ATO IT boss Ramez Katf admits staff frustration over work-from-home tech problems as agency struggles to find solution

The Australian Taxation Office's chief information officer Ramez Katf told staff in an email that its technology division was yet to resolve problems with Outlook and the agency's working from home technology.

"I know that the ongoing issues many of you have experienced with Outlook and our working from home solution over the past two weeks have caused a huge amount of frustration," Mr Katf said on Thursday last week.

"We pride ourselves on delivering stable platforms to enable you to be as productive as possible and these ongoing issues are not good enough."

Tech problems have arisen from a major technology update at the ATO aiming to improve its IT systems.

Mr Katf said the ATO's Enterprise Solutions and Technology group had made "a number of configuration improvements" in response to the IT problems, showing "very positive results".

However the root cause of the issues remain unknown.

"I would like nothing more than to report that we have resolved the issues," Mr Katf said.

"Our EST technicians and our technology partners worked continuously over the last week and over the weekend to identify what was causing these issues and find a solution for them.

"We will continue to work until we have obtained a satisfactory answer."

The ATO is undertaking a major technology upgrade that started in 2020, which the agency says is the single largest technology uplift for the Tax Office in more than a decade.

"But, it means that we are introducing more changes to our systems than at any time in our history," Mr Katf said.

The ATO expects the tech upgrade program to be substantially complete by the end of April. It will pause the upgrades to help maintain stability through its busiest part of the year during tax time, and then complete the final stages before the end of the year.

An ATO spokesperson said the upgrades would improve the stability, efficiency, and security of the agency's systems.

Mr Katf told staff the agency's senior executives discussed the IT problems at a recent meeting.

"It was made clear the seriousness of the issues and that more had to be done to support our people," he said.

"I will personally manage the implementation of these changes and report to you on a regular basis on the experience we are seeing."

An ATO spokesperson said not all systems had been impacted by the IT problems. Online services for businesses and agents were unaffected, and the technical issues had not and would not impact the processing of tax returns, the spokesperson said.

A team of both business and technical staff would identify and respond to any further issues or problems, the spokesperson said.

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"Each year, in the lead up to tax time, we conduct extensive testing and bolster the capacity of our digital systems in anticipation of significant demand for our services," the spokesperson said.

"We are continually working to minimise the impact on our staff and will continue to communicate to all staff about any systems performance and issues. We have processes in place to support staff when they face issues with systems access while working from home."

Australian Services Union official Jeff Lapidos, who represents ATO staff, called for an independent inquiry into the reasons for the continuing failures of the ATO's IT systems.

He said problems arose from the agency's decision in 2021 to dismantle its IT infrastructure technical capability branch.

"Those now responsible have inadequate knowledge of the ATO's infrastructure technologies or experience running contemporary infrastructure businesses," Mr Lapidos said.

ATO promises to the union of increased investment in IT systems would not be enough to address its problems, he said.

The Tax Office has grappled with multiple tech problems in recent years, including two massive outages in 2016 and 2017 that in one case took multiple days to resolve.