2.4. Electronic Tax Agency

Since its creation, the Tax Agency has been a pioneer in the field of the electronic administration, and the intensive use of new information and communication technologies has been a constant, which has led to it today being an authentic “electronic Tax Agency”. During 2016, the Tax Agency has continued to dedicate efforts to improving services that it provides through electronic channels.

To achieve this, the Tax Agency has, among other resources, both an informative Internet portal and an Electronic Office for carrying out procedures online.

The E-Office has special conditions of identification, security and responsibility, responding for integrity, veracity and authenticity of the information and services relating to the Tax Agency itself to those which can be accessed. Not only does it allow the interested parties to consult online the status of processing of procedures and to obtain a copy of the documents via the section “My Files,” but it also offers the possibility of carrying out almost all the procedural formalities, which include, among others, access to the electronic register, an inventory of all the procedures, services and formalities which can be carries out online, such as filing tax returns and self-assessments, applications, replies or communications, to submit documents and justifying documents, to make payments, to request and download tax certificates, etc.

Over recent years, the electronic channel has become one of the most used means of interacting with the taxpayer. This situation has intensified since October 2016, when the new common administrative procedure regulations came into effect, making it compulsory for new collectives, mainly legal entities, to do their dealings with Public Administrations electronically.

For this reason in particular and due to the strategic importance of the electronic channel in general, during 2016 the Tax Agency performed an ongoing assessment of its electronic services in order to undertake continuous improvements according to taxpayer's needs and demands. To optimise users' experience, initiatives have also been undertaken in 2016 aimed at simplifying the use of technology and facilitating the processing of all procedures by creating advanced services.

A clear example of taxpayers' use of new technologies in dealing with the Tax Agency is the number of visits to the Tax Agency's websites, which in 2016 reached the figure of 1,872,665,240, including visits to the splash pages of the Agency's own apps.

For further information, go to section 4.3. of this Report describes the services provided online.