What Does the future of Taxation Look Like?
On May 6, 2021, Mr. Anders Hjorth Agerskov, Lead Public Sector Specialist at the World Bank Group, presented “Future of Taxation” at the United Nations Centennial Roundtable:
Tax administrations will become “invisible” – as data is captured seamlessly in real time
Data transfer from accounting systems will be automated through an Application Programming Interface and tax information will increasingly be embedded in blockchain enabled smart contracts, requiring no or minimal human intervention.
AI driven robotic decision-making will increase – but risks need to be managed!
Decisions within the tax administration are being automated. Such efforts will initially be based on Robotic Process Automation and later on more advanced algorithmic decision-making made possible by robust and federated Artificial Intelligence solutions and expert systems incorporating tax and case law.
Data and digital solutions will allow for a new generation of taxpayer services and experiences These may include prefilled tax returns, taxpayers’ access to their own filing information, taxpayers’ sharing of data with banks to expedite credit approvals, and privacy preserving queries on the tax file by researchers and local communities. The touchpoints will be personalized rather than developed solely from the perspective of the tax administration’s internal procedures. The focus will be on promoting user adoption and building trust.
Tax administrations’ mandate will expand – they could become governments’ data warehouse That means providing economic data for monitoring the economy; verifying compliance under social, (COVID-19 related) stimulus, and other programs; supporting the modelling of economic policy across agencies; and promoting transparency.
Ecosystem and stakeholder management will come to the fore
This is due to the increasing importance of collaboration with tech firms and tax advisers to build interfaces to the taxation system and through a shift in the deployment of resources from operations to systems design and maintenance.
The United Nations Centennial Roundtable was hosted by AIWS Innovations at AIWS City on May 8, 2021.