Tax and customs

Citizens understand tax and its importance in underpinning a nation’s wealth and contributing to a fairer society. Tax authorities need to turn that understanding into compliance by offering everyone a transparent and frictionless way to pay the taxes they owe.

We design user-centric digital services with a once-only principle, supporting social value through increased levels of accessibility. Real-time data enables tax decisions to be made based on transactions as they take place.

We’re also helping to improve the efficiency of face-to-face interactions between taxpayers and authorities. We use data and automation to transform the experience of agents through augmented working that blends technology and human expertise.

Although legacy IT infrastructure continues to be part of government IT landscapes, there is growing recognition that aging systems must be brought up to date to manage increasing workloads sustainably and efficiently.

We work with tax authorities globally to build the business case for legacy modernization, and plan and support the transition to modern cloud-based architectures.

We operate agile, scalable cloud environments that enable tax authorities to use data more effectively, lower costs, simplify their IT estates, and support new services. Without this transition, it would be impossible to meet surges in demand – such as that experienced during the global pandemic – and for policy makers to launch innovative digital services.

Tax authorities are taking advantage of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, using digital tools such as AI, machine-learning and automation to capture and analyze data. However, while data insights will help to shape hyper-personalized tax services, tax authorities must be transparent and unbiased about how that data informs decisions.

We are supporting the shift in emphasis of data ownership toward self-sovereignty – where the citizen is responsible for their data. In parallel, we help tax authorities interact with new platform economies by building secure data exchange with industries to ensure that the right data is collected and to smooth citizens’ payment journeys.

Tax agencies are committed to raising revenue fairly, and catching those who try to cheat the system. But fraudsters continuously pursue new methods of tax evasion.

We combat tax fraud with advanced data platforms that enable the secure exchange of information between authorities in different countries. We’re working with intergovernmental organizations to develop an international response. We also use data and AI to detect anomalies in both tax and customs duties, helping authorities track down the non-compliant, while identifying the vulnerable, such as businesses unable to pay their tax, or people who are unaware of the allowances they’re entitled to.

In a world of open borders built on ease of trade and transport, the face of customs has changed substantially. As economies work to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic, it’s never been more important to facilitate frictionless trade. However, customs must also prevent product piracy, smuggling, illegal employment, and fraud in trade, while protecting consumers.

Ease on the one hand and protection on the other demand intelligent processes. These increasingly draw on global supply chain initiatives, predictive AI, and well-trained staff augmented by intelligent IT. Our state-of-the-art solutions for declarations, risk and security, as well as digital services, embed this intelligence to support the customs transformation of key global economies.