To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the State Revenue Service (SRS), on Wednesday, 1 November 2023, the international conference “SRS 30. Transformation and Sustainability” is being held in Riga. The conference is devoted to currently the most important issues of the development of tax administration: creation of excellent customer experience, safety challenges and possibilities created by modern and efficient data processing and analysis.
Ieva Jaunzeme, Director General of the SRS: “The ability to understand entrepreneurs and inhabitants by using precise data analysis, develop an intuitive and automated environment for their work with tax and customs issues — that is the way of development, chosen by Latvia and its State Revenue Service jointly with other Member States of the OECD. At the same time, the world, where we live after 24 February 2022, demands a special priority to be set for security issues. By this conference, we wish to establish a high-quality discussion on further steps of development.”
The audience of the conference was addressed by Ieva Jaunzeme, Director General of the SRS; Arvils Ašeradens, Minister of Finance; Aigars Rostovskis, President of the Latvian Chamber of Commerce and Industry; Andris Bite, President of the Confederation of Latvian Employers; Zlata Elksniņa-Zaščirinska, Head of the Foreign Investors’ Council in Latvia; Gerassimos Thomas, Director General of the European Commission Directorate-General Taxation and Customs Union; Alix Perrignon de Troyes, Executive Legal Secretary of the Intra-European Organisation of Tax Administrations (IOTA); Jānis Citskovskis, Director of the State Chancellery; Signe Bāliņa, President of the Latvian Information and Communication Technology Association; Virpi Pikkarainen, Programme Director of the Centre for Tax Policy and Administration of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and Ingus Augstkalns, Executive Director, Founder, Product Developer of the company Beat The Storm.
The SRS would like to say a special thanks to Tetjana Kirijenko, who currently leads the State Tax Service of Ukraine, for the possibility to arrive and share her experience.
During the first discussion of the conference, Ieva Jaunzeme, Director General of the SRS, Andris Vanags, Chairman of the Board of AS Sakret Holdings (JSC), Jurijs Grigorjevs, Head of Quality Engineering of AKF Accenture Latvija, and Uldis Tatarčuks, Chairman of the Board of SIA Tet (LLC), discussed the current opportunities to create a positive customer experience.
The current security challenges were discussed by Raimonds Zukuls, Deputy Director General of the SRS in the Field of Customs, Director of the National Customs Board, Aigars Prusaks, Director of the SRS Tax and Customs Police Department, Ieva Ilvesa, cyber security and digital policy expert, and Kristiāns Teters, cyber security expert of the information technology safety incident prevention institution CERT.lv.
In turn, the ability of tax administrations to recognise precisely their customers, support honest taxpayers, shape public opinion and undermine tolerance towards violators was discussed by Natālija Fiļipoviča, Deputy Director of the SRS Taxpayer Behaviour Analysis and Forecasting Department; Raili Roosimaa, Deputy Director General of the Tax and Customs Board of the Republic of Estonia; Rūta Asadauskaite, Head of the Strategic Communication Department of the State Tax Inspectorate of the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Lithuania, and Dr. sc. soc. Andris Saulītis, the leading researcher of the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the University of Latvia.