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The Malta Independent | Thursday 7 April 2011
ICT Feature
Pierre Vella
Leveraging ICT in taxation departments beyond the ’e’
Roderick Spiteri is Marketing and Communications Executive at MITA and editor of Malta Independent ICT feature
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s organisations in the business environment, taxation departments (Inland Revenue – IRD and VAT) do not need to market their position to increase their client base. Indeed, legislation dictates that everyone must pay the right amount of tax at the right time. The legislation, sometimes, also imposes penalties when tax is not paid in time. Such a market position might be seen as an enviable one, however this balance is offset by the pressure that there is on such departments to be effective in tax collection and to provide customer service levels that will make taxpayers perceive value for complying with tax obligations. This is a major challenge when one considers the amount of obligations that are required during a person’s life or the lifecycle of a business in terms of tax. Processing of tax returns and associated payments amount to large volumes of transactions. Obligations are also perceived as excessive bureaucracy but the administrative machinery requires such ‘red tape’ to operate and also to have measures of internal controls. It is no wonder then that tax institutions across the world are leveraging on the potential of ICT to facilitate tax compliance and subsequently reduce the impact of reporting obligations. Through the use of ICT, one can bring about an increase in operational efficiency and reduces the overall costs of tax collection.
Imagine being angry or sad and your computer is able to sense these emotions and customises the user-experience to meet your mood, and perhaps make you happy again. During last week’s Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, Rosalind Picard, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and co-founder of Affectiva, presented groundbreaking emotion sensing technologies. Affectiva technology is able to allow computers powering websites to scan and analyse a user’s web camera imagery for facial expressions, eye movements, and gestures that give clues on the user’s emotional reactions to anything from film clips, game actions or adverts. Such a technology is adaptable to a lot of different uses and scenarios and in fact Affectiva has already received inquires from a number of interested companies. An online poker company is interested in this technology, presumably to analyse whether poker players are bluffing or not. They were also contacted by a car manufacturing company who checked whether they can modify the voice and tone of a navigation system if it detects that the driver is angry. Most of us are able to communicate about our feelings through speech. Initially, the motivation for Affectiva to start working on such a technology was for those who can not articulate what is going on with their feelings. This included children with autism and also others, who for some reason or another are not able to communicate their feelings through language. Autistic children often do not show signs that they are getting stressed. Their stress builds tension inside them until they get a meltdown, which can then result in aggression toward others or even self-injury. This means that teachers and other caregivers find it very difficult to anticipate or prevent such meltdowns before it’s too late. During the Expo, Picard demonstrated the ‘Q Sensor’ which can be attached to the wrist or ankle to determine when people get stressed.
“ ” Pierre Vella is a project manager within the Revenue Finance and Administration Business Cluster at MITA.
Emotions can be tricky. Sometimes we’re overwhelmed and cannot express exactly what we’re feeling. Or else we can act on some emotion, and later realise that we were hasty with our decisions. What if we had a device with which we can analyse our ‘true’ emotions? In today’s ICT Feature we look at innovative research
which Affectica, an MIT Media Lab affective computing spin-off, is conducting on emotion measuring technology. In today’s edition we look at which software contestants in the Pwn2Own annual hacking event managed to topple. The successful contestants do not only get to take the device they
topple but also a generous cash prize. We will also look at how tax departments around the world are using ICT to facilitate tax compliance. We also look at the local scenario and how the Inland Revenue and VAT departments are using IT systems to help them carry out their work more effectively.
What if your computer could understand how you’re feeling?
A similar project to reduce reporting obligations is in progress with the National Statistics Office where the use of information submitted to other Departments is being considered to reduce the need of businesses and citizens to respond to questionnaires
Malta is no exception and the Ministry of Finance, the Economy and Investments (MFEI) has invested in the implementation of a number of ICT systems. ICT will support MFEI’s extensive tax reform programme that aims to ensure that the nation has a tax policy and well equipped tax administrations to sustain economic growth and improve the well being of the nation’s population. Malta Information Technology Agency (MITA) has been involved in such projects since the very start. Although many associate ICT with e-Government and online services, the contribution of IT in taxation departments goes well beyond that. Indeed, both the Inland Revenue and the VAT Departments provide eGovernment services that enable users to carry out all primary form filing and payment obligations online. However, over the years, ICT has been leveraged in different ways to complement a tax reform with the aim of facilitating the process for citizens, businesses and the also tax administrations. A classic example is the implementation of the Final Settlement System (FSS) in 1999. As part of the tax re-
Roderick Spiteri
The Malta Independent ICT Feature
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Most of us are able to communicate about our feelings through speech. Initially, the motivation for Affectiva to start working on such a technology was for those who can not articulate what is going on with their feelings
With the devise you can find out what most stresses you during the day. A small electric current is continually sent by two small silver electrodes on the underside of the device to measure skin conductance, which rises with physiological levels of stress both excitement and fear. In the future, the applicability of the Q Sensor could be unlimited – with it you can see a baby's stress level goes
up, just before it starts crying. It can also be used by educators to see how they can keep students at the right arousal level without being too boring or too exciting. In the sphere of market research and usability, it can be used to measure how people are responding to a new product, a new advert, a song, and much more. Affectiva is providing the opportunity to try out their product through
www.forbes.com. If one goes to the Technology section and then to the Innovation & Science part, one can try out the ‘Interactive Smile’. The application asks you for permission to record your data and to switch on your webcam and microphone. It will show you a short video (an advert) and records your video watching it. It will then show you in which parts you smiled and how this compares to the other people who watched the same advert. The possibilities of such interactive affect reading technologies are endless for various fields, including healthcare, academic and even marketing. Full URL for ‘Interactive Smile’: http://www.forbes.com/2011/02/28 /detect-smile-webcam-affectiva-mitmedia-lab.html
Hackers topple IE, Safari, iPhone and BlackBerry
form which saw the introduction of VAT, reduction in tax rates, and implementation of final withholding taxes, the Income Tax Return was simplified and the PAYE tax calculation was transferred to the payroll. Employees did not need to call at IRD whenever they had a change in income as the formula was sensitive to income fluctuations (e.g. over time) and adjusted the tax withheld accordingly. Thanks to this improvement in end of year reporting by employers, most taxpayers did not need to fill out complicated forms but endorse a simple Tax Declaration. Furthermore employers did not need to send detailed reports monthly and duplicate reporting to the Department of Social Security
was also removed. The concept was further developed and now taxpayers whose income and deductions are reported by third parties to the IRD, do not have to file anything and receive a tax statement or refund. All reporting is done online so it is possible to process information more quickly and generally last year’s statements are issued by the middle of the following year. There are other projects in progress that reflect the use of ICT to facilitate life for citizens and businesses. In 2011, persons who trade and estimate that their annual turnover does not exceed €7000 and do not wish to claim input VAT, will not need to register and submit VAT forms. This will help this segment of people with
a reduction in bureaucracy and also reflects the VAT Department’s confidence in its risk assessment systems to pinpoint eventual defaulters and non-filers. A similar project to reduce reporting obligations is in progress with the National Statistics Office where the use of information submitted to other Departments is being considered to reduce the need of businesses and citizens to respond to questionnaires. Similarly both VAT and IRD have improved their online interaction with the Registrar of Companies ICT systems and in the near future the taxpayer registration processes will be simplified with both departments. Another exciting project approach-
ing conclusion is the collaboration between IRD and the Employment and Training Corporation (ETC). Through this project, engagement and termination forms have been joined with the FS4 employer/employee registration forms in one online service and through a single submission, employers will be able to submit the details to both organisations. Indeed, during the years the revenue collected from taxation has increased. Besides economic growth this reflects also an improvement in the departments’ operations and a reduction in complexity to comply. It also reflects a perception that the departments now have the necessary ICT tools which ensure that compliance is at an acceptable level.
Apple’s Safari and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE) browsers were hacked by contestants in this year’s Pwn2Own hacking contest. iPhone and BlackBerry were also hacked. Pwn2Own is a two-day computer hacking contest held annually as part of the CanSecWest security conference held in Vancouver, Candada. In this contest, which knows it’s beginning since 2007, contestants try to exploit specific software or computing platforms. Usually the targets are web browsers or other web related software. As the name signifies, Pwn (to hack) 2 (to) Own (take home with you), those who manage to hack a devise or computer win that particular devise or computer together with a cash prize, which this year was almost €11,000 apiece. Day 1 During Day 1 of this year’s event, hackers took complete control of a fully patched Sony Vaio and MacBook Air by comprising IE and Safari respectively. Google’s Chrome and Mozilla’s Firefox were also available but no contestant took the
promised, it was eliminated from the race.
challenge. However, it’s worthy to note that Firefox fixed some 10 security flaws the day before the contest started whilst Google fixed 9 flaws. Chrome has yet to be defeated since its launch in 2008, while Firefox was
beaten both in 2009 and in 2010. Competition rules state that contestants have to draw a lottery to determine who should be the first to attempt hacking particular software. Once a specific software was com-
Day 2 Day 2 of the contest saw both iPhone 4 and BlackBerry Torch 9800 hacked by contestants. The Samsung Nexus S (running Android) and Dell Venue Pro (running Windows 7) went unchallenged. One must note that hackers usually would have been working on their tactics for weeks in advance. Chaouki Bekrar, who successfully hacked Safari said that after building the tools from scratch it took him about two weeks to find the bug and set out to exploit it. On the other hand, Steven Fewer who managed to exploit IE needed about six weeks of full-time research to find the bugs and work a way how to exploit them. Following the event, the contest’s sponsor, Tipping Point, provides a vulnerability report to the vendors of those applications that have been exploited and for security purposes this information is not made public before the vendor has corrected the vulnerability.