More than 80 tax types, 64.8 million payments a year, and 2.38 million people slipping into penalties for missing a paper notice. I turned tax into something that just shows up and gets paid.
Korea has more than 80 kinds of tax, and most people cannot tell which one they are even paying. Notices arrive as yellow paper statements that are hard to read and easy to lose. People overlook them, and overlooking one means a fine.
Rather than guess at the pain, I ran user research with 5,250 people and let the distribution decide what to build first. Payment inconvenience dominated everything else, so that is where the product started.
| What people struggled with most | Share |
|---|---|
| Payment inconvenience | 60.00% |
| Complaint documents | 21.33% |
| Government services | 10.67% |
| Financial information changes | 5.33% |
| Authentication methods | 2.67% |
An automatic tax service that notifies people the moment a tax invoice exists, reminds them before it is due, and handles the electronic billing between users, Toss, and the public and financial institutions behind the scenes. A tax notice stops being a piece of paper you overlook and becomes something you act on in a few taps.
The service became essential infrastructure, delivered through a partnership with Korea's largest financial institution and adopted across the public sector.
With a problem this large and this messy, data was the only honest way to decide what to build first. Pair that discipline with the patience to partner with government, and a system of paper and penalties quietly turns into one that takes care of itself.