Beijing Improves Tax Management With SAP

by Alicia Lenze

Flexible New Tax Management Framework to Simplify and Consolidate Tax Payment Process in Chinese Capital

SAP AG today announced the successful go-live of SAP software at the Beijing Xicheng District National Tax Bureau. The SAP rollout establishes a new framework for tax management at one of the main offices of the China State Administration of Taxation, simplifying and consolidating the tax payment process for more than one-fifth of the country's top enterprises.

Leveraging enterprise service-oriented architecture (enterprise SOA) and built on the standards-based SAP NetWeaver(R) platform, the tax management solution uses SAP NetWeaver(R) Business Intelligence (SAP NetWeaver BI) to integrate information from various government IT systems. The solution is designed help the Tax Bureau and its constituents monitor, review, analyze and forecast tax payments more efficiently and accurately.

The Xicheng District National Tax Bureau is responsible for 38 of the country's 180 top enterprises that account for over 70 percent of all income tax revenues in Beijing. Historically, tax payers have been largely governed by different local tax authorities and the central Xicheng District had no access to information about the operations and financial accounting of companies and their employees outside its local jurisdiction. Additionally, Xicheng District tax authorities had to manually adjust tax source statistics of up to several trillion yuan (several billion Euros). This adjustment impacted the accuracy and reliability of payment and economic statistics and created a large amount of work for both the tax authorities and enterprises.

Harmonizing Information and Simplifying Processes to Meet Complex Requirements

To overcome these difficulties and streamline and standardize the tax management process, the Xicheng District National Tax Bureau turned to SAP. SAP's team of public sector experts worked with the Xicheng District to conduct a thorough review of existing operations and identify the pertinent system requirements: First, the system had to integrate with Xicheng District's existing China Tax Administration Information System (CTAIS), which contains information on all enterprises that pay taxes on a consolidated basis. Secondly, the system had to provide the ability for businesses to view checks, inquiries, analyses and forecasts posted by the tax authority. Thirdly, the bureau needed a highly scalable and flexible system that would allow it to adapt and prepare for future business requirements as well as changes to tax rules and regulations.

Leaders of the Xicheng District National Tax Bureau have high expectations for the SAP rollout. "The success or failure of taxation is directly related to the development of the national economy and is of great significance to building a harmonious socialist society," said Hu Yongjin, vice general director, Xicheng District National Tax Bureau. "By combining SAP's advanced technology and extensive public sector expertise in tax and revenue management with modern management concepts, we expect to further improve the management for enterprises that pay tax on a consolidated basis and improve the accessibility and reliability of taxpayer information -taking our level of service to a higher level and encouraging sustainable, healthy and orderly development of taxation."

Based on enterprise SOA, the flexible SAP solution was essential to meet the diverse demands of the Xicheng District National Tax Bureau, forming the foundation for a streamlined and integrated tax management system. Leveraging SAP NetWeaver BI, the new tax system successfully integrates various data sources such as external information and data sheets through interactive forms, and combines an analysis function with actual tax-related business. These new functions enable better data and decision support management, expand business management capabilities, improve tax evaluation, analysis and forecasting and allow remote user access via Internet portals.

"With the increasing impact of globalization on China's economy and politics, the Chinese government at all levels is confronted with various political, business and IT challenges," said Thomas Shirk, president, SAP Global Public Services. "SAP offers the Xicheng District National Tax Bureau a robust, industry-leading tax and revenue management solution that can adapt and grow with the bureau as it confronts these new 21st century challenges, while maximizing the public value that the bureau delivers to its constituents."