Access_ATO

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Project Description

Majority of tax gaps come from individuals and small businesses.
These include vulnerable people, such as gig workers, migrants and CALD groups. For people who undertake work via digital platforms as part of the gig economy, it is known that superannuation is often not paid to contractors.

The ATO does not use enough easy English with information. Nor promote ATO information that is available in different languages that is easy to access.

Migrant and CALD populations around Australia may not have heard about the Tax Help program. This vulnerable group is not eligible for the Tax Help program if they work as a contractor or run a business, including as a sole trader.

According to the ABS 2021 Census, 5.8 million people (22.8%) reported using a language other than English at home. When English is a new or second language, it creates barriers to understanding ATO obligations as a contractor. ATO processes have not been simplified for migrant and CALD groups.
One of the major obstacles to tax success is inability to reach ATO customer support, due to high call demand and calls not being answered.

Therefore, we can help vulnerable groups by improving features to the ATO online services with the AccessATO app.

Data Story

We first analysed the ATO tax gaps dataset, which indicated that the bulk of the ATO’s tax gap comes from individuals and small businesses. We then looked at the ATO Taxation statistics dataset from 2021-2022, which gave us an indication of which groups of people report business income on their tax returns, especially among those with non-resident status.

From this, along with some additional brainstorming and research, we identified gig economy workers as a key group which may need additional support in meeting their tax obligations, as these are typically individuals doing their own taxes with limited support, and who are also not eligible for the tax help program.

The AccessATO app:

Integrated into the existing myGov/ATO website.

Uses live chat to allow easier access to ATO customer support.

Uses AI chatbot to collect pre-authentication information, to save time for ATO staff (because they won't need to spend time asking for ID etc.)

Live chat/text format allows for machine translation to make it easier to communicate with CALD groups.

Ability for support agents to move live chat session to a voice call efficiently - get real-time confirmation from both sides, to allow voice call to be established between customer and support agent without waiting in a queue, or having the support agent wait for the customer if they are not available.

Link with TIS services for voice calls, or in case of reliability issues with machine translation.