Tax Administration: Digital Resilience in the COVID-19 Environment

During the COVID-19 crisis, many tax administrations had to close offices and move to almost full or partial remote working. For many, this has also coincided with the peak filing season and an increase for some in the administration of benefits affected by COVID-19. This had impacts on normal operations, as some administrations have not been able to carry out business as usual in all areas, including difficulties in dealing with paper communications and forms, physical audits, taxpayer contacts and some aspects of systems maintenance. In addition, many administrations have been asked to undertake new roles providing assistance, including financial assistance, to taxpayers on behalf of the wider government. This note is intended to provide a status/pulse check on the impact of digitalisation of tax administration in dealing with the COVID-19 crisis, with a particular focus on taxpayer services, compliance risk management, remote working, IT systems and providing support for wider government. It has been produced by the OECD Forum on Tax Administration (FTA) Secretariat in collaboration with the FTA Enterprise Risk Management Community of Interest and takes account of input provided by more than thirty tax administrations that completed a digital resilience survey. The results are presented on an anonymised basis.