By Neil Butt, Head of Customer and Stakeholder Engagement, Welsh Revenue Authority.
The priority for us all at the WRA is to play our part in helping to deliver a fair tax administration for Wales.
We have designed, developed and delivered a bilingual, digital-first tax administration. This enables legal representatives (acting on behalf of taxpayers) and landfill site operators to pay their respective taxes online using our bespoke tax system. By now, there are around 5,000 registered service users.
This wouldn’t have been possible without the continued support and feedback from stakeholders; including legal professionals, landfill site operators, professional bodies and taxpayers.
Listening to valuable feedback and refining the service we offer is an integral part of what we do. Earlier this year, we carried out some survey work to gain an insight into what our customers thought about the service we offer.
Based on 800 service users, we found that 87% of users were ‘satisfied’ with our digital-tax system although, there were some aspects of the tax system which needed further development.
In addition, we discovered that 80% of queries to our helpdesk team were from legal professionals requesting clarification on higher rates and transactional rules, complex areas of land transaction tax.
In response to this feedback, we’ve revised our online guidance and delivered a series of webinars to almost 300 registered users providing in-depth advice on higher rates and transactional rules. We polled attendees after the session and 98% of attendees found the webinars ‘useful’.
I am also proud that the WRA has prioritised user feedback in the first major changes to the digital tax system. Many solicitors and conveyancers across Wales and England will be pleased that we are in the process of making changes that will enable them to leave the ‘effective date’ blank until final submission of the LTT return.
Last month we hosted 2 tax forums in north and south Wales for legal professionals, landfill site operators and partner organisations. If you are interested in attending future tax forums, please let us know and we will include you in the circulation list.
Moving forward, we will continue to develop the WRA website (gov.wales/wra) to ensure that visitors to the site can access the right information as quickly and easily as possible.
We will also look to improve aspects of our online guidance in-line with customer feedback and continue to deliver further webinars and events to address key themes from customer feedback and suggestions.
As a relatively new organisation, we always encourage and welcome feedback to help us improve the way we work. To tell us what you think about the service we deliver, please complete this simple feedback form.