How 2026 CFO Priorities Translate to Tax

Corporate finance trends have significant implications on indirect tax groups, so it’s no surprise that the same connection holds for CFO priorities.

As part of its ongoing CFO signals survey research, Deloitte asked 200 finance chiefs at North American companies with at least $1 billion in annual revenue to select their top three priorities for this year. Here’s what the CFOs identified in descending order of frequency:

1. Digital transformation in finance
2. Cash management optimization
3. Capital allocation
4. Enterprise risk management (ERM)
5. Growth 
6. Supply chain strategy
7. Regulatory compliance
8. Restructuring and/or cost reductions

Each of these priorities affects tax. At the same time, indirect tax groups can support and add value to most, if not all, of these activities. For example, capital expenditure decisions often have indirect tax consequences that can affect true asset costs. Plus, errors in CapEx vs. OpEx classifications affect taxability determinations. Tax groups also play valuable roles in setting and executing growth strategies: tax liabilities are a pivotal component of M&A due diligence. The flexibility and scalability of the tax technology stack enables tax compliance to keep pace with geographic expansion initiatives.

Here’s how the other items on CFO’s current to-do lists connect with indirect tax:

CFO Priority: Digital transformation 
Tax Connection: Tax automation platforms are key components of ERP ecosystems that support finance operations. Upgrades and cloud migrations of ERP systems often underpin finance transformation efforts. When these projects occur, tax engines should be integrated at the architectural level as opposed to being layered on after the fact. This means that tax leaders should be formally involved in ERP cloud migrations while advocating for including the tax technology stack in the project.

CFO Priority: Cash management optimization
Tax Connection: Cash management describes a range of finance, accounting, and treasury activities designed to maximize the organization’s liquidity and improve cash flow efficiency. Tax groups can contribute to these efforts. Cash reserved for potential indirect tax liabilities, such as unresolved nexus exposure, audit contingencies, or uncertain taxability positions, represents capital that is not productively deployed. Investments in better tax automation can yield swifter, more precise nexus determinations, reliable exemption management, and better audit readiness. These improvements contribute to more accurate tax liability estimates, which translates to tighter reserves and more working capital.

CFO Priority: Enterprise risk management and regulatory compliance
Tax Connection: Indirect tax is one of the most important regulatory compliance domains for CFOs. Finance leaders need to know the impacts of expanding e-invoicing mandates, tightening real-time reporting requirements, and evolving economic nexus rules. While indirect tax compliance is a material component in a company’s risk profile, there are often opportunities to improve ERM structures by enhancing how they address indirect tax. Indirect tax risks and opportunities are often folded into broad regulatory compliance categories in ERM frameworks that lump income tax, transfer pricing, and indirect tax together. It makes sense to distinguish between these areas. Incorporating tax compliance and performance KPIs generated by tax data analytics tools can also strengthen ERM.

CFO Priority: Supply chain strategy
Tax Connection: Selecting new trading partners, reconfiguring distribution approaches, reshoring, and other supply chain adjustments directly affect indirect tax obligations. Supply chain reorchestrations often change where value is created. These shifts can affect intercompany pricing structures as well as VAT treatments of intragroup service flows, licenses, and contract manufacturing arrangements. As my colleague, George L. Salis, Vertex’s Chief Economist and Senior Tax Policy Director, points out, tax plays a key role in tempering supply chain volatility. Ongoing geopolitical and economic uncertainty, George emphasizes, “underscores the need for the tax group’s assessment, insights, and input on supply chain risk management and related scenario planning activities.”

Taken together, this positions the tax group as a key partner in helping finance leaders address the full scope of their 2026 priorities.