About the client

Organization of Eastern Caribbean States

Challenge

The main goal of the project was to e-enable taxpayer registration, tax declaration and tax payment processes through performing all mentioned actions using e-services of the Tax e-filing system in four Eastern Caribbean countries: Saint Lucia, Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Dominica.

This contract was subcomponent 2.2 under Electronic Government for Regional Integration Project (EGRIP) initiated by Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS). The contract is aimed at developing an on-line registration and electronic tax filing subsystem to interface with the tax management system.

The development objective of the EGRIP is to promote the efficiency, quality, and transparency of public services through the delivery of regionally integrated e-government applications that take advantage of economies of scale. The expected benefits would accrue in the areas of public sector reform, empowerment of citizens and businesses, and efficiency gains for institutions and end-users through automation and pooling resources at the regional level.

Solution

The main objectives to achieve this goal were as follows:

• To implement the generic Tax e-Filing system which functionality is divided into four modules:
  • Registration of e-user module enabling electronic user (e-user) registration of taxpayers, internal user registration, and empowerment of the e-user to use e-services on behalf of other taxpayer.
  • Taxpayer e-registration module enabling general and tax type specific taxpayer registration as well as amendment of taxpayer data. The system will also allow the registered tax payer to enquire on his / her own registration data.
  • e-Declaration module covers required e-filing functions: online submission and validation of declaration; data transfer to back-office system SIGTAS, receipt to the taxpayer after successful e-filing or meaningful error message indicating the reason for unsuccessful submission. The system will also facilitate the registered tax payer to enquire on his / her own tax account and e-filing/e-declaration documents. It will provide document management facilities with the purpose of archiving and storing attachments and forms in accordance with the legislative requirements.
• e-Payment module enabling e-user to pay taxes using e-services of the system.
• To customize the generic Tax e-Filing system for four Eastern Caribbean countries.
• To integrate the customized Tax e-filing systems with SIGTAS, the corresponding back-office tax management system in each country.
• To launch the customized systems in all four Eastern Caribbean countries.
• To train System administrator staff, Help Desk staff and Tax officers of IRD as well as to transfer knowledge to IRD IT staff enabling them to perform further system support activities after the system is launched.
• To perform 12 months warranty after the systems is launched.