Tax agency looking for new managed services solution

The Australian Tax Office (ATO) is on the hunt for a managed services solution to carry out the provision, maintenance and support of the Tax Practitioners Board’s (TPB) ICT infrastructure.

Despite being established as an independent agency in March 2010 and functions as a separate entity to the ATO, the TPB — which is responsible for regulating tax agent services — is still formally part of the ATO and relies on it for ICT support and services.

According to tender documents, there is now a need for the TPB to have its own ICT capability away from the ATO.

“This separation will allow the TPB to function as a fully independent statutory authority and means that strategic and tactical decisions relating to ICT can be made independently of the ATO,” the documents read.

However, as data remains stored on ATO systems, complete independence is denied to the TPB as its 140 staff must continue accessing the ATO’s databases.

“Despite this separation, there remains a need for all TPB staff to access data that currently resides in certain ATO business applications.”

The TPB is looking for an end-to-end service delivery that will separate its ICT systems and services from those of the ATO, provide increased flexibility and scalability in the adaption or provision of ICT services, and must be cost-effective.

In its tender documents, the TPB said there is a preference to implement a Cloud-based solution but “recognises that the market is not yet fully mature” and also noted some security faults of the Cloud.

The successful candidate will be offered a contract for an initial term of 48 months, with an option to extend for additional periods up to 36 months.

The request for tenders close on 2 March at 2pm.

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