The problem

Highly skilled specialists carry out tax judgements on behalf of their clients. These assessments are incredibly complex and time consuming, not least because of the size of the entities involved. The complex nature of their work means it takes a long time for new staff to be fully effective.

The assessment process is manual and there are no existing tools that can combine financial assessment data with the human cognitive reasoning process undertaken by their tax specialists.

Like all firms, our client relies on some seasoned experts with tremendous experience. This focused expertise, combined with the long lead-time up-skilling new members of staff, was the driving force behind them selecting Rainbird.

Rainbird can make complex, human-like judgements based on a combination of real-world expertise, the applicable rules and regulations and client-specific data. What’s more it can do this at scale. Rainbird won a competitive process because of its ability to form judgements in the face of uncertainty and missing data, and because it can provide a comprehensive audit trail that can explain the rationale behind each and every judgement. This is a feature that set’s Rainbird apart from most other AI technologies.

The solution

Rainbird developed a proof of concept, delivering a tool that successfully augments back-office workers when making complex tax judgements. The project focused on a specific area of foreign tax legislation.

Our team worked with the client’s tax specialists to develop a Rainbird model that replicates how experts navigate the tax legislation. The tool can determine whether or not a specific company is within scope of the law, and identify the impact on their tax liability.

We also developed a roadmap for other solutions based on the concept of a central repository of knowledge, with the potential to power multiple applications in numerous parts of the business.

The outcome

Following a successful proof of concept, we are now working with the firm to build an internal Rainbird Centre of Excellence, enabling our client to rapidly build their own internal Rainbird projects. This build of a CoE will include working on real-world projects, delivering two new tools capable of augmenting the work of humans when advising clients on two new areas of tax legislation.