Tax memo vs reading it

The tax world is not binary. I know. But still, in-house teams are required to provide hands-on advice to the business. Tax advisors should anticipate implementation struggles down the road. This is unfortunately not always the case…

Tax teams regularly request technical support from advisors. They should, it is fair to say that no team can handle the global tax complexity without advisors. Fully agree. And the tax world is not evolving in the right direction, I think we can all acknowledge that.

The problem is more the way in which the advice is provided. I know, advice can come in many forms. Should opinion. Could opinion. What-if analysis. Risk assessment. Pro’s and con’s analysis. Preliminary opinion. Diagnostic memo. And I can go on and on.

But still. What bothered me most is that regularly, the advice comes with more questions than answers. It is open-ended. It is vague. It is delivered in “draft”. If there are recommendations, they are more of a nudge than a push.

Don’t get me wrong. I have worked in the BIG4, I know the name of the game. And I understand that giving a should opinion is often very tricky.

Nevertheless, I guess you all feel the pain. You cannot move to “implementation” modus on the back of such advice. It creates confusion and tension. It is frustrating. I have been in such limbo regularly in my in-house days. Very annoying…

I recently had a conversation that triggered some interesting insights. Cliché, cliché, but in the age of AI, what’s groundbreaking today feels ordinary tomorrow. We all agree that it’s innovation on overdrive. A lot of the information will be (is) at our fingertips, instantly, in bite-sized pieces, scraping all sorts of data sources.

Hear me out…

Are we not evolving towards the opposite position of what I described above?

What if the in-house tax manager drafts the technical memo, with or without tools, with or without AI. An analysis that formulates the options available. A preliminary tax-technical analysis, looking at available info, and based on the most accurate factual information (as the in-house team has the facts). Subsequently, this is submitted to the advisor for review and validation. For identification of the best option available. To come to a final version. Providing a direct segway to “implementation” modus.

What do you think? Any hands-on experience? Dream or reality any time soon?