a common login. Enrolment requires the individual to be personally present during the registration process (more information at www.gov.mt). One can enrol at any of the local councils indicated and not necessarily to that nearest to his or her locality. Hence, for example, the Valletta local council will enrol for the e-ID any person calling at their offices.

Mr Spiteri deemed to criticise even this initiative as he would have to travel by bus to go to any one of the offices of the 12 local councils from where he could enrol for the e-ID. Mr Spiteri proposed that the IRD should do without the e-ID and apply the system adopted by another organisation where applications could be enabled entirely online. While it will not disregard other options, the IRD gives the greatest importance to security issues. With all due respect the personal information held in the IRD databases cannot be compared to that held by other organisations. I am sure that neither Mr Spiteri nor any other taxpayer would like to have their personal tax information and details of their tax returns stored in the department's computer systems accessed by unauthorised third parties.

I can assure your readers that the IRD has an efficient computerised system and offers online services which have been acclaimed by the thousands of taxpayers, tax practitioners and employers who make regular use of our online services.

For the benefit of the public and for Mr Spiteri's knowledge it is important to note that the Inland Revenue has implemented (since 2002) a number of online services over the internet for taxpayers, tax practitioners and employers from its secure IR Services Online applications. Moreover, there are a number of downloadable forms, tax and social security contributions calculators available from www.ird.gov.mt.

There are also facilities for taxpayers to effect payments online for tax arrears, provisional tax and social security contributions. These payments can also be effected through internet banking facilities available from local banks. Since August 2004, 12,000 payments have been effected using these facilities.

During 2002, tax practitioners were provided with facilities to submit online over the internet income tax returns and financial statements of corporate taxpayers. Last year 82 per cent of corporate tax returns were submitted using these facilities.

Employers who employ 10 or more employees can also file the end-of-year documents for their employees on line. This service provides online feedback to employers on any incorrect information that has been submitted and reduces the need to check again records later in the year following such enquiries. Sixty-five per cent of employers who employ 10 or more employees have used this service in January 2006.

The latter two services require authentication by means of digital certificates given the highly sensitive transactions carried out on behalf of third parties.

The Inland Revenue considers the internet as an important tool for providing improved services to taxpayers and plans to launch further online services in the future. The IRD has always done and will continue to do its utmost to offer the best possible service to the public.