Australian Tax Office: Australian Business Register

Project
Integrated Internet Solution

The Australian Taxation Office and Accenture teamed to create a Web-based Business Register making it faster and easier for companies to deal with government agencies. A "single-point-of-contact" strategy encourages more efficient interaction between government and business, reduces government operating costs, and promotes the use of eCommerce in Australia.

Developed by the Australian Taxation Office and Accenture, with technical support from Microsoft, the Australian Business Register is accessible online through a government-to-business (G2B) portal called the Business Entry Point. About 500,000 searches are conducted through the portal each month. More than 3.4 million Australian businesses have applied for an Australian Business Number, with 60 percent registering electronically using the Business Entry Point or the Taxation Office's electronic filing service.

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Watch executives from Accenture, Microsoft and the Australian Tax Office discuss the Web-based Business Register in this Microsoft video.

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Australia has undergone major tax reform in recent years, encouraging many businesses to focus more closely on their operations and cash flow positions. Government also has had to examine how it operates and delivers value to the Australian public, particularly in tax and pension matters.

The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has provided an electronic filing service for tax returns since 1989, and is considered a global pioneer in the application of new technology to collect and file taxes. But the organisation had a traditional mainframe IT infrastructure—making it slow and difficult to add Web-based functionality. It was also difficult to find people with the right skills to implement and manage the ATO's older legacy systems.

"Our systems until now have been enclosed behind an electronic moat and drawbridge," says ATO First Assistant Commissioner for IT services John Growder. "The predominate computing characteristics of our systems in the future must be much more customer-centric, and the Internet will be central to any of them. Our future systems will make far more use of available services in the community, and this is pointing to open systems and systems that will use community capability such as services."

The Australian Taxation Office and Accenture collaborated on the design, development, and implementation of the Australian Business Register. The existing positive relationship between the ATO and Microsoft and the strategic alliance between Accenture and Microsoft ensured cutting-edge technology and skills were available to get the project running and implemented quickly.

Together, the Australian Taxation Office and Accenture identified a need to:

• Provide interactive registration services to business through the Internet.
  
  
• Provide interactive support, enabling business to more easily complete functions without operator assistance.
  
  
• Develop a cross-agency program to encourage maximum uptake of the register within government using a Web services architecture to allow agencies to interact with the Australian Business Register and break down barriers between agencies.
  
  
• Introduce the Australian Business Number Digital Certificate, creating a framework for future business to government and business-to-business Internet service through a common authentication framework.

The Australian Business Register provides self-service registration and change-of-details services to business through a business portal. The first phase of the project, completed in 2000, provided businesses with an Australian Business Number and supported public look-up service. The second phase, completed in May 2002, provides self-service capabilities for businesses and the infrastructure to share changes in the register with any government agency.

Accenture developed the application using the Microsoft .NET platform, leveraging Web services within the application to integrate business functions. However, the key value of the Web services implementation is through cross-organization integration of data and business process:

• Web services allows government agencies to interact with the Australian Business Register through a private government network. Any changes to a register entry are published to subscribing agencies as soon as the change is committed. In addition, an agency can communicate notifications of changes to the Australian Business Register.
  
  
• Web services are used in particular to support proof of identity during the business registration process. The Australian Business Register dynamically requests identity information from both the Australian Taxation Office and the Australian Securities and Investment Commission through Web-service interactions.
  
  
• Web services support direct integration between government and a business information system. For example, a business can use the Australian Business Register to maintain core business details of its trading partners, or it can update its own records, and have the updates published to the Australian Business Register seamlessly.

The solution was implemented using a combination of Microsoft .NET and Microsoft COM+ technologies, and deployed to a complete Microsoft environment (IIS, Application Centre, SQL). Inter-application communication is based on HTTP and MS-MQ messaging.

Through the efforts of the Australian Taxation Office, Accenture, Microsoft and their partners, Australian businesses are finding that dealing with government is becoming easier, faster and less costly. Businesses can access online information held on the Australian Business Register and register online for the Australian Business Number, the goods and services tax and other aspects of the new tax system.

Those businesses starting up are able to get an Australian Business Number immediately, and all businesses can maintain their own details through the Internet. Most transactions require no support from ATO operators, allowing them to focus on other matters and keeping operating costs down.

The Australian Business Number is emerging as a single identifier for all business dealings with not just the Australian Taxation Office, but also with other government departments and agencies as well as state, territory and local government bodies. Thanks to the "future-proof" architecture and information system designed and delivered by Accenture, many diverse government agencies can now integrate their functions, reducing costs, improving data accuracy and currency, and helping to boost economic growth.

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