One of the biggest criticisms of most governments is that they are inefficient. It’s not usual for tax returns and other correspondence to get bogged down in bad or incomplete addresses, insufficient postage or processing issues.
Singapore hopes to change all of that. The government is giving all citizens, foreign residents and businesses an email account – just one – that will be their official email address for government correspondence. The mailbox, which is said to be secure, will allow individuals and businesses to receive and immediately respond to notices, including making income tax payments or paying traffic tickets. The government has described it as a sort of “digital safe deposit box” for important papers.
The email account would not be available to be used for correspondence to friends or other businesses. However, the account can be linked to cell and smart phones, allowing users to get a text whenever a new message from the government has been delivered. That’s a pretty important feature in a country so reliant on their cell phones that many residents have two phones each.
The service, called “OneInbox” will launch in 2012. It is greatly anticipated in the ultra-modern state, where nearly two-thirds of businesses and individuals claim they would “definitely” use the service. If it works as advertised, the government believes there will be more efficient payment of taxes and fines. It should also (eventually) save the government a bit of money, too, if they can successfully reduce the amount of paper and postage being used.
You can read more from the official government fact sheet here (downloads as a pdf).
What do you think? Brilliant move by the government or recipe for disaster?
This will be interesting to watch as it rolls out. I think it would be very hard for this to be useful here as there is still a big portion of tax payers who don’t have access to computers or cell phones.