National Tax Service Declares 2024 as the Inaugural Year of 'AI National Tax Administration'
'AI Hometax' to Launch Early Next Year
The National Tax Service (NTS) has introduced an artificial intelligence (AI) consultation service, becoming the first government agency to do so. The service began operating earlier this month during the comprehensive income tax filing period, increasing the call success rate from the previous 24% to 98%.
On the 21st, the NTS announced that it will actively promote 'AI National Tax Administration' by investing a total of 30 billion KRW over two years, starting with national tax consultations.
This May, during the comprehensive income tax filing period, the NTS provided AI tax consultation services using AI voice recognition technology for the first time among government agencies. The AI consultant is available 24/7, including nights and holidays. The NTS trained the AI consultant with over 2 million past consultation records and extensive tax laws, regulations, and precedents.
The AI tax consultation service automatically recognizes the caller's phone number when a taxpayer calls and first provides simple basic information tailored to each taxpayer as a 'customized guidance message.' When the taxpayer asks questions related to filing, the AI consultant searches the learned content and provides relevant answers via voice. If the taxpayer has additional questions, they can also speak with a human consultant. According to the NTS, the introduction of the AI consultant has significantly increased the number of simultaneous consultations from 250 to 1,250, and the number of call attempts has decreased by 34% compared to the previous year as taxpayers no longer need to repeatedly call due to failed connections.
An NTS official explained, "The AI tax consultation service has dramatically increased the call success rate from 24% last year to 98%. Achieving a 100% success rate would require hiring 1,000 additional consultants, which would cost at least 8 billion KRW, but by utilizing AI technology, this was resolved with about 400 million KRW, approximately 5% of that cost, significantly reducing the budget."
Starting this year, the NTS plans to invest 30 billion KRW over two years to advance the Hometax system and prepare to launch a new 'AI Hometax.' They intend to expand the tax categories covered by AI tax consultation, improve consultation quality through learning from more cases, and gradually extend AI services to various areas such as filing and payment.
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