Part A Strategy goals and framework

How our digital strategy helps achieve our vision and our journey towards digitalisation.

Last updated 28 June 2023

Positioning the digital strategy

What influences this strategy

The ATO digital strategy recognises that digitalisation is transforming the way people interact within complex and largely digitised systems that make up our modern society. The rapidly changing landscape and globalisation of our community influence the approaches we are taking for continued transformation.

Influences from the vision of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Forum on Tax Administration 3.0External Link, Australian government directions and the ATO corporate plan play a big role in shaping this strategy.

Additionally, the experiences we want to create for our clients, and our on-going relationships and collaboration with our partners and intermediaries all play a strong role in the way we are forging ahead.

Positioning the ATO to achieve our vision

The ATO today is recognised globally as a digitally mature organisation, delivering contemporary online services and tools to support our clients. Clients can access our digital services anywhere and anytime, using a variety of channels and devices.

In recent years we've established the necessary foundations to enable the exchange of event-based, validated data in volumes and timeframes previously not imagined.

However, we have more to do for more of our clients and staff and must continue to deliver end-to-end digital services that are safe and convenient.

This strategy continues the shift to digitalisation with a strong focus on:

keeping our existing suite of digital services and foundations strong
making the right incremental improvement and additions to our digital services
increasing built-in upfront integrity with ethical and secure services
reimagining how our digital systems support the future needs of clients.

This contributes to enhancing the integrity of our systems, streamlining the way we operate and meeting the needs of our clients.

Digitalisation is more than making things digital

We will reimagine effective ways to streamline tax. We recognise that it is not enough to simply make current processes digital. We need to improve and transform in ways that drives interconnected ecosystems, protects data and systems and makes things simpler.

Key differences between digitisation and digitalisation
Digitisation:	Digitalisation:
converts data into a digitised medium may involve digitising an existing problem, and not necessarily solving them has limited transparency and certainty incurs retrospective risk detection and treatment.	involves rethinking and transforming, more than simply making something digital supports a data driven ecosystem via natural systems facilitates real-time validation of data enables better decision making.

Example: digitalisation – evolution of the current PAYGW reporting regime

Manual reporting (paper):

Forms driven
Periodic, aggregated, historical data
Prone to errors
Manual, slow and costly for the lodger and the ATO

Electronic forms (digitising):

Reduction in paper and processing time
Some validation and visibility of data
Still based on cyclical reporting regime
Still prone to errors

Event-based reporting (digitalising):

Event-based detailed and current data reported via natural systems
Data validated in real-time via software
Fully digitalised and automated 2-way exchange of data

Continue digitalising:

Increase in right-time and event-based reporting
Enable more pre-filling of forms with verified data
Embed verifiable identifiers into more ecosystems

Integrate into payment ecosystems to enable payments at the right-time or at the point of events through natural systems.

End of example

Our journey towards digitalisation

We’ve made significant advances to improve experiences for clients and we’ve laid the foundations that enable us to continue digitalising our operations. This has allowed us to meet the growing demand for quality end-to-end digital services. This progression is described below.

Laying the foundations

Our digital ecosystem has been optimised through investments in the right platforms and technologies.

We’ve delivered foundational services to suit a variety of different users and their natural systems. There are 4 main ways that our users can interact with us digitally:

Application Programming Interfaces (services enabled by DSPs. For example, SuperStream, Single Touch Payroll).
ATO online services (myTax for individuals, online services for business and agents).
ATO mobile app (links to ATO online services).
ato.gov.au (including ‘Ask Alex’ virtual assistant).

Flexibility to quickly adapt

Our solid foundations allowed us to respond to new policy measures effectively, and enabled delivery of critical support to the community during COVID-19.

myGovID enabled businesses and employees to access government online services quickly and from any device.
myGovID and STP made it possible for impacted businesses and agents to access COVID-19 stimulus payments.

Demand continues to grow

Client behaviour has shown an increase in demand and switch to digital channels over recent years.

As of June 2022 we have seen:

8.9 million myGovID identities created since inception in July 2019
1.3 billion SBR transactions, a 119% increase from 593 million in 2019
5.2 million myTax lodgments, a 37% increase from 3.8 million in 2019
795 million ATO online services interactions, a 331% increase from 184.5 million in 2019.

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