LAST year Slovakia’s online system for submitting income tax returns collapsed after a large number of taxpayers opted to use the system instead of going to a tax office to file their return in person. The Tax Directorate admits that problems including system slowdowns or complete failure may be repeated this year. It has prepared an alternative offline solution, the SITA newswire wrote in mid February.
The tax administration has carried out several measures to avoid problems with the operation of its internet portal. But Martin Lejtrich, the deputy director of the Tax Directorate, said he does not completely rule out a re-occurrence of ‘blackouts’ as the measures employed are only temporary.
Miroslav Mikulčík, head of the Tax Directorate, admitted that the Slovak tax administration is lagging behind in its digitalisation processes and in its pro-client approach to taxpayers. Lejtrich believes that the current condition of the system is a consequence of a halt in strategic development of the portal between 2006 and 2010. The current management of the Tax Directorate is preparing a conceptual solution for electronic communication by the tax administration within the UNITAS project of harmonisation of collection of taxes, customs duties and insurance contributions (to be effective as of the beginning of 2014).
Last year the tax administration registered an almost 30-percent increase in the number of online users of the system and the daily visit rate to the portal exceeded 11,000. This upward trend is also continuing this year. In 2010, less than 1 percent of all income tax returns were successfully submitted electronically. Legal entities submitted only 730 out of a total of 163,208 submitted tax returns electronically, accounting for less than 0.45 percent. In the category of non-business private individuals, only one taxpayer successfully submitted an income tax return electronically, the TASR newswire wrote.
