Introduction Digitalization is a priority for tax administrations, with investment in tax administration information system (TAIS) often central to reform. However, replacing this system is more than a technology purchase. It is an institutional reform that reshapes how taxpayers register, file, pay, receive refunds, seek assistance, and resolve disputes, and how officials manage accounts, assess risk, collect debt, conduct audits, and monitor revenue performance. For small tax administrations, including Pacific small island developing states, scale and adaptability can support rapid change. The challenge is to create the institutional and operational conditions for a TAIS that improves taxpayer service and compliance management, while remaining usable, maintainable, and adaptable after external support ends. Analysis Regional analysis by the Asian Development Bank shows continued investment in digital tools for revenue collection, taxpayer services, and administration. Drawing on ADB’s experiences, including support provided through the Domestic Resource Mobilization Trust Fund, five practical priorities can help digital tax reform deliver lasting results. Start with the operating model. A new system should solve defined problems, such as unreliable taxpayer records, missed filing and payment obligations, inaccurate debt balances, delayed refunds, inconsistent case management, or limited access to services. Before selecting software, administrations need to map their main processes from start to finish: registration, filing, payment, taxpayer accounts, refunds, debt collection, audit, objections, taxpayer service, and reporting. Processes can be simplified and standardized before automation, while allowing controlled, well-governed changes during configuration, testing, and stabilization. Business process review can continue after implementation, as operational experience and system capabilities often reveal opportunities to further streamline and redesign processes to fully realize the benefits of the new system. Tender arrangements can cover business requirements, including processes, decision rules, user roles, taxpayer notices, operational, management, and external reports, analytics, service channels, gateways and application programming interface (API), embedded guidance, ticket management, and necessary legal changes. This gives suppliers a clear brief and lets government compare bids against its priorities. Choose a system the administration can sustain. Commercial off-the-shelf solutions can reduce the risks of bespoke development but still require substantial configuration, data migration, testing, training, and continuing support. The best system is the one the administration can afford, operate, secure, adapt, and support. Choices should also cover cloud or in-country hosting and whether to use Software as a Service (SaaS). Supplier experience in comparable administrations, core functions, integration with government systems, hosting and cybersecurity, support; and full life-cycle costs need to be examined. Licenses, maintenance, hardware, upgrades, cybersecurity, and specialist support are often underestimated; while aging platforms and policy changes can drive costs upward. Where possible, contracts should fix or cap predictable costs, set transparent rates for additional work, clarify the platform lifecycle and vendor roadmap, and define pricing for future changes. Early market engagement is especially important where few suppliers can meet the administration’s requirements. A structured, transparent, and iterative process can build supplier interest and competition, test requirements, and improve cost, timeline, and risk estimates before tendering. Administrations can refine their operating model, requirements, and procurement strategy as they learn what the market can provide, while suppliers prepare more responsive bids. ADB’s 2026 guidance explains how this can be achieved without compromising fairness or procurement integrity. The first release can focus on the functions that keep the revenue system running: registration, filing, payments, taxpayer accounts, and basic reporting, with core complex functions added once these foundations are stable. Keep government in the lead. A supplier can deliver the system, but the government remains accountable for the reform. Vendors often have deeper technical and commercial knowledge, making it difficult for small administrations to challenge advice, scope changes, or service quality. Thus, governments need to retain independent technical and business advice, establish escalation and dispute-resolution arrangements, and base key decisions on long-term public interests rather than vendor convenience. Development partners can provide procurement guidance and standard documents. Successful implementation requires senior sponsorship, a dedicated government team, clear decision rights, disciplined change control, and contracts tied to tested deliverables and formal acceptance. Where feasible, part of payment should depend on a defined stabilization period after go-live. Staff time must also be protected. Officials maintaining daily operations may simultaneously need to clean data, test the system, revise procedures, and train colleagues. An implementation plan, supported by technical assistance, should balance these demands. Temporary capacity may be required for data cleansing, testing, change management, taxpayer support, and early defect resolution to prevent backlogs and embedded problems. Integration with broader digital public infrastructure requires early agreement. Connections with banks, customs, the Ministry of Finance’s financial management information system, identity services, and business registries can determine whether services work end to end. Centralized information and communications technology departments or shared-service providers should be involved early in architecture, hosting, cybersecurity, connectivity, and support. Get data and data governance right. Data migration often exposes long-standing problems: duplicate accounts, inactive registrations, incorrect balances, unresolved credits, and incomplete taxpayer histories. Migrating them unchanged transfers the same weaknesses to the new system. Before migration, administrations need to clean taxpayer data, validate identifiers and contact details, and decide how to treat legacy debt, assessments, refunds, and historical records. Tax officials must make operational decisions alongside the supplier’s technical work. Given limited capacity, migration plans need dedicated staff, realistic timelines, and specialist support for data profiling, cleansing, reconciliation, and sign-off. Data governance also requires early attention. Governments need clear rules on data ownership and inventories, access rights, audit trails, error correction, incident escalation, retention, cybersecurity, disaster recovery, cloud hosting, and subcontractors. Tax laws often impose strict secrecy duties and restrict third-party sharing or cross-border processing. System design and contracts should therefore specify access controls, auditability, breach notification, permitted data locations, subcontractor obligations, and enforceable tax-secrecy undertakings. Tax laws may also need to be amended to support modern tax administration, particularly where the existing legal framework does not enable electronic interactions with taxpayers, data sharing across government agencies, or access to third-party information. Make the system work for people. Digital channels need to make compliance easier for taxpayers and staff. Officials need role-based training, practical testing environments, and accessible support. Taxpayers need clear guidance, responsive help desks, and time to prepare. Consulting taxpayers, tax agents, banks, and accountants can identify problems before they spread. Assisted digital channels, accessible forms, and trained frontline staff remain important where connectivity, digital skills, literacy, or disability limit online use. Zero-rated access and SMS or messaging reminders can further reduce barriers and encourage filing and payment. Where legally appropriate, systems can support sex-disaggregated taxpayer data and other relevant breakdowns. This can reveal differences in behavior and compliance outcomes across taxpayer segments, informing tailored services and more inclusive outreach. Governments should also budget from the outset for licenses, hosting, cybersecurity, hardware replacement, training, and future policy changes, while retaining and developing the staff needed to manage the system after implementation support ends. Conclusion A tax administration information system (TAIS) can improve taxpayer service, compliance management, and management information, but technology alone cannot achieve these gains. For small tax administrations, successful digital tax administration reform requires a workable operating model, usable data, strong transition oversight, clear decisions, active risk management, prompt problem-solving, and continued investment in system performance, taxpayer support, staff capability, and recurrent funding after go-live. Evidence on the revenue effect of a TAIS remains limited, but specific tools show both potential and limitations. Peru’s e-invoicing reform increased reported sales, purchases, and VAT liabilities by more than 5% in the first year after adoption. In Eswatini, e-filing improved several filing and reporting outcomes, including turnover and taxable income, but did not increase tax remittances. Regional evidence shows why digitalization alone is insufficient. Revenue Statistics in Asia and the Pacific 2026 notes that developing economy revenue authorities may collect large volumes of taxpayer data but use it inefficiently. Technology must therefore be complemented by effective enforcement, wider administrative reforms, and sufficient institutional capacity. Resources Asian Development Bank (ADB). 2026. Early Market Engagement: Procurement Guidance Note ADB. 2022. Launching a Digital Tax Administration Transformation: What You Need to Know. D. Tansey. 2019. Tax Administration Information Systems: Concept, Design, and Implementation. ADB Governance Brief. M. Cotton and G. Dark. 2017. Use of Technology in Tax Administrations 3: Implementing a Commercial off-the-Shelf (COTS) Tax System. Technical Notes and Manuals No. 17/3. International Monetary Fund. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). 2025. Tax Administration Digitalisation and Digital Transformation Initiatives. Ask the Experts Yuhei Chiba Public Sector Economist (Taxation), Public Sector Management and Governance Sector Office, Sectors Department 3, Asian Development Bank Yuhei Chiba works on ADB’s operations and knowledge work in public finance, particularly in tax policy and administration. He has an academic background in international finance, economics, and law, including a master of public administration degree from Columbia University. David Tansey Consultant, Tax Policy and Administration David Tansey has 25 years of experience in tax policy and administration consulting in several developing economies globally, including Asia and the Pacific. He has extensive involvement in business process reengineering and the implementation of Tax Administration Information Systems. He has bachelor and master’s degrees in taxation, and a master of business and technology, all from the University of New South Wales in Sydney. Hannelore Niesten Hannelore Niesten, International Expert Consultant, Tax Policy and Administration, Asian Development Bank Hannelore Niesten also works as a legal and tax consultant for the World Bank and the International Centre for Tax and Development. She holds a PhD in law from Maastricht University. Leave your question or comment in the section below: View the discussion thread.