An MRI of the Tax/IT Mind Meld

Today’s tax departments are the scene of an epic face-off between digital innovation and the growing complexities of tax legislation. Under pressure from sweeping changes like those stemming from the Wayfair decision, tax leaders are forging stronger alliances with their counterparts in information technology (IT).

Chris Livingston, cloud business leader for Vertex, looks at that evolving dynamic in a CIO.com podcast titled Automating the Tax Process: How Tax & IT Come Together for Success. The episode is part of the CIO series Tax Technology Today. Chris views Wayfair as the biggest item on tax directors’ plates right now, and he explains how tax and IT can work together to tackle it: “Tax really needs to know the business systems so they can store, pull and analyze the right data to ensure proper tax calculation and remittance. IT really needs to know the systems that help tax do that job.”

Chris delves into the specifics of order and invoice processing in this context, noting that IT should understand the flow of transactions that are sensitive to tax – especially since different businesses may use the same software platform in different ways. In the larger view, it’s clear that in today’s environment of digitally enabled multi-channel, e-commerce and mobile sales, tax departments are leaning on IT more than ever to make recommendations and help to implement tax automation solutions.

You won’t want to miss Chris’s explanation of the three critical questions you should ask potential tax tech providers and his take on best practices for evaluating vendors.

Chris sets the whole discussion in the context of large IT trends such as the move to cloud, the rising threat of cyberattacks and the growing impact of artificial intelligence. Those are great conversation-starters when meeting with your CIO.

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