Building the Future

The North Carolina Department of Revenue’s mission is to administer the tax laws and collect the taxes due the state in an impartial, uniform, and efficient manner. This mission has focused the agency’s action and direction for many years and will continue to be at the center of what we do every day to serve the tax-paying citizens of North Carolina.

The North Carolina Department of Revenue is committed to delivering service excellence for those who interact with the Department face-to-face in our offices, over the telephone, or while accessing our web-based information and services.  Although our mission is clear and steady, the Department has a responsibility to continuously evolve to better serve the changing needs of citizens as the world around us changes.  For example, public organizations are now under constant pressure to provide real-time, web-based applications to enable citizens to conduct business any time, from anywhere.

Since 2002, the Department has been working through a deliberate strategic planning and implementation effort, called Vision 2010, to assess trends, envision the future, and carefully plan for the investments in technology, process improvement, and human capital that will ensure the kind of data integrity and process efficiency that the citizens of North Carolina expect and need.

Our vision sets forth the Department’s aspirations for the future:

• Becoming a national model for revenue agencies, relying on best practices, and with technology as an enabler, continuously finding innovative ways to increase efficiency and productivity in all areas of Departmental operations and tax administration.
• Promoting and administering a tax system that is understandable, easy to comply with, and responsive to economic and demographic conditions.
• Setting the standard for using a variety of outreach and enforcement approaches to reach all segments of our diverse and often mobile tax base in order to maximize State tax revenue.
• Having flexible, well-trained, highly motivated employees who work together to increase compliance and provide quality service.

History
Achievements
The Road Ahead

History

Vision 2010 was the agency’s effort to ensure that its plans, strategies, and vision would be implemented in a coherent and efficient manner. The Department created the Vision 2010 document in 2004 after several years of planning and implementation of various projects that included the agency’s state-of-the-art call center.

Vision 2010 grew out of an extensive analysis of the agency’s external and internal business environment–changing demographics, economy, government and technology trends. Special emphasis was placed on understanding the role of technology to make government agencies more effective and efficient.

The next step, creating an e-business strategic plan, moved the vision closer to reality by producing a set of strategies and a framework for achieving the vision. This multi-faceted e-business strategic plan defines the profound transformation the Department is undergoing as we reshape and evolve how we work, our tools, skills, and technology.

A third step was to commission the development of an E-Business Strategy Implementation Planning and Design Project, completed at the end of 2006, to design the future state of the Department. This project delivered a conceptual design, organizational architecture, gap assessment, business process improvement plan, organization change plan and implementation plan, and is our ongoing guide for action. The implementation plan will occur over a series of phases.

The result of the implementation of our e-business strategic plan will ultimately be a revenue agency that makes it easy to comply with state tax laws, with user-friendly, secure services tailored to constituent needs. By continuing our role as trusted stewards, educating citizens about their tax obligations and exploiting technology to efficiently collect, process and account for state tax revenues, the Department seeks to maximize compliance with existing tax laws so as to avoid increases in the overall tax burden for North Carolina citizens. The goal is to be able to effectively manage ever-increasing deliverables with the resources that we have at hand. Therefore, it becomes imperative to optimize systems and processes to enable an increased level of output.

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Achievements

The road to achieve the promise of Vision 2010 is a long one, but the Department has already made substantial progress since 2004. Below is a summary list of some of our most notable achievements:

• Improved the technical infrastructure of the agency to provide a firm foundation for efficient, safe, and reliable e-services.
• Implemented a comprehensive guest worker compliance program that provides an array of outreach and enforcement efforts directed toward non-English speaking taxpayers.
• Established a Revenue Leadership Academy that provides a variety of management and leadership training opportunities for current and emerging agency leaders.
• Expanded telework and flexible work schedule options for Revenue employees to make better use of business resources.
• Posted all forms on the Department’s website.
• Launched an E-Business Center on the Internet for online filing and paying of corporate estimated tax, withholding tax, and other taxes. This new service is the foundation that enables authenticated users to manage their tax accounts electronically.
• Launching an online business registration service to provide tax account numbers in minutes rather than 4-6 weeks in the old paper-based process.
• We have redirected our training and staff development efforts to be learner-centered and focused on measurable performance improvement.
• We are establishing a performance-based management approach as our management system.

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The Road Ahead

The Department of Revenue is pleased with the progress we have made so far toward our vision. However, far from resting on our past achievements, we are striving to improve more in the future. The Department of Revenue has begun a three-year project to replace an outdated integrated tax system with a new, advanced system that will enable enhanced e-services to taxpayers and streamline many department business processes. The new system will be the engine for an array of customer relationship management tools that will help us provide world-class service to taxpayers. The addition of robust data analytic tools will help boost compliance rates for all types of taxes.

Our bold and forward-looking plans are designed to propel the agency into the future. Our goal is to provide the best possible service to North Carolina citizens and become the model for all revenue agencies across the nation. We won’t rest until we get there and we hope you will let us know how we are doing. Department of Revenue Web Site Survey.

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Last modified on: 01/12/09 09:17:54 AM.