Credit
“The article was first published in the Journal published by the Chamber of Tax Consultants (CTC), Mumbai , India [Citation 2025-26:51-08 CTCJ | November 2025 ]”
Synopsis
Advisory 2.0: How AI is Reshaping Tax Consulting
In “Advisory 2.0: How AI is Reshaping Tax Consulting”, Bianca Kuijper, Orbitax’s Chief Operating Officer, explores how AI is transforming tax advisory. She contrasts the traditional model driven by information asymmetry, labor-intensive research, and lengthy memos with today’s AI-powered approach, where tools can streamline data gathering, monitor global tax developments, and generate actionable insights in real time.
Kuijper emphasizes that AI does not replace human advisors but amplifies their capabilities, enabling them to focus on judgment, strategy, and client relationships. By combining curated data, generative and agentic AI, and automated compliance processes, advisors can move from reactive reporting to proactive, strategic guidance.
Trust, insight, and collaboration are now the defining currency of advisory work. In an AI-driven landscape, the most successful tax professionals will use technology to strengthen client relationships, turn compliance into strategy, and offer actionable, forward-thinking insight. Ultimately, the future of tax advisory is collaborative, data-informed, and human-centered, with technology enhancing the value that advisors bring to their clients.
Advisory 2.0: How AI is Reshaping Tax Consulting
By Bianca Kuijper, Chief Operating Officer, Orbitax
Twenty years ago, when I first walked into the international tax practice at Ernst & Young in Amsterdam with a fresh master’s degree, the advisory model was simple: clients came with questions, we researched the answers, and delivered expertise wrapped in billable hours and meticulously crafted memos.
Today, as Chief Operating Officer at Orbitax, I am witnessing the most fundamental shift in tax advisory since the introduction of digital research databases. Unlike my early days, the reliance on AI-powered tools is not just changing how we find answers; it is redefining the entire value proposition of tax consulting. The question tax advisors now face is not just about finding answers, but about using technology to transform those answers into actionable insights that empower their clients to make strategic decisions, while responding to the ever-increasing demand for efficiency. It’s a thrilling and unsettling evolution all at once, because as machines learn to do what we once did, we are prompted to ask a deeper question: Where do we, as humans, fit?
In this article, I reference XatBot (Orbitax’s AI assistant) as an example of how AI is reshaping the way we access, interpret, and apply tax knowledge, while challenging traditional notions of what “expertise” means in advisory work. More than the tool itself, it highlights the new possibilities emerging: a collaborative future where human advisors and intelligent systems work together to deliver deeper insight, faster decisions, and greater strategic value for clients.
The End of Information Asymmetry
Let me paint you a picture from my advisory days. As a junior tax advisor for multinational clients, I was tasked with monitoring global tax law changes that could impact our clients. My daily routine involved scanning international tax alerts, manually cross referencing them with the fact patterns of clients assigned to me, and flagging potential implications. The process was methodically executed. I researched local regulations, analyzed complex tax treaties, reviewed rate tables, consulted our internal planning databases, and then synthesized everything into a comprehensive memo. Monitoring tax laws easily took up six hours a day, and depending on the complexity, a memo could take several days to complete.
The traditional advisory model relied on information asymmetry. Clients needed us because accessing comprehensive tax knowledge required specialized training, expensive databases, and years of experience to know where to look. Yet, the real challenge was not time, but value. Clients often hesitated to incur additional fees for routine updates. This created a paradox where staying well-informed became financially challenging. This traditional approach was not just labor-intensive but also vulnerable to human error and constrained by individual capacity.
Fast-forward to today: AI can perform that same analysis in seconds, monitoring global tax law changes across jurisdictions, drawing from multiple trusted databases, synthesizing withholding tax implications, compliance obligations, and local law requirements, and even producing draft memos or organizational charts instantly. The result is not just faster; it is broader, more consistent, and in many ways more insightful than what I could achieve manually. This is truly remarkable, and this shift forces us to rethink what expertise really means in an era where technology can replicate, and often exceed, our analytical capabilities.
A Vision Rooted in Expertise
More than two decades ago, two international tax partners at KPMG in Silicon Valley, Gratian Joseph and the late Donald Chung, saw how much time and expertise were consumed by repetitive, manual processes. Both believed that technology could help tax professionals move beyond routine tasks to focus on higher-value thinking. Don, in particular, envisioned a digital tax assistant that could combine the depth of technical knowledge with the efficiency of automation. He even gave it a fitting name: XatBot, an anagram of “tax.”
From its inception, the Orbitax platform has been developed by professionals who understand the nuances of international tax practice. Rather than relying on generic algorithms or external data sources, it is built on comprehensive, curated databases of global tax rules, maintained by experts who live and breathe international taxation. This professional foundation ensures that the technology reflects real-world tax logic and supports practitioners in applying their expertise with greater accuracy and efficiency.
Artificial intelligence, when applied with care and expertise, becomes a catalyst for human collaboration and judgment rather than a substitute for it. As technology increasingly takes on the analytical groundwork, the role of the tax professional grows more strategic, centered on interpretation, connection and planning. This, ultimately, was Don Chung’s vision: a future where technology amplifies human capability, allowing professionals to focus on what only humans can do: exercising judgment and building personal connections and trust..
Building Trust on a Foundation of Reliable Data
The strength of any intelligent system depends on the quality of the knowledge that supports it. In the case of Orbitax, that foundation is extensive tax research developed over more than two decades by international tax professionals. The platform draws upon a curated global database covering more than 195 jurisdictions, including corporate tax regimes, withholding tax provisions, compliance requirements, rates, forms, and treaties. Its scope reflects years of systematic research, with thousands of law change reports, tax news updates, rates, and treaty records reviewed and refreshed daily to ensure accuracy and relevance.
This structured knowledge base enables the generation of precise and contextually relevant tax insights. By combining verified research with company-specific data, the system produces analyses that mirror professional reasoning while maintaining consistency and speed. Continuous updates across all jurisdictions ensure that it reflects the most recent legislative and treaty developments. For example, in determining the application of India’s tax treaties, XatBot will not automatically apply MFN clauses because it relies on a curated database that reflects the India SC Nestlé ruling. Likewise, it will not automatically apply India’s treaties as affected by the MLI because the data source already reflects the ITAT rulings barring automatic activation of the MLI sans specific notification.
Equally important, this foundation helps safeguard against a common limitation of general-purpose AI systems: the tendency to generate inaccurate or unfounded information, often referred to as “AI hallucination.” Because the underlying information in the platform is curated, validated, and continuously updated by subject-matter experts, the risk of such errors is significantly reduced. Each analysis is anchored in authoritative, up-to-date tax intelligence, providing professionals with confidence that the insights they receive are both reliable and relevant.
In this way, technology grounded in verified knowledge supports the same principles that have always defined the tax profession: precision, trust, and integrity.
Intelligent Monitoring of Tax Trends in Practice
When I think back to the countless hours once spent monitoring global tax developments and cross-referencing them against client fact patterns, the contrast with today’s possibilities is striking. What was once an exercise in endurance has become a process of informed engagement, where technology assists in identifying, interpreting, and communicating tax changes as they occur.
Consider, for example, the recent amending protocol to the tax treaty between Brazil and India, which updates key provisions on the taxation of royalties, interest, and capital gains. In the past, identifying affected clients across a multinational portfolio would have required manually reviewing entity charts and jurisdictional exposures. Today, with an integrated monitoring system, I can ask which of my clients may be impacted. Because the platform already contains each client’s entity footprint and treaty relationships, it immediately highlights those with relevant connections to Brazil or India.
From there, I can instruct the system to track this development for each affected client and to send alerts when further guidance, ratification updates, or implementing regulations are released. I can even choose to include my clients directly in these alerts, ensuring that they have access to the same real-time information that I do. What once demanded days of research and coordination now becomes a proactive, collaborative process.
This evolution represents more than an efficiency gain; it signals the end of information asymmetry that long defined the advisory model. When both advisor and client share access to the same up-to-date information, the foundation of value shifts from data possession to insight and trust. Transparency strengthens the relationship rather than diminishing it, creating space for deeper dialogue and strategic collaboration. In this new landscape, technology becomes the enabler of trust — and trust, in turn, the currency of a more valuable and effective advisory partnership.
Beyond the Memo: Refocusing Advisory Value
When I began my career, every tax project seemed to end with a memo, often dozens of pages long, that sought to capture our analysis and planning ideas. I remember spending days assembling these documents after monitoring a new regulation or treaty change, manually verifying provisions, and checking calculations. The memo was our way of showing diligence, but it was also where the limitations of time became most apparent. Despite all the effort, clients sometimes found the output too generic, still asking the question: What does this mean for us?
Today, that same process begins in a very different way. Suppose a development such as the amending protocol to the tax treaty between Brazil and India appears through automated monitoring. Within moments, the system can outline which clients may be affected, summarize the treaty changes, and generate a first draft of the technical analysis. Rather than starting from a blank page, the advisor now begins with a foundation built on verified data and structured reasoning.
This shift changes the nature of our work. Instead of spending hours collecting and formatting information, we can use that time to test the practical implications, refine the analysis, and discuss how the change affects a client’s specific structure. The value of the memo is no longer in how much information it contains, but in how well it guides action.
To achieve this, the technology must extend beyond generative text. Generative AI produces language based on probability: an extraordinary capability for drafting, but one that needs precision safeguards in a field as complex as taxation. For that reason, Orbitax combines Generative AI with Agentic AI: systems that can reason through defined steps, apply expert-built logic, and verify their conclusions. These agentic components, such as the Withholding Tax Minimizer, Interest and Penalty Calculator, Global Minimum Tax Model, and Country-by-Country Reporting Analyzer, bring the structure and reliability of human-designed computation into the process.
What emerges is not a replacement for professional writing, but an evolution of it. The initial draft becomes a starting point for deeper reflection, allowing the advisor to concentrate on the nuance of fact patterns, implementation, and strategy. In doing so, we move beyond the era of information asymmetry: where value was defined by access to data, and enter an era where trust, judgment, and collaboration define the true worth of the advisor-client relationship.
Deepening Client Relationships
XatBot’s role is not merely that of an analytical powerhouse. It enables advisors to engage more meaningfully with clients, providing space to listen, understand, and tailor advice to the unique circumstances of each business. By automating routine processes, XatBot allows advisors to spend less time on data gathering and more on cultivating relationships, understanding client needs, and providing personalized strategic guidance. This transformation exemplifies how technology can enhance, rather than replace, the human elements of trust and empathy that are so critical in advisory work.
Turning compliance into strategy
Perhaps the most significant opportunity created by automation lies in reimagining compliance work. Preparing tax returns and statutory reports has long been a dependable but low-margin activity, essential for maintaining client relationships but rarely a true differentiator. Yet within every return lies a wealth of information: details about entity structures, cross-border transactions, and operating jurisdictions. With intelligent systems capable of analyzing that data and connecting it to current legislative changes, compliance work can become the foundation for continuous advisory engagement.
Going back to the example of my junior advisory days, much of the client information was coming from the corporate tax returns. Each return told a story about where a company operated, its entity footprint, and relevant transactions. That information was invaluable, but its full potential often remained untapped, buried in spreadsheets and static reports.
Today, this same data forms the backbone of intelligent automation. The entity footprint that is captured across multiple corporate tax returns can now be extracted and mapped directly into a monitoring system. The platform uses that information to track relevant law changes automatically, (e.g. a treaty amendment, a new withholding rule, or an updated incentive regime) and to connect those developments to the specific entities or transactions they affect.
Once a change is detected, the system’s agentic capabilities come into play. Drawing on the underlying data from the returns and their supporting calculations, it can simulate planning scenarios in real time. For example, it might assess how a change in depreciation rules or tax credit eligibility impacts a client’s capital investment strategy, or model how a treaty update could alter the effective tax rate across jurisdictions. The advisor can then refine these outputs, evaluate alternatives, and design an implementation plan that aligns with the client’s broader business objectives.
In this way, the compliance process evolves from a backward-looking reporting task into a forward-looking planning exercise. Advisors can move beyond the routine mechanics of tax return preparation to deliver strategic insights rooted in the client’s own data. The result is a practice that not only meets filing obligations but also continuously identifies opportunities, transforming the return from a regulatory requirement into a catalyst for value creation.
Advisory 2.0: Trust as the New Currency
As technology takes over the mechanical aspects of tax practice such as data collection, research, calculation, and first-level analysis, what remains is what has always defined our profession: human judgment, communication, and trust. The tools we use may have changed, but the foundation of advisory work has not.
At Orbitax, we see AI working as ‘digital staff’, not as a replacement for professionals. The digital systems perform the tasks that require speed, precision, and scale, while human advisors focus on interpretation, strategy, and relationships. Together, they create outcomes that neither could achieve alone.
This collaboration transforms both the advisor’s and the client’s experience. Tax departments and advisory firms can move beyond data gathering and compliance oversight to become strategic partners in decision-making. With routine work automated, professionals can invest more time in understanding their clients’ business models, anticipating challenges, and identifying opportunities that align with long-term objectives.
In this new landscape, trust becomes the most valuable asset. When clients have access to the same information as their advisors, expertise alone is no longer the differentiator. What matters is the ability to contextualize, explain, and guide the client. The relationships built on that foundation of trust will define the next generation of tax advisory.
Advisors who embrace this change will find that technology does not diminish their role; it magnifies it. By combining the precision of digital systems with the empathy and insight that only humans can offer, we can create a model of collaboration that is not only more efficient, but also more meaningful. In an AI-driven world, it is our humanity — our capacity to connect, to interpret, and to build trust — that becomes the true source of value.
Epilogue: Coming Full Circle
When I first walked into the tax practice at Ernst & Young two decades ago, the work was defined by research, memos, and long hours spent mastering complexity. Today, as I look across a landscape shaped by artificial intelligence, I see the same commitment to precision and professionalism, but expressed through very different means.
The tools have evolved, but the purpose has not. Our role as advisors remains to bring clarity where there is uncertainty and to build trust where there is risk. What is changing is the way we do it: by embracing technology not as competition, but as collaboration.
In the end, the question is no longer “Where do we, as humans, fit?” but rather “How do we want to lead?” Those who use technology to amplify judgment and deepen relationships will define the next chapter of our profession.
Author’s Note: This article was prepared and refined using Orbitax XatBot AI as part of an experimental writing process: an illustration of the collaboration between human expertise and technology that it describes.
The ideas, structure, and conclusions represent the author’s own analysis, improved with input from colleagues Dali Bouzoraa and Raiyan Shahryar.
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