TX vs TaxTech
Technologies come and go, TX is forever.

TX vs TaxTech

Technologies come and go; Transformation is forever.

In her influential book,?Digital Transformation, Lindsay Herbert argues that transformation is a one-time event, after which new technologies are taken in their stride due to cultural recalibration. That seems simple enough until that cultural aspect is taken into account. In terms of business strategy, changing belief systems, altering personal values, and shifting embedded behaviors is as tough as it gets. For a sense of this issue's human side, check out cognitive dissonance in Wikipedia.

At its extreme, this pits an immovable object,?traditional tax, against an irresistible force,?digitalization. In this newsletter's opinion, tax has lost ground, pegged back into the 'specialist compliance & loss prevention' pigeonhole by enterprise technology in-house, and, more recently, by AI for advisory. Tax departments are moribund, trapped in the morass caused by falling behind the digital curve.

Travelogue tales: After a $$million spend, one company is no nearer finding a way forward than when it started looking for corporate-wide solutions three years earlier. Desperation then bred the need for certainty, which, of course, does not exist in their current mindset. Their tax manager is now looking for opportunities elsewhere.

Yet, the story is often told differently. Small successes with technology are celebrated fervently, while bigger failures are swept under the carpet. Behind the scenes, expectations remain low, and problematic projects are normalized. In this paradigm, tax tech is a stop-gap measure and rarely graduates beyond the speculation stage, even when on a large scale.

Sadly, none of this is necessary. If Lindsay Herbert is right - and we believe she is - all this is avoided through transformation. Granted, it's not easy - capturing hearts and minds takes time, dedication, and stout leadership, but the rewards are epoch-defining. Here are a few 'before and after' scenarios:


Scenario:?Tax technology acquisition

Before: Selection criteria driven by old-world symptoms and pain points

After: Selection driven by digital root cause analysis and impact on the tax data model.


Scenario:?Digital skills and capabilities

Before: Reliance on a few talented individuals (key person risk) or outsourced

After: Extensive knowledge management, in-house skills succession, new career paths.


Scenario:?Adjusting to new technology

Before: Avoidance, delay, inability to assess impact, gap between rhetoric and reality

After: Clarity, visibility, and control within a new cultural framework.


So, 'tax transformation?(TX)?makes technology make sense'; otherwise, tax is tech's victim, not its master. Also, taming one technology is unlikely to suffice when AI is about to rejig all technologies. Only TX offers the future-proofing needed.

Stay tuned for TX awareness offers coming soon.


Andrés Felipe Rivas Cardona

Marginal Improover l Tax Disputes Expert | Innovation & Legal Design Ops Advisor | Legal Tech

12 个月

Brilliant. Thanks for this

回复

要查看或添加评论,请登录

Geoff Peck的更多文章

  • Tax Technology & Transformation Masterclass

    Tax Technology & Transformation Masterclass

    “Compliance-as-usual” is over. What’s next? In practice, compliance-as-usual has run its course.

  • Tax Technology & Transformation Masterclass

    Tax Technology & Transformation Masterclass

    Half-day Workshop—Friday, 4 April We are pleased to invite you to an exclusive Winmark Tax Director Network half-day…

  • Tax Technology & Transformation Masterclass

    Tax Technology & Transformation Masterclass

    Half-day Workshop—Friday, 4 April We are pleased to invite you to an exclusive Winmark Tax Director Network half-day…

  • Future Gazing Revisited

    Future Gazing Revisited

    How AI can ‘rescue’ tax from tech. They say a week is a long time in politics; based on recent events surrounding AI…

    1 条评论
  • Future Gazing Revisited

    Future Gazing Revisited

    How AI can ‘rescue’ tax from tech. They say a week is a long time in politics; based on recent events surrounding AI…

  • Transforming Your Tax Function in Practice

    Transforming Your Tax Function in Practice

    How to realize the value proposition of transformation when most the funding is for taxtech. Tax faces a classic…

  • 2025 Future Gazing

    2025 Future Gazing

    What might 2035 look like? Welcome to 2025! For fun, let’s start the year with some bold speculation and…

    2 条评论
  • 2025 Future Gazing

    2025 Future Gazing

    What might 2035 look like? Welcome to 2025! For fun, let’s start the year with some bold speculation and…

    1 条评论
  • The Learning-to-Application Gap

    The Learning-to-Application Gap

    When and how is Tax Technology training effective? As we wrap up another successful year of tax technology &…

  • The Learning-to-Application Gap

    The Learning-to-Application Gap

    Is TaxTech training effective? As we wrap up another successful year of tax technology & transformation (3T)…

社区洞察

其他会员也浏览了