Leveraging Indirect Tax Automation to Navigate the Silver Tsunami

This is the third installment of a three-part series inspired by the insights shared during the “Preparing for the Silver Tsunami: Workforce Strategies for Tax Teams” webinar. In this series, we explore actionable strategies that tax teams can use to prepare for an aging workforce and the challenges ahead. Read the other installments on Retaining Talent and Building a Resilient Team and Tax Knowledge Transfer and Mentorship.

The departure of an experienced workforce, often called the “Silver Tsunami,” presents a critical challenge for tax departments. As veteran employees retire, they take with them years of specialized knowledge, leaving behind potential knowledge gaps and increased workloads for the remaining team members. While this transition can seem daunting, technology and automation offer a practical path forward, enabling teams to maintain continuity and even enhance their efficiency. However, simply throwing technology at the problem is not a solution. It requires a strategic approach that starts with solid processes. As Sam Dagley, Tax Principal at PWC, warned in the webinar,

“Automating a bad process is a terrible idea… a bad process that’s automated is just going to be a faster way to get to the bad result.”  

The key is to refine your operations first and then leverage technology as a powerful enabler.

This post will explore how to effectively use automation to navigate the challenges of the Silver Tsunami. We will cover the importance of fixing processes before implementing technology, using automation to free up your team for more strategic work, and setting realistic expectations for what technology can achieve.

First, Fix the Process

Before you can benefit from automation, you must have a lean, effective process in place. A common mistake is to apply technology to a broken workflow, which only serves to accelerate mistakes and compound existing problems.

Juan Pizano, Regional Tax Director at Phillip Morris International U.S., advises leaders to be brave enough to scrap a failing process and rebuild it from scratch rather than trying to patch its flaws. If a process isn’t documented, it’s not a process; it’s just an activity that someone does. When that person leaves, the knowledge of that activity leaves with them.

Here are actionable steps to ensure your processes are ready for automation:

• Document Everything: Map out every step of your current workflows. This is not just about listing activities; it’s about identifying decision points and documenting the judgment calls made along the way. Why is a certain step performed? What is the technical reasoning behind a decision? This documentation becomes a living asset that evolves with your organization.
• Identify and Eliminate Waste: Review your documented processes for redundancies, bottlenecks, and non-essential tasks. Are team members performing activities that belong to another department?
• Juan Pizano shared an example of his tax team processing checks, an activity that should have been handled by treasury. By identifying and reassigning such tasks, you immediately free up valuable time.
• Focus on the “Why”: As Sam Dagley noted, great documentation should explain not only what someone is doing but why they are doing it. Understanding the “why” prevents future teams from getting stuck and repeating past mistakes. This context is essential for building resilient and intelligent automated systems.

Use Technology to Free Up Strategic Time

The primary goal of tax automation is not to replace people but to free them from repetitive, low-value tasks. When your team is no longer bogged down by manual data entry or redundant compliance work, they can shift their focus to more strategic, high-impact activities that benefit the organization.

Technology acts as a bridge, closing the gap left by retiring employees and empowering the current team to do more with less. As Juan Pizano explains, a major benefit of technology is to “free up time in our teams.” This newfound time can be used to handle unpredictable events like tax audits or controversies without leading to burnout. He aims for a model where his team can go home on time 80% of the time because their core processes are optimized.

Consider these approaches to leveraging technology:

• Start with Small Automation: The tools available today are more accessible than ever. Teams no longer need to rely solely on IT to build solutions. User-driven tools, such as ComplyIQ compliance intelligence, enable employees to automate their workflows. Sam Dagley recalled how his team first used a new automation tool to simplify their timesheets. This small success built their confidence and skills, which they then applied to more complex client work.
• Don’t Limit Your Thinking: Modern technology can do more than you might think. As Sam states, “don’t limit yourself in what’s possible in 2026 from a technology perspective in transactional taxes.” It’s possible to automate returns from data collection all the way to filing, with human oversight focused on review rather than manual preparation.
• Move from Doer to Reviewer: Effective automation transforms team members from “doers” into “reviewers.” Instead of spending hours compiling spreadsheets, they can spend their time analyzing data, identifying trends, and providing strategic insights. This shift not only increases efficiency but also makes the work more engaging and fulfilling.

Align Expectations: Technology is an Enabler, Not a Magic Bullet

While automation is a powerful tool, it’s crucial to set realistic expectations with leadership and your team. Technology is an enabler that supports a well-designed process; it is not a magic solution that will fix all your problems.

“Very often we think that the solution is a technology and technology is just the enabler. That’s it,” warns Juan Pizano. “Do not think about technology like the magic solution for your problems. Otherwise you will fail.” Investing in technology without a clear strategy and a solid process foundation will likely lead to abandoning the tool down the road, resulting in a wasted investment.

In essence, sitting in on audits, reconciliations, and strategic decisions allows new hires to absorb institutional knowledge that can take decades to acquire. Encouraging this type of mentorship transforms knowledge transfer from a passive exercise into an active, measurable, and highly impactful part of succession planning.

To ensure success, keep these principles in mind:

• Find the Right Partner: When building out your technology stack, choosing the right partner is critical. Whether it’s a software vendor or a consulting firm, you need a partner who understands your goals and can help you bridge the gap between where you are and where you want to be.
• Make Time for Learning: A common hurdle to technology adoption is the feeling that there is no time to learn new tools. Leaders must carve out dedicated time for their teams to experiment and train. This could be through structured sessions, like “lunch and learns,” or simply by encouraging team members to spend a small amount of time each day exploring a new tool. This investment pays for itself many times over in future efficiency gains.
• Take Baby Steps: Modernizing your tax function is a journey. It is easy to feel overwhelmed by the end goal. Sam Dagley likens the process to “baby steps.” Be honest about where you are, whether you’re in the crawl, walk, or run phase, and create a realistic path forward. Small, consistent efforts will lead to stunning progress over a few months.

Your Path to a Modern Tax Function

The Silver Tsunami is reshaping the workforce, but it also presents a unique opportunity to modernize your tax operations. By focusing on process excellence first, you can lay the groundwork for a successful automation strategy.

Leverage today’s powerful and accessible tools to free your team from manual work, allowing them to focus on activities that deliver real strategic value. By setting clear expectations and taking a measured, step-by-step approach, you can build a resilient, efficient, and future-ready tax function that thrives in this new era.

This analysis is intended for informational purposes only and is not tax advice.  For tax advice, consult your tax adviser. See the full disclaimer here.