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A big four firm’s recent launch and key executive hire for its tax services will see manual labour shifted and potential cost re-thinks with some traditional offerings.
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Big four firm to ‘strip away manual labour’ with tax
15 August 2017
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8 minute read
Earlier this month, EY launched Tax Technology and Transformation — a group of approximately 1,000 professionals in member firms worldwide with a tax, technology and performance focus.
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The core objective is to “help businesses navigate the digital age of tax transparency,” a statement from EY said, as well as deal with tax compliance and tax audit methods.
Peter Sanders, the partner appointed from Wolters Kluwer to lead the new venture, said part of the firm’s vision is to look at the end-to-end tax function of a business, and see where new or different technologies can be added.
He noted that a recent EY survey of corporate clients found about 50 per cent of the time spent by tax professionals involves manual data work — which he said “makes no sense” going forward, and is something the firm is going to look to address for clients.
“The CFOs and the tax directors are saying ‘why are my highly valuable and highly paid people doing that function,’” he told Accountants Daily.
“For us it’s about how do we strip away the manual labour and automate that completely and then put analytics on the back of that as well,” he said.
“The world is moving this way anyway, it’s going to be a critical part of a tax function strategy moving forward,” he said.
Mr Sanders said the cost of services will likely factor into client conversations as a result of these efforts, with a particular focus on value-adding where previously manual services are being automated.
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