This year the bureaus were visited the most by people aged 60-74, who made up 36% of all clients who visited the bureaus. At the same time, the elderly are using e-services more and more, and Heli Kullamaa, Head of the Customer Service Department of the ETCB, says that the use of e-services has increased at the expense of older people.
“In comparison to year 2023, the share of users over the age of 70 has increased the most among e-MTA service users, there were as many as 24% more of them this year than last year,” said Kullamaa.
In total, more than 767 000 tax returns were submitted to the ETCB by the end of April, and only 2.5% of the returns were submitted on paper. Compared to the previous year, 10 000 fewer paper tax returns were submitted.
“Although there are still people who do not have the possibility to use the internet or authentication tools, practice shows that people who do have both the possibility to use the internet and authentication tools, but have lost or forgotten their authentication codes, come to the service bureaus to submit their tax returns,” explained Kullamaa.
“There are also clients who have all the possibilities and means available, but they are looking for confidence that the official will print out the pre-filled tax return or review the self-printed and completed return and enter it into the system. But this demand is also decreasing every year and we can see clearly that higher age does not prevent the use of e-services, as evidenced by even the declaration period during the corona pandemic, when no one failed to submit a tax return due to closed service bureaus,” added Kullamaa.
However, the most intensive work is done by e-mail and phone at the declaration period. From February to April, ETCB’s consultants have advised people by phone and e-mail on 123 000 occasions.
“Although there are some exceptional cases that require a physical visit to the bureau, 92% of the questions are answered either by a single phone call or e-mail, based on feedback from our clients,” added Kullamaa.
“Because tax topics are complex, we contribute a lot to the education and training of our consultants. To cover the service volumes during the income declaration period, officials from other departments also contribute. Every year the campaign of the good service month is also at this time, and we are very proud that the consultants of the ETCB have been the most praised public sector customer service providers in the last two years," she said.
