NASCIO 2002 Recognition Awards
Title of Nomination: Ohio Business Gateway (OBG) Project/System Manager: Michelle Pickering Title: Special Projects Manager, eGovernment Development & Deployment Agency: Ohio Dept. of Adminstrative Services Department: Computer Services Division Address: 30 E. Broad Street, 39th Floor City: Columbus State: OH Zip: 43215-3414 Phone: 614-995-5332 Fax: 614-644-9152 Email: michelle.pickering@das.state.oh.us CATEGORY: Digital_Government_G_to_B Person Nominating (if different): Rick Shipley Title: Administrator, eGovernment Development & Deployment Address: 30 E. Broad Street, 39th Floor City: Columbus State: OH Zip: 43215-3414 Phone: 614-995-5332 Fax: 614-644-6152 Email: rick.shipley@das.state.oh.us
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NASCIO 2002 Recognition Awards
Category
Digital Government: Government to Business (G to B) For applications that foster innovative, timesaving, cost-effective transactions between government and businesses. Applications focus on convenience and streamlining exchange of information. Examples include automation of procurement, registration, licensing and permitting.
Executive Summary
In keeping with Ohio‟s commitment to use technology to make government services in Ohio more accessible and efficient the 122nd Ohio General Assembly passed legislation requiring the creation of a pilot program implementing an Internet-based system for private businesses to collect and electronically file data – House Bill 202 (HB 202). As a result of this legislation, an inter-agency cabinet committee was created in December of 2000 to make recommendations regarding the legislation adopted in HB 202. The committee, comprised of representatives from the Ohio Department of Administrative Services (DAS), the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services (JFS), the Ohio Bureau of Workers‟ Compensation (BWC) and the Ohio Department of Taxation (TAX), was charged with making recommendations regarding the requirements of HB 202. The committee recommended the development of an Internet-based system to simplify Ohio business tax reporting and remittance with BWC, JFS and TAX for small businesses with annual payrolls of less than $250,000 – the Ohio Business Gateway (OBG). Prior to the development of the Ohio Business Gateway, small businesses in Ohio individually reported business data and remitted tax payments to several state agencies. Information filed with each agency was often redundant, with inconsistent due dates for making reports and tax payments. These inconsistencies and redundancies unnecessarily increased the processing and maintenance requirements for both small businesses and state agencies. The OBG project conducted focus group meetings, which included a wide cross section of representation from the Ohio businesses community, including the Governor‟s Small Business Advisory Council, Ohio Small Business Council of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, and the National Federation of Independent Businesses of Ohio. These meetings focused on how to reduce the processing burdens businesses encountered to comply with existing Ohio tax law. From these meetings, a new system was envisioned that would address ease of use, data security, process efficiencies, client personalization and most importantly, the creation of a single tax reporting and payment interface with the state. The main goal of the Ohio Business Gateway initiative is to provide a “one stop shop” for small business in Ohio to reduce the time, effort and cost necessary to comply with existing state tax reporting and payment requirements. The Ohio Business Gateway delivers on the Governor Taft‟s promise of moving taxpayers to „on-line, not in-line‟ by creating a scalable and flexible Internet-based system that increases process efficiencies and availability, reduces processing and preparation time, eliminates redundancy, provides instant confirmation of tax filings and significantly simplifies doing business with the state. The Ohio Business Gateway represents a new era for the State of Ohio by allowing taxpayers to interact with the state as a whole rather than requiring interaction with particular agencies individually. As a true multi-agency transaction-based application, the Ohio Business Gateway establishes the new standard for business service delivery. The application was added to the State of Ohio home page (www.ohio.gov) on January 22, 2002.
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NASCIO 2002 Recognition Awards
Description of Project
The Ohio Business Gateway is Ohio‟s new small business tax processing, reporting and payment system for Workers‟ Compensation, Unemployment Tax, Payroll Withholding and Sales Tax (see Figure 1). Figure 1
The project is a joint effort between DAS, BWC, JFS and TAX. Incorporating input and participation of the Governor‟s Small Business Advisory Council, Ohio Small Business Council of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, the National Federation of Independent Businesses of Ohio and representatives of private businesses, the state created a new service choice that assists Ohio‟s small businesses to comply with multiple state reporting and payment requirements. The features and functionality included in the Ohio Business Gateway significantly reduce the processing time and effort for compliance and increase overall system accuracy and responsiveness for both Ohio businesses and state agencies. The Ohio Business Gateway went live January 22, 2002 serving Ohio‟s small business community. Ohio small businesses can now report and pay tax liabilities associated with workers' compensation, unemployment tax, payroll withholding tax and sales tax to multiple state agencies through a single Internet-based interface/portal session. Electronic payments can be electronically initiated from business checking or savings accounts via automated clearinghouse processing (ACH) transactions. This new functionality enables employers to pay multiple taxes with a single payment or transaction, thereby eliminating the need to make separate agency payments as was previously necessary. Additionally, the Ohio Business Gateway can be personalized to further increase ease of use and processing efficiencies. The Ohio Business Gateway consists of a web-based front-end running on Microsoft NT utilizing a fully redundant 3-tier architecture. The application is maintained within a centralized state secure server environment serviced by the Ohio State Data Center. Data communications between the Ohio Business Gateway Internet portal and existing legacy systems are supported through virtual private network connections. In addition, the system incorporates security protocols that encrypt all information. Access to BWC and JFS legacy systems to retrieve tax information is accomplished by interchange objects using simple object access protocol (SOAP). SOAP is a lightweight, XML-based protocol used for the exchange
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NASCIO 2002 Recognition Awards
of information in a decentralized, distributed environment. File transfer protocol (FTP) is used to access TAX legacy systems during authentication of valid tax account numbers for the Ohio Business Gateway web server. The Ohio Business Gateway is designed as a statewide platform to launch future web-based service offerings for other services to the Ohio business community.
Operational Improvements for the State of Ohio
Prior to the Ohio Business Gateway, the participating agencies provided only a predominately manual process to small business employers. Electronic methods were not typically practical for small business employers. Although data reporting by tape has been available for many years, only large companies typically used the service. JFS guidelines require employers to report unemployment tax returns on a quarterly basis. This necessitates non-tape employers to type or retype all reporting information and mail it to JFS for scanning through an optical character recognition system. This process is labor intensive and prone to errors and omissions. With the implementation of the Ohio Business Gateway, small business employers may now report electronically and leverage previously submitted data to improve transaction reliability, accuracy and efficiency when submitting tax reports and payments. Employers receive instant confirmation that the transaction was received and executed. The efficiencies and benefits for employers and state agencies are significant. In a similar fashion, small business employers submitted and reported payroll withholding tax, sales tax and payments to TAX manually prior to the deployment of the Ohio Business Gateway. TAX currently maintains a staff of 12-15 processing analysts to receive and process the incoming manual information. The new functionality of the Ohio Business Gateway frees these analysts from the manual processing burdens, costs and time commitments associated with these transactions (see Figure 2). Figure 2
By creating a more readily accessible and flexible application, the State of Ohio is creating a more business and citizen friendly image. The Ohio Business Gateway system is yet one more positive and significant step forward in the State of Ohio‟s mission to leverage technology to manage work processes. This new approach significantly increases the State of Ohio‟s ability to respond to the changing needs and demands
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NASCIO 2002 Recognition Awards
of its constituency while also expanding the choices available to businesses in how to access state government services. The Ohio Business Gateway application establishes a solid foundation for future government to business (G to B) systems. With the success of the Ohio Business Gateway and acceptance by the business community, the State of Ohio has future plans to expand the service to larger scale employers. And, the State of Ohio is evaluating how new services and functionality can be incorporated into the Ohio Business Gateway platform
Benefits Realized by Service Recipients, Taxpayers or State
With the deployment of the Ohio Business Gateway, small business employers and the State of Ohio are well positioned to enjoy the benefits of a customer-centric application. The Ohio Business Gateway provides participating agencies and small business employers the following key benefits: 1. Remittance of electronic payments via ACH. Electronic payment transactions eliminate the need for manually creating and issuing paper checks. The electronic payment functionality also supports pre-populating data fields, enhanced data editing and immediate funds receipt confirmation. The results include reduced time in preparing and distributing payments, increased accuracy, and elimination of much of the repetitive paperwork that previously had to be completed manually. Consolidation of tax payment transactions. The Ohio Business Gateway allows participating employers to create one payment transaction covering multiple tax liabilities involving multiple agencies. The result decreases the time commitment for employers to prepare and make payments while also reducing the resources required for processing by agencies. Reduce reporting burden. Participating employers‟ tax data and associated tax forms from three state agencies are accessible through the interactive Ohio Business Gateway portal. This allows employers to submit and maintain their own business and employee tax data without direct agency involvement (See Figure 3). Additionally, the Ohio Business Gateway is a paperless system that helps eliminates the need for businesses to obtain and maintain paper forms.
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Figure 3
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NASCIO 2002 Recognition Awards
4. The Ohio Business Gateway provides significant conveniences for Ohio small business owners by allowing anyone with access to the Internet to conduct business tax reporting and payments with the State of Ohio 24 hours a day and seven days a week. The Ohio Business Gateway development process established a trusted communication channel with the Ohio business community spanning a wide range of business sectors. The application was tailored to meet the specific needs identified by small businesses. Because of the collaborative process used to design the system, these relationships can be leveraged for designing and developing future enhancements and services.
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Return on Investment
Within the first few months of deploying the Ohio Business Gateway, over 2,400 small businesses throughout Ohio began using the OBG system, remitting over $2,000,000 in state tax liabilities. The gains of the Ohio Business Gateway are comprised of: Reduction of time and resource commitment necessary for Ohio‟s businesses to comply with certain tax reporting and payment requirements. The system increases process efficiencies, saves time, eliminates data redundancies, decreases the chances for processing errors or omissions, and simplifies doing business with the state. These improvements reduce the costs of complying with tax laws for both business taxpayers and state government. Reduction or elimination of manual data entry necessary to process paper reporting and remittance by agencies. The reduction or elimination of data entry on the part of government creates many positive results for government and for taxpayers such as:
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More efficient allocation of agency staff resources. Eliminating or reducing processing steps resulting in fewer typographical errors or errors of omission. Eliminating inefficient handling of mail. Consolidating multiple tax liabilities to multiple agencies into a single transaction.
The Ohio Business Gateway is a significant step towards creating a paperless environment for tax reporting. Paper documents create burdensome work for an agency when compared to electronic. Additionally, use of the Internet portal creates the opportunity for taxpayers to conduct business with the State of Ohio 24 hours a day and seven days a week.
Long-term benefits of the Ohio Business Gateway will increase as more small business employers learn of and take full advantage of the new application and its functionality. The full value of the Ohio Business Gateway revolves around the establishment of a customer-focused, single face of government providing services to Ohio‟s business community. By embracing the lessons learned by the Ohio Business Gateway project, the State of Ohio is in a strong position to leverage both this application and its approach to developing and deploying additional efficient and value-added Web-based systems in the future.
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