When will we pay taxes with a single click?

From paper forms to mobile applications and chatbots – the Slovenian FURS is rapidly transforming under the baton of digitalization. We spoke with Peter Jenko, deputy director general of FURS, about how technology is relieving entrepreneurs, why bureaucracy is being replaced by an advisory role, and what the next milestones are on the path to the use of artificial intelligence.

FURS has come a long way in recent years, from paper forms to the e-Davki portal, which is now used by practically every entrepreneur. If you had to highlight three key innovations in digitalization that you are most proud of at FURS, which would they be? Which project, in your opinion, made the biggest leap toward a "user-friendly administration"?

It is true, the development of electronic tax operations has been incredibly fast. Today, around 160 different forms can already be submitted through e-Davki, which on an annual level results in nearly seven million documents being submitted electronically. Especially among individuals, there has been extremely rapid onboarding to e-Davki, to which the mobile application has contributed greatly. Of course, people would not have adopted e-services with the state so quickly without a relatively good user experience – many things are still not ideal, but we are aware of the shortcomings and are trying to eliminate them. The situation is similar on the output side as well; last year, more than two and a half million documents were delivered electronically.

There are many individual projects, and we are often involved in tasks that are not exclusively tax-related – let us recall tourist vouchers, digital vouchers, various payouts during the COVID period, advances for flood victims, refunds of COVID fines, and more. The reason lies in a refined and well-established development process, which allows us to deliver new functionality relatively quickly. I believe that the mobile application is precisely the one with which we made a major leap among individuals.

At the same time, well-organized user support is also important, both from a technical and content perspective. In this context, I must also mention our chatbot – since its introduction in May last year, it has already conducted more than 200,000 conversations, in which around 800,000 responses were provided. I recommend everyone to try it. For its introduction, FURS received the Premik naprej award from the Faculty of Administration, University of Ljubljana. The plan for this year also includes the introduction of a voice bot, which will primarily relieve colleagues in our call centers.

Entrepreneurs want as few administrative tasks as possible with banks and payment references. Currently, it is necessary to monitor several different items every month, which means more transactions and more costs in fees. Are you planning to introduce a system where an entrepreneur could transfer a single total amount, and your system would automatically allocate it to the appropriate accounts? Are you perhaps also considering the possibility that for smaller, fixed liabilities (e.g. certain contributions), it would be possible to introduce the option of paying for half a year or even a year in advance? This would save entrepreneurs bank fees and time, while reducing the number of monthly reconciliations of small amounts for FURS.

Currently, two services are already available that enable entrepreneurs to pay obligations more easily and quickly. The first is the e-invoice for the payment of mandatory charges, which allows all obligations calculated with different tax returns that are submitted on the same day, fall due at the same time, and are revenue of different public finance funds (e.g. social security contributions) to be paid with a single payment. In this way, obligations determined by the calculation of social security contributions submitted in the current month, obligations related to advance income tax and income tax from business activity, and other obligations can also be settled if they fall due on the same day. The e-invoice contains all payment data, so additional entries are not required, and at the same time the risk of errors is reduced. Taxpayers can receive e-invoices in online or mobile banks (after receiving the e-invoice, they only confirm the payment order), on the bizBox platform, in the mBills mobile application, or by email (the e-invoice also includes a completed UPN with a QR code for payment, which means that the taxpayer only scans the QR code and confirms the payment in their mobile bank). Last year, around 100,000 e-invoices were paid, totaling more than 650 million euros.

The second option is online payment from eDavki (enabled both in the portal and the mobile application). It also allows the payment of charges that are revenue of different public finance funds. The online payment can be carried out by selecting the obligations the taxpayer wishes to pay from the overview of open items (eKarticaO), or in the case of social security contributions, also from the calculation view. In eDavki, payment can be made either by card (MasterCard, Visa, Maestro, Discover, and Diners Club), by mobile payment (Flik, mBills, and VALÚ), or via online banking (Bank@net). The volume of payments is growing rapidly; in 2025, almost 270,000 such payments were made, which is 70% more than the year before.

Both existing solutions already enable the consolidation of obligations into a single payment, reduce the number of transactions, and represent a significant administrative relief for entrepreneurs. However, in implementing the possibility of advance payments, for example for half a year, we still face some challenges in recording advance charges, as we are bound by a provision of the Tax Procedure Act that requires us to refund overpayments within 30 days if liabilities do not exist. However, I believe that we will also provide such an option in the future.

How is digitalization changing the internal structure of FURS? Has automation reduced the number of employees in certain units, or have their tasks been reshaped into a more advisory and supportive role instead of purely bureaucratic?

Changes are certainly taking place. In recent times, so-called competence centers for individual subject areas have also been increasingly introduced within the tax part of the financial administration. This means that certain tasks are no longer carried out at all financial offices (FURS has 15 regional financial offices and a special financial office for banks, insurance companies, and large taxpayers), but generally at one office for the entire Slovenia.

This leads to specialization of knowledge, unification of practice, easier coordination of work, and consequently fewer employees are needed for the same volume of work. In just the last two years, work has been reorganized in this way in areas such as inheritance tax, income tax on capital gains, tax residency, tax relief for the elimination of double taxation, agricultural assessment, income tax on interest and dividends, treatment of status transformations, certain processes in the field of VAT, handling of criminal acts, motor vehicle tax assessment, income from rental, and so on.

These changes are part of a process that does not happen overnight; it makes sense to plan them at least in the medium term. The age structure of our employees also helps ensure that changes occur in a more natural way. On the other hand, these changes allow us to strengthen staffing in processes that carry greater risks or in types of charges that contribute the largest share to public finance funds. We must be aware that only five types of charges (income tax, corporate income tax, social security contributions, VAT, and excise duties) account for well over 90 percent of all collected revenues.

We certainly want to strengthen the supervisory function of the financial administration, where human input is still necessary, while relatively simple and repetitive tasks are left to software support or further digitalization.

Digital systems greatly simplify work processes, but at the same time they are also unforgiving – an algorithm does not see the difference between someone who forgot to submit a form due to illness and someone who intentionally conceals data. Is there a concern that "small" entrepreneurs are more quickly subject to automated sanctions than large ones?

I do not see a major problem in this. Well-designed rules must recognize and distinguish such cases. In this area, we are also introducing changes, namely abandoning algorithms that are tied to bare facts (e.g. delay, correction of a return, claiming a relief...) and introducing algorithms tied to specific risk. In the process of developing algorithms for handling a certain tax risk, many rules are usually involved from which the risk is calculated, and an important weight must always be given to the size of the taxpayer or the amount of charges they pay.

We also strive to automate responses or communication during supervision. Tax intermediaries (accountants, advisors...) play a major role here, as they are often our first contact with the taxpayer. However, I believe it is sensible to maintain a certain level of contact (supervision) with taxpayers of all sizes and sectors, because without the perception of oversight, things can quickly get out of hand.

The perception that the financial administration deals more with small taxpayers than large ones is common, but incorrect. It is simply a consequence of the fact that there are significantly more small taxpayers than large ones. Data on conducted audits show that a significantly higher proportion of audits are carried out on larger taxpayers.

In Estonia, the state proactively offers solutions to entrepreneurs. We have already seen this in Slovenia with informative income tax calculations for individuals. Will entrepreneurs also receive similar treatment in the future? That is, could FURS, based on e-invoices and other digital sources, prepare a pre-filled VAT return or other tax returns that the entrepreneur would only need to confirm with a single click?

Let me remind you that the concept of a pre-filled VAT return was introduced in Slovenia last summer, together with the obligation to submit VAT records. The prerequisite for pre-filling is, of course, good data with which the return can be populated. The functionality is particularly useful for smaller taxpayers who use the Miniblagajna application to compile records – this is provided free of charge by the financial administration. Currently, the share of VAT returns submitted based on pre-filling is between 10 and 12 percent, which means that between 6,000 and 7,500 returns per period are submitted in this way.

A similar situation exists in the field of corporate income tax, where the return contains a number of items for which there is no third-party reporting. However, we must ask ourselves whether we really need more than 150 items in the corporate income tax return, compared to the VAT return, which contains only around 40 items. Incidentally, on an annual level, 1.7 billion euros of corporate income tax and 5.5 billion euros of VAT are collected. In short, it would first make sense to simplify reporting, then ensure good data from third parties, and only then move on to pre-filling returns.

Opportunities are certainly brought by accelerated digitalization in the business world. Thus, from 2028, mandatory exchange of e-invoices between business entities will be introduced, unfortunately for now still without reporting to the tax authority, which is otherwise standard in the introduction of mandatory B2B e-invoicing. I believe that every opportunity should be used to bring tax processes closer to business events, which are an integral part of the subject of taxation.

As for personal taxes, I believe we should leave behind the concept of tax returns as soon as possible and begin introducing the compilation of tax assessments, or at least informative calculations, similar to income tax.

How do you see the role of artificial intelligence in the Slovenian public administration, and what are the key milestones that still await us in this field?

I have already mentioned the use of the chatbot, which provides more than 3,000 responses daily. Virtual assistants are only part of the services supported by artificial intelligence that will be relevant for the public sector. In the future, it will not only be about intelligent agents assisting employees in preparing documents in specific cases – in my opinion, the real breakthrough will be achieved by integrating AI into backend systems through which public sector business processes are managed. Development in this area is truly rapid, but we still face some challenges, as there are no concrete guidelines yet for the use of AI in the public sector.