Commenting on an announcement from Revenue Minister Todd McClay on making it easier for people to interact with Inland Revenue, Mr Truman said a modernisation of department systems was ''well due''.
''It has been a long time since the skeleton of the existing system was put in place and the world has moved on a fair bit since then.''
In a speech, Mr McClay said the transformation was the largest in the department's history. Despite that, Dunedin would not host one of the department meetings.
In the next few weeks, Inland Revenue would hold meetings in Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland to explain to the tax and IT sectors the scale and complexity of the transformation and provide details about the proposed processes.
Mr Truman said it was disappointing Inland Revenue was limiting the consultation meetings to Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland.
''While we can appreciate that it is not feasible for Inland Revenue to consult the tax community in all centres, given the potential significance of the changes, tax professionals in large centres such as Dunedin and Hamilton would have also appreciated the ability to hear first-hand from Inland Revenue details of the proposals.''
The programme incorporated changes in processes, skills and capabilities and IT to deliver a modern, fit-for-purpose tax system.
Inland Revenue's role had grown over the past 20 years from administering nine tax products to managing 42 services on a range of social policies such as KiwiSaver, student loans, child support and Working for Families.
The department's business processes and technology systems had adapted with the growth but they were being put under increasing strain.
''We now need a system that reduces compliance cost and lets people engage with us quickly, simply and increasingly online,'' Mr McClay said.
Mr Truman said Inland Revenue needed to provide a high level of individual service outside of a technology solution because tax problems were relatively fact-specific and generalised responses were not always helpful. Sometimes, a caller needed to talk to someone.
''Taxpayers don't all have a lot of interaction with Inland Revenue, so familiarity with using technological solutions is not always there.
Online banking is fine if you use it every day but not always that useful to a person who uses it twice a year - and has forgotten their password or can't remember which screens they need to use.''
The tension that existed between privacy and accessing information meant automated access to information was not always appropriate, he said.
Given the importance of an efficient and reliable system, the Government could not afford for a redeveloped system not to work properly.
Adequate resources needed to be devoted to the design, implementation and testing so that when it went live, the system was relatively glitch-free, Mr Truman said.
