Case Study: Saskatchewan Ministry of Finance

Background

The Ministry of Finance (MoF), a ministry for the Government of Saskatchewan (GoS) operates a $3.2 CAD billion revenue agency for the province in order to fund health care, education, highways, and social services. 

The MoF was managing this large revenue agency using a 35-year-old system consisting of mainframe and desktop tools. Due to the system’s age, the MoF avoided making changes to the core system due to both cost and potential risk. Instead the agency addressed required changes through add-on solutions that were not well integrated, in effect creating a more complex and resource intensive system to manage and maintain.

Needs:

• Deliver better customer service
• Improve operational efficiency
• Increase revenue collections
• Increase voluntary compliance 

Delivering Citizen First Services 

The MoF recognized that their legacy system prevented the government’s ability to deliver on their core value, Citizen First. The old system prevented a customer-centric service which allowed self-service capability.

Moreover, the Government of Saskatchewan (GoS) was committed to delivery service excellence as a priority for its citizens. An improved citizen experience required a new integrated revenue system with an improved citizen portal, amongst other requirements. 

Following an RFP process, the agency selected RSI to implement an integrated tax system to modernize the agency’s technology, architecture, and business processes. The project, entitled Revenue Administration Modernization Project (RAMP), began in 2015.

The full project entailed a 3-year implementation and services integration for the new solution including detailed design, configuration, integration with existing systems, conversion, testing, and implementation support services.

Tax types included in the Province’s administration which were migrated to the new ITS included: 

1. Provincial Sales Tax
2. Liquor Consumption Tax
3. Fuel Tax
4. Tobacco Tax
5. Corporation Capital Taxes
6. Insurance Premiums Tax
7. IFTA

With the new system, MoF has been able to introduce new citizen programs such as the Red Tape Reduction which has benefited small- and medium-sized businesses by raising threshold amounts for filing returns for several tax types.

Another new program that the MoF was able to introduce was an automatic filing extension for tax clients that file and pay their tax electronically. Prior to the new system, these tax client offerings were not possible.

The new system implementation began in early 2017 and went live in December 2018. RSI’s flagship product Revenue Premier, a state of the art, COTS solution will not only fulfill the MoF’s immediate requirements, but also provide a flexible.