Challenge: In 2010, the State of Connecticut Department of Revenue Services (DRS) was moving toward a future where most tax returns would be filed online. In the interim, seven different paper-based tax filings — individual and business — amounted to hundreds of thousands of returns and millions of documents annually that needed to be digitized and processed. Most of this work was concentrated in four months of the year, making full-time state employees economically infeasible.

Solution: DRS decided to outsource the process and invited commercial businesses to bid on a contract for data capture, verification, imaging, and indexing services. Given the sensitive nature of taxpayer information, DRS required that bidders meet stringent security safeguards across all aspects of the work — from document pickup to attended-mode scanning to data transmission — and successfully pass all equipment inspections and performance reviews.

TDEC met all of these requirements and was awarded a three-year contract with the option to extend. As part of the contract, TDEC agreed to maintain Acceptable Quality Levels of 99.7% field-level data entry accuracy and to meet tight turnaround times of 2 to 20 days depending on the tax return.

Results: A TDEC subcontractor based in Hartford, CT, and Massachusetts picked up and scanned tax returns in batches, uploading images and index shells to a secure FTP site. From there, TDEC personnel, led by a dedicated Project Manager, captured the data from the scanned images according to DRS specifications at our secure site in Oakland, MD. Final data was transmitted back to DRS via secure FTP within the strict timelines. Despite fluctuating volume — 80% concentrated between March and June — TDEC staffed the project with a deep bench of flexible, well-trained, highly motivated personnel.

The nature of the work required highly accurate data entry. To achieve this, all work was subjected to a 100% data capture verification process approved by DRS. After the initial data entry, a second operator capturing the data was alerted if the information entered did not match the first pass. Any procedural errors were brought to the attention of the employee and supervisor for resolution, correction, and additional training as required.

TDEC handled DRS’s tax processing for five years total, including two 1-year options, until the State transitioned to online tax filing for the 2016 tax year. Across the contract, TDEC processed over 1.6 million documents and met or exceeded all Acceptable Quality Levels. In its final contract year, TDEC achieved 99.94% accuracy and 100% on-time delivery.