IBM and the EY organization have announced the launch of EY.ai for tax, a suite of Artificial Intelligence-powered solutions developed in partnership with IBM watsonx. This collaboration combines IBM´s watsonx portfolio and open-source AI models like IBM Granite with EY´s deep domain expertise in tax, aiming to modernize global tax compliance and address pressing challenges such as complex regulations, talent shortages, fragmented data sources, and resource constraints faced by tax departments worldwide.
The new EY.ai for tax solutions, currently deployed within IBM’s own tax department, include three main offerings: the Intelligent Tax Data Lake, Detect and Correct with Business Documents, and Withholding Tax Determinations. The Intelligent Tax Data Lake consolidates and enriches transaction data from numerous sources using watsonx.data and watsonx.ai, substantially automating data consolidation and reconciliation processes. The Detect and Correct capability leverages Document Extraction tools from IBM Research to review, compare, and correct unstructured invoice data against enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, enabling a significant increase in the number of documents processed for tax compliance. The Withholding Tax Determinations solution automates the monthly review of thousands of intercompany transactions to accurately apply the correct withholding tax rates, replacing previously manual and time-consuming processes.
IBM reports that implementing these Artificial Intelligence-driven tax compliance tools is projected to save its tax department tens of thousands of hours annually and could automate more than 80% of the company´s foreign tax compliance workflows. Both organizations stress that the solutions are designed with stringent data security and governance processes to avert risks such as penalties and reputational damage. The joint IBM-EY teams aim to further expand the capabilities of these solutions and apply them to additional tax processes in the future, underscoring a commitment to continuous innovation in tax technology.
