Ahead of the marcus evans Tax Officers Summit 2022, read here an interview with Robert Lenius discussing the opportunities and capabilities available to the tax function today.

1. degree in analytics or computer science.
Today it just requires comparatively
minimal training to utilize many new
technologies.
Overall, I feel Tax Officers have always
wanted to make things easier for
employees, but at the end of the day
they have to prioritize their resources.
Sometimes their hesitation to adapt a
new technology will be due to cost, but
also it’s partly due to not having been
made aware as to what’s possible. For
example, a tax department could have a
long-standing process ripe for automa-
tion, but simply not be aware of the
capabilities of new technologies, so their
processes remain manual. To combat
this, they need to be able to look at
their processes from new perspectives.
While a tax department might not be
able to automate all processes, they can
at least start with the low-hanging fruit
before moving on to bigger technology
implementations that have more long-
term benefits.
Overall, there is a lot of opportunity
within tax for technology, and the
experts within the tax department know
their processes better than anyone
outside. So they need at least a base
understanding of what technologies are
available and how to apply them.
Tax Officers
must consider
the people
aspect of new
technologies
just as much
as the cost
How Technology Can Transform the Tax Function
Interview with: Robert Lenius, Head
of Tax Tech Lab US, Siemens
“Corporate tax functions need to
analyze large volumes of data quickly to
accomplish their tasks on a regular
basis. However, for many, the processes
to accomplish this have stayed the
same for the past decade. All while the
volume of data and requirements placed
upon the tax function increased year
over year. Many Tax Officers need a
better understanding of what opportuni-
ties and capabilities new technologies
bring that can help increase efficiency,”
says Robert Lenius, Head of Tax Tech
Lab US, Siemens.
Robert Lenius is a speaker at the
marcus evans Tax Officers Summit
2022.
What difficulties are Tax Officers
facing today?
Depends on the size and scale of the tax
department, but for all organizations the
biggest problem I’ve seen is simply
getting required data timely. This
becomes a bigger issue each year as the
volume of data an organization gener-
ates is constantly increasing, in addition
to tax regulations changing at an
accelerated pace. To combat this, Tax
Officers need to establish a good
relationship with their accounting and IT
departments. On one hand for under-
standing how accounting is generating
the data, while on the other to ensure
IT is providing the necessary technology
to pull the data quickly and analyze it
“in-house”.
What does the Siemens Tax Tech
Lab do?
The Tax Tech Lab is an interesting
concept we rolled out at Siemens a few
years ago. We’re focused on evaluating
technologies available in the market
that can help make our department
more efficient, save people time in their
daily work, or simply be used to build
better processes. When we started, we
were simply identifying what technolo-
gies would be relevant to us. Now we
use these technologies internally to
build solutions while upskilling our
organization to be able to use them as
well. In addition, we serve to address
the data needs of our department,
helping to automate certain tax calcula-
tions, etc. Sometimes this involves
some low-code programing to build
custom web applications. But we only
do that when there is nothing commer-
cially available to accomplish the same
task. As a large organization, some-
times the only way to accomplish
certain tasks is by building the solution
ourselves rather than buying something
off the shelf.
In your opinion, what tools do some
Tax Officers underutilize?
Tools that can give them more direct
connections with their data sources.
Even basic Excel has capabilities to
directly pull data from an ERP system or
general ledgers for automating process-
es. There are many analytics process
automation tools in the market, but a
lot of times other departments within
your organization are already using
them. When many teams within an
organization use the same tools,
achieving scale is easier, which brings
better cross-functional collaboration.
This also helps to ensure continuity in
processes through knowledge sharing.
However, I often see the people aspect
of digital transformation overlooked
when it comes to implementing new
technologies. Transforming a tax
organization with technology requires a
true mindset shift in addition to the
required new skillsets. To support this,
tools need to be easy to use and
intuitive, otherwise they are not worth
the investment as they will go unused.
Therefore, Tax Officers must consider
the people aspect of new technologies
just as much as the cost. This aspect
needs to be right from the beginning,
otherwise implementations can fail and
people will lose interest.
Is the tax department slow at
adapting new technologies?
I would not say it is slow, but the tax
function has not necessarily changed
much from a technology perspective
compared to other functions in the past
decade. It’s only recently that certain
technologies have advanced to the point
where they are easier to implement and
intuitive to use without a master’s

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