Another initiative supporting our digital-first approach for our customers was a new online payment service, AutoPay Instalments.
The first assessment notices with the option of paying via AutoPay were generated in April 2018 and provided to an initial group of eligible land tax customers and all vacant residential land tax customers. We intend to make AutoPay available to all land tax customers in 2019.
Focusing on simplicity and convenience, AutoPay offers greater flexibility for people wanting to manage instalment payments online.
It provides them with the power to choose their payment frequency and method, with payments able to be scheduled fortnightly, monthly or in four equal instalments. Customers can also choose to receive email reminders about scheduled payments.
Over 2100 AutoPay schedules were set up in the first month and by 30 June 2018 a total of 4695 schedules had been set up.
AutoPay will save customers time and significantly reduce our paper trail and mailing costs next year as we will no longer need to send out 250,000 annual paper instalment notices.
Land tax provides our biggest customer base, with nearly 384,000 assessments issued in 2017-18.
We once again worked hard to ensure amendment requests for land tax assessments were completed as quickly as possible, aiming to resolve the majority of amendment requests in a single phone call.
