In SAP standard, there are three main form processes:
- Registration
- Tax Returns
- Refund
The Form Processing Framework can also support additional custom form-based processes.
The processing of a form can trigger different actions: create billing documents, create master data records, create accounting documents, generate workflow items, and so on.
In SAP's Tax and Revenue Management, various form-driven procedures exist, including tax registrations, returns, and refunds.
All these procedures have a common element: they stem from a declaration provided by the taxpayer. These declarations undergo validation, and any discrepancies are addressed in the work center by a tax official.
Within SAP, this declaration is symbolized by the ISR (Internet Service Request) or TTG (Transparent Table for Forms). Users have the flexibility to craft the interface in Web Dynpro (ABAP).
The form bundle serves as the core processing entity for these declarations.
A submitted form, whether it is a registration form, tax declaration, or refund application, undergoes various stages throughout its lifecycle. The status given primarily hinges on the accuracy of the information provided and the specific case being handled. Incorrect or compromised submissions can initiate a workflow that includes further audit-related tasks. Refunds determined might also activate another approval process before the final disbursement. Each of these potential phases is recorded using distinct statuses to oversee the scenarios and initiate supplementary business protocols.
This is an example of a typical form-based process for a tax agency. The example shown is demonstrating a common tax return submission.
For form-based taxes, tax submission forms (form bundles) are uploaded from external OCR (Optical Character Recognition) systems via the interface.
The solution supports the upload process by utilizing the Industry Migration Workbench.
In addition, tax submission forms can also be processed manually by the tax officer. This is, for instance, necessary if the taxpayer did not fulfill his obligation to file and the tax authority needs to do an estimated filing. As an additional channel, the solution supports filing and payment processes over the internet using taxpayer online services from SAP.
Once a tax submission has been filed and created in the system, the submissions are validated.
The assessment and billing can be processed as part of the Tax Officer Work Center. The normal process however is to use the mass activity for processing form bundles, where rules in the Business Rule Framework are executed to check the consistency and the correctness of the data and produce the tax assessment.
Once a tax return has been successfully checked based on the customer-specific rules in the rules engine, a billing document is created.
In the case of discrepancies, a work item is created and through the workflow the tax return is routed to the Tax Officer Work Center for further processing.
Billing documents are then invoiced which creates invoicing documents, which is the basis for the tax assessment notice. If necessary, the tax assessment notices are generated as outbound correspondence (paper, e-mail, and so on), for instance, to confirm the receipt of a tax declaration or if discrepancies are identified to inform the taxpayer.
Together with the invoicing document the system also generates the sub-ledger accounting document (receivable or refund) on the taxpayer account producing contract accounting documents.