Iowa Department of Revenue director Mary Mosiman says the project to modernize the agency’s computer system is in the fifth and final year.
“It started in 2020 to modernize Iowa’s tax system, to change from 22 individual aging, mainly mainframe tax systems, into one integrated internal system that’s similar to most every other state,” Mosiman says. She says it created a public portal known as GovConnectIowa where the public could access tax services.
Mosiman says the project planning led them to add alcohol and lottery licensing for Iowa retailers. “Since we were starting with sales tax, we recognized that a bulk of our customers would benefit if they could handle their alcohol and lottery license requirements all on one system,” she says. Mosiman says they added tools that the general public doesn’t see, but help the businesses that serve the public.
“One tool is called Sam or send a message. It’s where retailers or customers can communicate with us securely and timely through massaging at the account level,” She says. “And because it’s an integrated system, we’ll now be able to verify. Sales tax compliant. For the application of a lottery license automatically versus manually.” Mosiman says they will be able to keep all applications, retailer letters and various other documents in the system for inspections and other compliance efforts. Lottery investigators will use it to enter their inspection reports and generate statistics.
They’ll be doing setup work in the next couple of months with the full roll out of the system planned for January 6th.