Canada: KPMG And Blue J - Shaping The Future Of Tax Together

"In our view, it only makes sense to let technology do the heavy lifting and handle this laborious part of the analysis, and deliver to you new insights you'd possibly be missing, while you focus your energy and attention on delivering that strategic advice to your client."

KPMG announced earlier this year that Blue J is its alliance partner, helping the accounting firm develop AI-powered solutions to empower its tax teams. Why is KPMG leading the charge in transformative tax technology, and why is it so important?

Recently, Ben Alarie, Co-Founder and CEO of Blue J, and Stuart Tait, Chief Technology Officer for Tax & Legal in the UK at KPMG, sat down with Vicki Heard, UK Head of Tax and Law at KPMG to discuss how emerging technologies are shaping the tax function.

Stuart Tait explains that tax authorities, with their wholesale adoption of new tax technologies, are rapidly transforming the tax function:

"What the authorities are doing with that ability to analyze and manage large data sets is that they're driving a change in the tax market from retrospective form-based compliance, to a forward-looking model of compliance by design, where compliance is baked into your everyday systems and processes."

With more sophisticated ways of analyzing and managing information, tax authorities heighten the degree of accountability among tax professionals. In order to stay ahead, or at the very least keep up, tax professionals will need to rely on the promise of artificial intelligence and its application to tax.

Stuart shared examples of current projects that leverage AI, providing novel ways for tax practitioners to execute their work. He points to the AI that Blue J is developing that helps practitioners navigate legislative changes quickly, and how KPMG will use data analytics to help clients make VAT savings reclaims and identify risks within their own data.

Stuart went on to say that a critical skill of a tax professional in the future of tax will be to "tell a story with data." In the years to come, tax experts will need to master communicating with clients visually to walk them through complex strategies, or even to solve problems collaboratively with colleagues.

And that is what Blue J's suite of tools is designed to do.

Blue J's Predictive Analytics

Blue J's AI-powered platform predicts the most likely outcomes in client scenarios. It provides a measure of confidence on the outcome, along with decisions that align with the client's fact-pattern. Further, it allows tax professionals to alter individual factors to see how they influence the predicted outcome, thereby understanding how to best optimize for an outcome.

Blue J's Visualization Tool

Blue J's diagramming solution allows tax professionals to create complex structure charts in minutes, collaboratively. It allows tax teams to visualize the optimal tax plan for their clients, and communicate their strategy in a way that is clearer and more professional than ever before.

To learn more about KPMG's investment in developing these technologies, how they will transform the tax function, and the role of Blue J as its alliance partner, watch the complete interview here.