WILLEMSTAD - The Tax Department intends for banks to transition to automatic processing of bank statements, according to the Progress Report from the Foundation for Government Accountants (SOAB). Additionally, the intermediary accounts and advance payments of the tax Department are being analyzed and cleaned up.
Various banks, including RBC Bank, First Caribbean International Bank (FCIB), Orco Bank, and Vidanova Bank, have received a letter outlining detailed requirements for file formatting. After phone conversations, all banks have responded positively to the Tax Department's request.
SOAB states that concrete discussions are underway with Orco Bank, FCIB, and Vidanova Bank to implement automatic processing of bank statements. To achieve this, a larger FTP server will be installed, expected to be fully operational by the end of July 2023. An alternative solution has been found for RBC Bank, enabling approximately 70% of transactions to be processed automatically. However, downloading bank statements still requires manual intervention.
The Accounting department of the Receiver General's Office is currently busy with the analysis and cleanup of intermediary accounts, according to the Progress Report. They are investigating why there are so many transactions remaining on the intermediary accounts and making improvements to their procedures and workload distribution. Additionally, there is close collaboration with BearingPoint to further optimize processes and address any issues.
Prepayments are also being analyzed and cleaned up. SOAB has requested a query to gain insight into the balance and transactions on the "Prepayments" intermediary account. Furthermore, preparations are being made to transfer recorded prepayments to the debtor cards of taxpayers.
The causes of incorrectly processed payments are currently being thoroughly analyzed, and efforts are underway to optimize the payment processing process. A specially formed sub-team will focus on complex corrections, and there will be increased collaboration with other departments and organizations.
According to SOAB, the Accounting department is fully committed to improving and optimizing processes with the aim of working more efficiently and accurately.