SARS to reinforce contact centre

By Leon Engelbrecht, ITWeb senior writer

Johannesburg, 19 May 2008

The SA Revenue Service (SARS) is spending R650 million this year to further beef up its IT, and in particular its contact centre, as a result of lessons learned from its inaugural online personal income tax filing season.

SARS commissioner Pravin Gordhan is most pleased with the results of the 2007 season that saw about a million taxpayers, tax exempt entities and trusts file returns online. He was also happy that 34% of returns were processed within 48 hours of receipt - up from the 1% in previous years - and promised to do better.

His COO Edward Kieswetter says one such area is the SARS contact centre that was overwhelmed on more than one occasion, especially in January this year when the 2007 e-filing season was about to close.

Finance minister Trevor Manuel believes this is not SARS' fault as it reflects the irksome long-running bane of South Africans waiting till the last minute to file.

Even so, Kieswetter is not happy. He says "last year was a huge learning experience" and he concedes the tax service's contact centre is "not what it should be" and that "dramatically improving the supporting mechanisms" is a "huge focus" for him.

SARS is increasing the number of contact centres and new facilities are being established in Alberton, Cape Town, Durban and Pretoria to assist the Johannesburg facility.

Kieswetter says call analysis shows that about 50% of calls were routine, involving taxpayers enquiring where their returns were in the assessment process and when they could expect a refund. He says SARS is installing voice prompt software for such calls, which although detested by the public, was the only sensible effective and efficient way of dealing with such queries and was vital to free staff to attend to substantive enquiries.

These are more problematic in that SARS cannot yet answer queries on the first call regarding, for example, why certain deductions were declined and how SARS arrived at some figures.

At present, contact centre staff must first track down the assessor managing the case, then be briefed on the issues and then report back to the concerned taxpayer. Kieswetter is keen to address this and ensure the taxpayer has a more rewarding experience the next time he or she phones.