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Showing posts with label Hack-A-Tax Philippines. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hack-A-Tax Philippines. Show all posts

Monday, January 27, 2020

BIR-led tax innovation challenge kicks off bootcamp with top 20 finalists


From over hundreds of entries received for Hack-A-Tax Philippines, an innovation challenge to improve tax services launched in November last year, the most innovative proposals have been selected to complete the top 20 finalists. The Hack-a-Tax Bootcamp kicked off last January 18, 2020 gathering the 20 shortlisted candidates coming from different regions across the Philippines. The teams were a mix of students and IT professionals who took the time to submit one-of-a-kind solutions to help improve taxpayer experience and transactions.


Hack-A-Tax bootcamp gathered Top 20 finalists from different regions across the Philippines  

The top 20 finalists are: 1) Tax Aide (Northern Luzon); 2) Wyvern Innovations-Onnet (Metro Manila); 3) Yashua BIR-Men (Mindanao); 4) STI College-Novaliches (Metro Manila); 5) Nex Team (Metro Manila); 6) BIR Mini App-Gorated (Metro Manila); 7) Digitax (Metro Manila); 8) Taxccelerate (Mindanao); 9. Team Virtualandes (Visayas); 10. Tax Office (Metro Manila); 11. Team Artax (Metro Manila); 12) Third Channel (Metro Manila); 13) ECTAX (Southern Luzon); 
14) eConnectors; 15) Tax I.T.; 16) Tax Heroes (Southern Luzon); 16) Tax Heroes (Southern Luzon); 17) eKasilicon (Metro Manila); 18) Juan Pos (Mindanao); 19. BIzz App (Southern Luzon); 20) Easy Tax v1.0 (Metro Manila).



The entries have been evaluated by a panel of tax and IT experts headed by executives from the Operations Group and Information Systems Group of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and industry leaders from the private sector. Categories of the 20 finalists include Accounting and Bookkeeping System, Taxpayer Registration System, Tax Filing and Payment System
E-receipting and E-invoicing System and Point-of-Sale System. Proposals were judged based on relevance to the challenge or responsiveness of the proposed solution to the problem, impact or the potential contribution to serve taxpayers, technical innovation or creativity to address the problem and quality of proposal or clarity and cohesiveness of materials presented. 


"With increasing number of challenges that our tax administration is facing today, it is gratifying and heartwarming to see students and young professionals genuinely passionate about helping the government in improving its services to the citizens. We are immensely grateful for all your efforts,” shares Atty. Lanee Cui-David, BIR Deputy Commissioner of the Information System Group. 





The 20 finalists will be participating in a series of mentoring and technical sessions to complete their system development and testing in consultation with the BIR and other innovation partners such as Microsoft Philippines, PayMaya, Amazon Web Services, PAGCOR, Talino Venture Lab, and Pencilstate Design among others. The candidates will also be part of a community immersion called “Dev4Dev Code Camp + Solutions Building Hackathon” on February 15 to 22 in Bukidnon, Mindanao. Final pitching and announcement of winners will be on February 29, 2020.

All top three winners will get a six-month mentorship from industry leaders, free cloud credits from sponsors, BIR-accredited platform plus a cash prize of Php300,000 for the first placer; Php200,000 for the 2nd placer; and Php100,000 for the 3rd placer. The teams will own their respective solutions that will be developed from the #HACKATAXPH Challenge. Organizers and partners will have no intellectual property (IP) share or interest in any product or solution from
the competition.    

In addressing taxpayers’ pain points including paper works and multiple steps for tax compliance, the BIR, in partnership with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and DEVCON, launched the Hack-A-Tax Challenge aimed at promoting simpler, efficient, and serviceable digital tax services for micro and small businesses. 

The competition invited individual developers, IT students and professionals to produce the best software that will enable a more convenient and favorable process for taxpayers to complete their tasks at BIR, which include tax registration, TIN application, tax filing and payments, among others. 

For more information, visit hackatax.ph, follow @hackataxph on Facebook or email info@hackatax.ph.



Tuesday, November 5, 2019

Taxpayer services go digital with Hack-A-Tax



The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) with the support of United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has launched a digital initiative aimed at making it easier for taxpayers and business entities to access and interact with BIR online. BIR’s digital transformation is initiated in part through Hack-A-Tax Philippines which was launched last October 15, 2019.

Hack-A-Tax is an innovation challenge that brings talented and skilled IT professionals, and students across the country to help develop simple, streamlined and serviceable digital tax services for micro and small businesses. 

The competition aims to design the best software to digitize BIR’s taxpayers’ services that include tax registration, TIN application, tax filing and payments, among others.


During the October launch, Hack-A-Tax formally opened its invitation for interested parties to submit their proposals until November 15, 2019. Details and mechanics can be found at the official Hackatax website via www.hackatax.ph.

From all submitted proposals, a panel of judges composed of IT and tax experts will review, choose and announce the top 10 entries during the PH Startup Week on November 22, 2019. From November 23 to December this year, Hack-A-Tax finalists will proceed to the app development phase where they will have access to mentors such as BIR resource persons, tax experts, IT developers and industry leaders.

The BIR will then conduct a one-day-boot camp on the third week of January 2020 where experts will mentor them before the day of their actual app or programming presentation to a panel of distinguished jurors. Top three winners will then be selected. Apart from owning, operating, maintaining and monetizing the chosen apps, the winners will also get the following cash prizes: 

Php100,000.00 for the third placer, Php200,000.00 for the second placer and Php300,000.00 for the first placer.



The mobile apps are expected to be ready for service by February 2020 in time for the April 15, 2020 deadline for the annual individual income tax filing and payments.

Hack-A-Tax Philippines is co-organized by DevCon Philippines, Asian Consulting Group (ACG) and media.Xchange PR.

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