E-Government Controls in Service-Oriented Auditing Perspective: Beyond Single Window

To reduce cost and effort, e-government is trying to maximize the digital interaction with its citizens. E-customs is a carry-over of such an effort. Worldwide Customs is transforming from the labor intensive paper work it used to be for ages to e-customs, where international trade is facilitated fully exploiting the global digital infrastructure of the 21st Century. Service-Oriented Auditing (SOAu), is a label for high-tech auditing services based on the Service-Oriented Architecture. In this paper, the question is addressed what the impact of SOAu is on the relationship between government (e-customs) and business (trading companies), and vice versa. Currently, we are already observing a shift in the distribution of responsibilities (so-called horizontal supervision). We show how this shift can be leveraged by further developments in SOAu. Another issue is coordination. There is a need for increased coordination. We explore different coordination mechanisms to support this development.