Washington State Department of Revenue

This IT Strategic Plan for the Department of Revenue outlines a roadmap for leveraging information technology to efficiently collect revenues and fund public services. The plan focuses on five key goals: improving customer experience and data accessibility through technology, delivering high-quality and secure IT systems and services, enhancing communication and collaboration, strengthening the IT team through talent development and recruitment, and prioritizing cost containment and optimization. The overall vision is to achieve the highest level of voluntary compliance by being a trusted leader in tax administration and public service, supported by technology-driven innovation and operational resilience.

The meeting of the Mitigation Advisory Committee included discussions on various issues, such as the timeline for PFD determinations from the Department of Revenue, options for calculating mitigation, and the use of FY 2008 as a comparison period. The committee also discussed the treatment of annexations and rate changes in mitigation calculations, with a preference expressed for Option 3. Additionally, the committee addressed voluntary sellers, data collection from remote sellers, and the identification of firm closures. They also discussed adjustments for locational changes and the handling of late filers in mitigation calculations.

The annual meeting of the SST Mitigation Advisory Committee was convened to discuss potential adjustments to the mitigation calculation. The committee decided to continue sending quarterly secure messages to all jurisdictions, including those not receiving a payment. The committee agreed that the Department can send a secure message saying the data has not changed instead of sending out the annual data in August. The next annual meeting will be convened by conference call in July of 2016.

The annual meeting of the SST Mitigation Advisory Committee discussed adjustments to the mitigation calculation, the inclusion of LRF, LIFT, and HBZ, and the 2015 annual review schedule for 2016 payments. DOR received no adjustments from any jurisdiction. Including the LIFT and LRF state shared taxes will reduce SST Mitigation payments by approximately $2,650 per year, impacting eight jurisdictions. The next annual meeting is scheduled for July 2015.

The meeting covered discussions on the net loss adjustment process, the Public Facilities District (PFD) rate adjustment process, and issues from the September meeting, including the predecessor/successor issue, how to deal with annual taxpayers, and which NAICS should be included in the mitigation analysis. The committee also discussed the process for adjustments after the mitigation base is set, including the impact of adjustments on other jurisdictions and whether adjustments should go backward as well as forward. Adjustments during the first year of mitigation were also addressed.