In the early stage of the development of the Fiscal Information Agency (FIA), computers and information were not only novel, but were even unheard of as new concepts for our citizens. In addition to continuously introducing new equipment, the FIA also hoped to simplify and standardize complicated tax procedures through tax collection automation. FIA staff members were tasked with developing and promoting new technologies, educating colleagues of the MOF and various tax collection agenices as well as taxpayers. They would establish the prototype of tax collection automation for different tax categories.
In 1968, the FIA first rented the CDC3300 series computers from the United States as the main computer for processing comprehensive income tax. With the development of business, the FIA swapped out the lease for CDC’s new CYBER172 mainframe in 1977. Early computer equipment used by the FIA was all in English and was unable to process Chinese documents. In 1975, with the introduction of a Chinese terminal and printer, a trial registration and printing of Chinese tax forms was started. In 1977, the Wang 2200 Chinese output system was added.
In the early days of computer technology, there were no media materials available for filing, and the staff of the FIA had to manually log in the taxpayers’ application forms for filing. When the FIA was established, 120 IBM time-card machines were installed to type in offline data; in 1974, the INFOREX data entry machine was installed, and the data could be directly entered into the disk drive system; in 1978, the FIA introduced Chinese data entry equipment for the first time, and personnel used the Chinese computer typewriter Wanneng Company to produce paper tapes, and then entrusted the vendors to switch to tape entry and file; in the following year, a MiTac CCRT-280 Chinese computer data entry system was purchased. For the first time, the FIA could enter Chinese and English data by connecting to the server.
With the continuous update and replacement of the above-mentioned information equipment, the business handled by the FIA also increased. In 1969, the FIA used computers for the first time to process the Individual Income Tax Returns for 1968, as well as the filing, registration, inspection, verification, and issuance of various income data.
From 1971 to 1978, the FIA began to focus on comprehensive income tax, bank loans, custom duty drawback, household registration changes and other related businesses. Taipei City was selected as a major source of tax revenue for the filing of business tax, house tax, and land value tax, and the printing of tax returns. A smart terminal was installed at Revenue Service Office of Taoyuan County to connect with the mainframe of the FIA, and to conduct business tax collection automation operation in a pilot scheme.
In order to complete the digitization of tax collection of revenue service offices of all counties and cities in Taiwan and Penghu as soon as possible, the FIA completed the installation of computer equipment in revenue service offices of 21 counties and cities in 5 stages between 1982 and 1986. Revenue service offices also began offering services of filing tax, changing tax registration data, assessing tax, and printing tax returns for all local taxes, including business tax, house tax, land value tax, farm tax (currently ceased), slaughter tax (currently ceased), vehicle license tax, and tax refund and declaration system.
As there are many senior revenue officers in each revenue service office, in order to help familiarize them with computers and various tax collection automation systems, the FIA sent representatives to provide job training and instruction on how to build the information systems. The workers successfully completed the work of comprehensively promoting tax collection automation in Taiwan and Penghu.
In the process of establishing the prototype of tax collection automation, it was very important to gain the understanding and approval of the public and elected representatives. Then Director-general of the FIA, Shen Pe-ling, gave a detailed presentation to legislators analyzing the difference in time and efficiency between manual processing and machine processing. Furthermore, he demonstrated the effectiveness of cross-checking tax avoidance and evasion for key taxpayers. The presentation helped the legislators, who were unfamiliar with computer hardware, to understand the benefits of the digitalization process and persuaded them to support and approve the sizable budget of the FIA.
When reviewing The Organic Act of the Ministry of Finance in 1981, the praise that legislator Yu Xilai gave the FIA at the meeting may be the best note on the first difficult decade of the FIA.
The potential of income tax collection was not developed before 1968. Now, the assessment and collection of various tax are on track thanks to the joint efforts of the Taxation Administration, the FIA, the Tax Bureau of Taiwan, and other tax collection authorities across the country in promoting tax collection automation. Presently, over NT$60 billion is collected annually in individual income tax, accounting for the second largest amount in tax revenue.