Could a robot be doing your tax return?
There was a time when that sounded far-fetched. But according to EY Americas’ Tax Talent Leader Martin Fiore, it’s happening already.
Fiore leads the EY’s initiatives around robotic process automation (RPA). RPA will, Fiore says, fundamentally change the role of the tax professional.
How? He points to the data fill portion of tax returns. Manual, redundant steps, he says, are an excellent use of the RPA – it’s the skillset of robots (or often, simply “bots”). Humans, he says, are not designed to do that kind of work. By shifting bots to take over work that can be automated like filling it blanks, he argues that will allow tax professionals to focus on value-added work, like critical thinking. That, Fiore stresses, is a good thing.
Fiore believes that the shift is even more appealing to the current generation. “Millennials,” he says, “want purpose.” By allowing the bots to do the routine, repetitive work, today’s tax professionals can do the work that many say they want: face-to-face advising with clients and other explanatory roles.
Millennials have another advantage, too, when it comes to RPA: they grew up expecting to interact with technology. Many of those in the profession are eager, Fiore says, to focus on tech and already expect to do things differently.
But what about job-seekers who may not have a toe in tech? And older workers with tenure but no tech background? In an economy that’s already challenging for job-seekers, should RPA be considered a threat? Fiore acknowledges that it could make some jobs obsolete. Workers, he says, need to be innovators. They need to understand that “I won’t have a job if I don’t understand what’s coming.”
If that sounds depressing, Fiore would argue that it’s not: it’s simply a difference in value. Companies, he says, can react now by learning to “upskill” the existing workforce. Right now, he says, companies are attracting highly trained job candidates from university who don’t apply the skill sets they’ve learned. Those critical thinkers aren’t getting the opportunity to work in data analytics, data visualization, and predictive modeling – instead, he says, they are relegated to monotonous tasks. By shifting their skill sets, Fiore says that both companies and people will benefit from better efficiency in the workplace.
RPA will also create new jobs, Fiore says. While it’s a disruption in the industry, it’s not changing the underlying importance of tax professionals: it’s just a new way of doing things.
But will it work? Fiore says yes. We already know that robots are building your cars and your computers – but they’ve already been tackling your tax returns, too. EY has implemented the process internally and they’ve been working with other companies to mainstream the efforts for about two years. The results? It’s more efficient in terms of cost and labor. Robots, unlike people, don’t need a breather: that means that they can work around the clock with no overtime and no breakdown in accuracy. That’s great news for the consumer.
Additionally, Fiore says that the data is more secure, a real concern in today’s world. That’s likely because of an increased focus on security surrounding the data.
Disruption is coming to the tax industry. That disruption (which Fiore would argue also includes artificial intelligence, or AI) will make companies faster, better, and smarter. To survive these lightning-quick changes, Fiore says that you need to be willing to be a leader. He advises those in the industry to get out in front of those changes since that’s the key to a more rewarding career. As with any industry, you need to keep up to date with the changes and advances in technology and the marketplace – and understand how you can add value. This kind of technology, he claims, will advance our society over time. Don’t get left behind.
You can read more about RPA at EY here.
