Tax Amnesty Program Powered by Technology

By Susan Byers, Governor's Office for Technology


With the economy in a downturn and the Commonwealth in a budget squeeze, sometimes you have to be creative to keep things going. That's exactly what the Revenue Cabinet did with their Tax Amnesty program, which is bringing in much needed funding and giving businesses and citizens a chance to get right with the Government. When the call came in to the Governor's Office for Technology (GOT) to create the backend system to make the Tax Amnesty program run smoothly, they had to get creative too.


Governor's Office for Technology

 
Tax Amnesty

After the initial cost estimate was prepared in January of this year, work on the project wasn't actually started until after the legislature approved the project. Beginning in mid-April and continuing for the next three months the Tax Amnesty system was designed, developed and implemented by the staff in GOT's Revenue Systems Branch. Over one-hundred new programs have been written for the Tax Amnesty system, and more than one-hundred programs in KRC's Compliance and Receivables System have been modified. Three other mainframe systems also required some modification. The project had to be implemented prior to August 1 in order to print the applications that were mailed to eligible taxpayers and populate the Tax Amnesty database. GOT burned the candle at both ends to make sure the programs were in production before the deadline, and they did it under-budget!

"GOT worked a lot of long hours to get the Amnesty Program
ready for the August 1st target date. They worked with
Revenue personnel to give the Cabinet an Amnesty system
that meets all the requirements
needed and more."

Debra Howard
Business Tech Team Leader
Revenue Cabinet
Department of Information Technology

GOT is currently working on additional features of the Tax Amnesty system that will roll out after the program ends on September 30. The Kentucky Revenue Cabinet's goal is to collect $20 million. Currently, over $5.9 million has been collected. Based on prior experience the Revenue Cabinet expects most of the money paid through Tax Amnesty to come in during the
last ten days of September.

For more information on Tax Amnesty from the Kentucky Revenue Cabinet ,
visit their Tax Amnesty site at http://amnesty.ky.gov/

-- end --
September,
2002

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