In late 2003, the Missouri Department of Revenue (DOR) decided to modernize their tax collections and department workflow processes. They knew there was a significant amount of taxpayers who were not filing or filing incorrectly, but due to the disparate nature of their data and tax systems the department was unable to easily identify or pursue tax delinquents.
“Our tax systems didn’t talk to one another. We needed a comprehensive view of the taxpayer,” Mike Davis, program manager for the Missouri Department of Revenue, said during a presentation at the Teradata PARTNERS conference being held in Washington, D.C. this week. “By working with Teradata to develop a data warehouse, we were able to merge our data sources in a central warehouse and improve efficiencies in our audits.”
The state issued an request for proposal (RFP) in the Spring of 2004 and signed a contract with Teradata in September of the same year. The first major task for the system was to bring together over six different sources of taxpayer data, ranging from the Department of Revenue and IRS to the Federal Aviation Administration and third-party data.
“The FAA data is based on purchased aircraft by individuals with Missouri addresses,” Mr. Davis said, “We’ve sent out 1,500 letters to individuals found in this group, totalling $1.1 million in new revenue.” Since the first letters went out, using Teradata warehousing, in February of ’05, the system has sent out over 247,000 letters to delinquent taxpayers, resulting in $82 million collected in owed taxes.
Mr. Davis also said the Teradata partnership has developed eighteen tax discovery programs such as the incorporation of data from the state’s professional licensees agency. If someone applies to be a licensed professional, such as a doctor, carpenter, attorney, or plumber, they have to be square with the Department of Revenue. According to Mr. Davis this latest program has garnered some $2 million since the beginning of summer.
As part of this modernization DOR also wanted to implement a case management system using the Teradata warehouse. To do this, DOR turned to Pam Sartell of the Minneapolis-based Sartell Group to help automate and streamline the department’s workflow. DOR’s case management system, called CAMS, allows DOR case managers and supervisors to easily track and flag the status of multiple cases. The system can alert DOR employees when cases have been delinquent for extend periods of time, produce estimated billings, track case history to build official legal documents and produce expense reports indicating how much time has been spent on a case. CAMS also has all the necessary work papers needed to properly audit individuals or businesses.
CAMS is designed for a “point and click, drill-down, drag n’ drop user experience,” Ms. Sartell said while demonstrating the system during the presentation. “Missouri has done a phenomenal job of thinking big picture,” she said.
But DOR is far from finished, Mr. Davis indicated. They are working to deploy mobile CAMS, as well as developing three more discovery programs, and a high-level dashboard that would give a clear picture of where revenue was coming from.
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