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The scale of government investment in electronic services can be gauged from the various benchmarking reports on e-government. When looking at progress to date, it is not surprising to find that the aspect of e-government which tends to be most developed and most widely used is on-line tax filing
The design of an on-line tax filing system must address a number of specific challenges that are not usually factors in the design of other types of on-line government services. One is the need for exceptionally high security and another is the ability to handle large surges in the number of transactions at certain times of year. The system must also reflect the composition of its customer base. This ranges from professional tax advisor and agents to citizens who may have only a hazy notion of the tax laws. The system must be able to meet the needs of both these constituencies as well as several others. Furthermore, it needs to be able to hand a variety of different forms of taxation including income and corporation tax as well as VAT and different forms of capital taxation.
With this extended audience of private citizens, it has become even more important that the Revenue, and by extension all government bodies seeking to encourage citizens to use their on-line services, understand the dimensions of website service excellence that their citizens value. This has the potential both to improve the uptake of services and increase citizen satisfaction with public administration.
This paper describes an ongoing study into the quality of service provided by the Irish Revenue Commisioners’ on-line tax filing and collection system. The Irish Revenue On-Line Service (ROS) site has won several awards. In this study, a version of the widely used SERVQUAL measuring instrument, adapted for use with on-line services, has been modified for the specific case of ROS. The theory behind this instrument is set out, the particular problems of evaluating revenue collecting on-line are examined and the rationale for this approach is explained.
Keywords:; e-government, taxation, on-line, quality of service, SERVQUAL.
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