Data Analytics

Life at Deloitte

The future of tax

Deloitte Tax Analytics

"Faster, better, and more innovative." This is how Jan van Trigt, Deloitte Global Leader –Tax Data Analytics and a senior partner in the Deloitte Netherlands Tax practice, characterizes data analytics. Specifically, tax data analytics combines tax and legal technical knowledge, large sets of data, and new technology tools to generate actionable insights.

"Data analytics is a nice example of how technology is both disrupting and transforming the tax profession," says van Trigt. "Using algorithms, software, visualization solutions, and storytelling, analytics marries data to business intelligence and helps organizations better understand their business, make fact-based, real-time decisions, improve performance, gain efficiencies, and guide strategy."

Big data is big news, and more generally Deloitte is making headlines for being ahead of the pack with data analytics. Gartner, one of the world's leading information technology research and advisory companies, has named Deloitte a global leader in Business Analytics Services for three consecutive years and positioned Deloitte highest in "Ability to Execute."

For the hundreds of professionals actively working in Tax Data Analytics, it is an opportunity to be on the cutting-edge and make an impact that matters for their organization and clients. Indirect Tax, for example, is an area that can leverage data analytics to deliver insights decision-makers could not expect before. "Every transaction or movement of goods carried out by a business is potentially subject to indirect tax," says Oscar Smeets, a Senior Consultant in the Deloitte Netherlands, "Data analytics solutions allow clients to analyze millions of transactions in a very short period of time, check process design, and discover errors or if they paid too much or too little tax."

A picture is worth a thousand words for Ann Jackson, Tax Senior Manager, Deloitte US. "Using years of transactional data and knowledge from tax treaties and legislation, data analytics paints a picture of an organization's tax position. In turn, this can inform decision-making and predictive tax planning and lead to benefits such as improved tax compliance, operational efficiencies, and reduced liabilities."

Using the right data to tell the right story and building that story year-on-year is what Brigitte Brown a Tax Analyst, Deloitte Australia, sees as the power of data analytics. "In customs tax, the area where I work, we can use data to help clients get a broader view of how much they import, causes for customs duty and rate changes, and reporting from specific brokers and suppliers."

Jordan Blue, Tax Manager, Deloitte US, is helping onsite at a client developing forecasting data analytics solutions for their expatriate population. "The client spends millions of dollars every quarter moving people around the globe. My team is using data analytics to help the client predict future costs for mobile employees. We are also looking for outliers and the stories they tell; for example, are there exceptions to organizational policies, and how much can we save them through policy optimization?"

Data analytics is a constant source of insight for Robin Brown, an Associate Director and operational leader of the Deloitte UK Data Analytics team. "Our team takes a client question and answers it with data driven insights—and every project is different. For example, we use data analytics to demonstrate the impact of the decisions clients are making now and reveal decisions that might have a positive impact on their total tax spend."

"Deloitte, in my experience, is a cut above the rest, providing market-leading data analytics solutions," according to Taj Sangha, an Assistant Manager working in the Deloitte UK practice. "With the rise of Artificial Intelligence, like IBM Watson, and robotics, there are likely to be more opportunities to push the boundaries and come up with disruptive solutions that change the way organizations think and work. I'm working in a vibrant environment, where there are opportunities to make a difference in the market."

Visit Deloitte Tax Data Analytics to learn more. For information about careers in Tax Data Analytics at Deloitte, visit our student and experienced hires Careers site.

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