Editor’s Note – Amy Pitter, Commissioner for the Massachusetts Department of Revenue, recently addressed the AIM Taxation Committee about DOR 360, an initiative to encourage feedback from individual taxpayers, employers and tax practitioners.  Massachusetts employers and business leaders are familiar with 360 feedback – a system designed to accelerate collaboration among individuals inside and outside an organization by discussing issues in a transparent manner.   AIM applauds the commissioner for placing the customer, the Massachusetts taxpayer, at the center of its efforts. The following is Commissioner Pitter’s explanation of DOR 360:

One of my highest priorities as Massachusetts Commissioner of Revenue has been the creation of the DOR 360 initiative. Let me take a couple minutes to explain my vision of DOR 360 and how it will change the way we do business.

As a concept, DOR 360 is based on a fundamental set of human dynamics – listening, gathering, interacting and responding, which we will facilitate through forums, webinars and a variety of existing and new channels.

I know this isn’t the first initiative to advocate better interaction with our constituents. DOR has always had a strong record of making public presentations and addressing concerns and issues. That’s all great, and it certainly touches on part of the concept – but it doesn’t begin to capture the entirety of what DOR 360 is all about.

Please understand that DOR 360 is not designed to be a “one-and-done” exercise that merely lists our stakeholders with the intention of just notifying them when DOR news comes their way. Not at all, the focus of DOR 360 is to develop a systematic and measurable approach to interacting with all of our stakeholders –individual taxpayers, small and large businesses, small and large practitioners, other agencies and so on. We are creating an engagement plan to gather data, process it, measure it, monitor it, and then use it to ensure that we’re reaching a wide variety of people, and addressing their issues as efficiently and appropriately as possible.

Look at it as an ongoing and proactive program to ensure that we identify all of our stakeholders and continually create responsive and fruitful strategies that address both their – and our – issues and concerns.  In the process, we’ll not only be making them more engaged with us, but making DOR an even more in-tune and productive agency.

We have already begun the process, and in the coming months I’ll be blogging about some of our findings and some of our new approaches.  I look forward to getting the word out, and in the spirit of DOR 360, receiving your comments, questions, concerns and perhaps even kudos on our innovations.