The skills tax professionals need in today’s landscape

“In 2025, globalisation has transformed the size, scale, and nature of transactions and business operations. Technology has enabled new industries to emerge, large businesses have complex and sophisticated supply chains, and even small businesses can operate globally, selling products and services through online digital platforms,” she said.

“Individuals are deriving income and gains and trading new digital assets and high frequency through new types of legal transactions. Technological developments, such as automation and AI, have changed the way tax professionals work. Traditional manual tasks are being replaced by automated processes and AI tools.”

It was noted that technology had also changed the way professionals engaged with tax authorities, yet confirmed the evolution would not replace tax professionals and their knowledge, skills and attributes, but merely changed how they worked.

It went without saying that tax professionals would always require a deep understanding and grasp of tax law and regulations, Fish said.

“Tax professionals must understand that the tax law exists and applies in the context of the operation of the general law and have a current working knowledge of contract law, corporations law, the law of trusts and partnerships, real property and intellectual property law, aspects of international law and more,” she said.

“The general law that tax practitioners must maintain currency will itself continue to evolve and develop.”

“As globalisation and technology drive changes in business structures, operations, transactions and even the nature of assets and payments, these will necessarily drive changes in the regulatory landscape and general law that tax practitioners must understand beyond those traditional areas and into the realms of smart contracts, digital assets, payment regulation, automated decision making and privacy.”

In terms of new skills, Fish said it was imperative that tax professionals questioned and tested the outputs produced by automated processes, software, AI and other technology were correct.

Tax professionals should now have the skills and knowledge to identify irregularities and exercise judgement based on their human experience and broader knowledge of the circumstances in which they operate, therefore should never assume or accept the outputs produced by something automated as correct.

Based on their strategic role, Fish said tax professionals needed to have a broad understanding of business operations, strategy, financial management and industry-specific information and challenges so they could effectively and efficiently provide “holistic advice”.

“In this, top tax professionals are able to adequately and appropriately assess tax risk and provide solutions to address it within the risk appetite of their client or organisation,” Fish said.

“In doing so, they do not look merely at the technical issues and consider whether an interpretation or position is ‘available’. Top tax professionals consider matters holistically, in the commercial context, with an understanding of the consequences of the position adopted for the business, the tax system, and the likely attitudes of the administrator.”

Attributes were also highlighted as increasingly important for top tax professionals, with ethics and integrity being named as the most fundamental.

Australia needed tax professionals who were trusted and trustworthy, given the nation's reliance on tax to fund government services and the tax system's reliance on the existence of tax professionals.

According to Fish and the ATO, tax professionals had the highest possible standards of personal and professional ethics and integrity as they had to stand by their convictions, even in challenging situations.

“With the many and varied skills that a tax expert is expected to have today, you might think they are a unicorn. But I would argue that actually what we're really looking for in a tax expert is someone that is human,” Fish said.

“As technology advances, it is our humanness and human skills become even more essential and valuable for tax professionals. With curiosity, judgment, integrity, and influence, today's tax professionals are well-placed to adapt to future changes.”