Expert system supports new legislation
Mark Burt, Project Manager for Expert Systems at the Australian
Taxation Office, explains how they are using XpertRule to develop
a Baby
Bonus Expert System
Background
The Australian Taxation Office encourages as many clients as possible
to use self-help. The use of expert systems is a key component in
achieving this.
We recently used an expert system application on our website to
enable users to determine their eligibility and entitlements to
a new tax offset, the baby bonus.
The challenge
The challenge was to provide accurate and consistent advice to
clients about the baby bonus. The baby bonus legislation provides
for a payment through the taxation system to help families who have
had a baby after 30 June 2001 and we expected this Commonwealth
government initiative to generate a large number of enquiries at
the busiest time of the year for our public enquiry areas.
The solution
Using an online expert system application applying business rules
to information provided by the user, we are able to achieve a high
level of consistency in advice. The web-based expert system application
offers an immediate self-help and education solution for external
users and is a resource for our staff answering telephone or counter
enquires. The application is available initially for use online
and later as a downloadable tool. It enables individuals to carry
out their own calculations and check their eligibility based on
their own circumstances.
The development of the application took three months end-to-end,
including establishing specifications, testing, useability testing,
clearances and publishing. Implementation as a web application was
achieved using an interface developed specifically to meet our strict
web design and development standards.
The results
In the first two months of usage the baby bonus URL had 27,573
requests, and was in the top one hundred most frequently requested
pages on our website. There was minimal critical feedback.
The conclusion
The high usage and low critical feedback suggest that there is
high user acceptance of this expert system application.
We have therefore concluded that the use of the expert system application
offered a timely, convenient, consistent, and accurate solution
to manage the enquiries generated from the introduction of the baby
bonus.
The baby bonus expert system application is available at: http://www.ato.gov.au/scripts/axos/axos.asp?CONTEXT=&KBS=Baby2004.XR4&go=ok
Editor's Note: Venturi Limited,
XpertRule's partner in Australia and New Zealand, are the provider
of XpertRule to the Australian Taxation Office.
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