EFFICIENCY OF TAX COLLECTION AND TAX MANAGEMENT IN TAIWAN’S LOCAL TAX OFFICES

Abstract

This study investigated the performance of individual departments and the efficiency of resource utilization in tax offices. The results can be used to improve the performance of tax offices and to increase tax revenues. In this study, the operational flow of local tax offices was divided into two stages: tax collection and tax management. Network data envelopment analysis (NDEA) and a Russell directional distance function were used to evaluate operating efficiency in departments of 20 Taiwanese local tax offices for 2013. The results indicated that, first, efficiency was significantly different for tax collection and tax management. Second, the input inefficiency of tax collection was mainly due to total floor area, which was 15% larger than required, and the input inefficiency of tax management was mainly due to total floor area (23% larger than required), followed by direct labour input (19% larger than required). Finally, on average, the amount of collected property transfer taxes was 23% smaller than required. The model used in the present study included undesirable outputs. The findings indicated that the highest levels of overall inefficiency were due to inability to collect taxes (intermediate outputs) in Hsinchu County (9.27%), Chiayi County (3.25%) and Pingtung County (20.44%), which required reduction in the number of instances of inability to collect property taxes by 5619, 1258 and 12 350 cases, respectively. In total, 19 227 fewer cases of uncollectable property taxes in Taiwan would indicate improved arrears settlement and tax prevention measures.