Gangnam-gu has been changing since district mayor Kim Hyeon-gi took office.
Gangnam-gu has applied an in-house-developed "Email Printer" system — a print-document auto-email dispatch tool — to July's regular property tax operations, cutting the process for reissuing tax bills and assessment statements from four steps to a single print command.
During the July regular property tax payment period, the district receives a surge of requests from residents who have lost their bills or want to review their assessment details. Previously, staff had to follow four steps to email a requested bill or statement: convert the document to a PDF, save it as a file, attach it to an email, and send it.
Payment guidance notices also had to be located and attached separately, making the workload increasingly burdensome as requests piled up.
The new system uses a virtual printer installed on staff computers. When a staff member runs the print function from a tax administration program or a hangul document and selects "Email Printer," the document is automatically converted to a PDF instead of being sent to a physical printer. The converted file appears immediately in a dedicated sending program, and once the staff member confirms the content and recipient, the email is dispatched.
The sending process was also designed to work within the district's internal administrative network. Documents generated on staff computers are routed through an internal proxy server to the Seoul Metropolitan Government's integrated mail system, reducing reliance on external programs and using the operating system's built-in components so the tool can function in a network-segmented work environment.
The virtual printer driver and the staff-facing sending program were developed in-house by Gangnam-gu employees who analyzed actual tax administration workflows. Rather than overhauling existing systems, the solution connects the familiar "print" function staff already use to an automated dispatch process, requiring no additional training and allowing immediate deployment.
When a property tax bill is reissued, a payment guide containing the payment period and methods is automatically attached. Taxpayers receive the bill and payment information in a single email, sparing them the need to make separate inquiries about payment methods or request guidance materials again.
The district completed testing of the email dispatch function and system stability in a live work environment and has begun using the tool in full for property tax inquiries. After analyzing operational results, the district plans to expand the system to other tax administration tasks that involve frequent repetitive document sending, such as assessment statements and various notices.
"This system is an example of employees who know the work best directly improving their own operational pain points," district mayor Kim said. "We will reduce repetitive tasks and deliver property tax bills and payment information faster and more accurately, raising both administrative efficiency and residents' convenience."
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