Revenue Services have an interest in providing a comprehensive Internet service since it is far cheaper to provide an automated response to taxpayers’ questions than to have a large staff complement specifically dedicated to answering the questions of the general public.
Regretfully, most of the world’s websites that boast the provision of tax treaties and related data and information fail to be either comprehensive or dependable.
A serious problem sometimes lies in the fact that many Revenue websites are not updated as frequently as one would be entitled to expect.

It is therefore very valuable and much appreciated that the vast majority of Revenue Services in developed countries have moved to administering their own websites. Such websites normally contain basic information for resident taxpayers, relevant tax forms, news items, and in some cases more specialised information. These sites may also contain regulations for cross-border transactions, anti-avoidance issues, and treatment of non-resident individuals, companies and trusts, and a whole host of other useful information. Sometimes too the wording of the relevant acts and laws may be available for online perusal or for downloading. And, should one not be able to find some particular information, provision is often made to be able to contact the revenue directly by e-mail.

The turnaround time and the quality of the response vary from Revenue site to Revenue site. Queries will normally be answered in one to three working days, seldom taking longer than two weeks. Rarely, is no response received. The reliability of the responses is normally good, for the reason that the Revenue has an interest in making sure that the public “gets it right”.

A large expenditure item on any Revenue Service’s budget is an enquiry department of one sort or another. Regardless of the size of a given jurisdiction’s taxpaying population, an average revenue service can expect to field literally millions of questions and enquiries annually. This is a problem faced by many companies and other organisations, in varying degrees of scale and intensity.

It may be concluded that the Revenue Services of the world have an interest in providing a comprehensive Internet service since it is far cheaper to provide an automated response to taxpayers’ questions than to have a large staff complement specifically dedicated to answering the questions of the general public. Having a well-designed and accessible website does not eliminate the need for a customer care staff, but it does dramatically reduce the total number of staff members needed for this task. Even though extra staff members are required to create and maintain the website, the number of extra staff members needed for this new task is generally far lower than the number of staff replaced by the new system.
Valuable data is also furnished by tax havens or IOFCs, and this data may be a useful aid to offshore and international tax planning.