Emmanuel Madubuike

As more state and federal governments are increasingly broke, chief executives are intensifying efforts in two major focus areas to sustain the state:

• Initiatives to increase internally-generated revenues (IGR), and
• Reducing expenditure

Current fiscal realities require government to operate more efficiently and do more with less. We understand that given the rising need to achieve other fiscal objectives and improve service delivery to the citizens, state governments desire to diversify their revenue base and strengthen their IGR - as overdependence on allocation from the federal government has capacity to stifle the pace of development and frustrate the state governments’ ability to respond to the needs of their people.

By making intelligent use of Information Communication Technology (ICT) systems, state IRSs can better manage the state’s IGR collection processes and minimize revenue loss. Core processes for tax and revenue collection are driven by documents and forms—from submitting tax forms to processing refunds and deposits to managing risk. Automating these processes could be challenging for state governments, many of which suffer opaque and inefficient bureaucracies. In these cases, the struggle to develop electronic systems goes beyond information technology issues, encompassing the need for full assessment and re-engineering of revenue collection administration, record keeping, and knowledge management systems. Reforms such as these encourage accountability, transparency, and trust in the government’s ability to deliver services to citizens.