When was the last time you or anyone on your property tax team went home at 5 p.m. on a workday during tax season?

Sounds impossible, right? Well, that was the case with one of our clients, whose office I stopped into recently at the end of a workday. The place was deserted. When I asked where everyone was, the response was, “They went home. They’re done!”

To some degree, digital transformation is taking place in nearly every industry, every vertical, and every functional area. But some organizational functions are lagging—the tax department is a good example. In an EY article on the challenges tax leaders are facing in 2021 and beyond, one industry professional shares his thoughts on why:

Remote work has been on the rise for years, and many companies have started to offer flexible work models—in part to attract talent and in part to modernize their operations. But thanks to the global pandemic, companies that previously hadn’t considered flexible work arrangements were suddenly forced to operate remotely.

Tax practice management software is a staple for most accounting and tax firms. But there is no multi-use tax solution on the market that is designed to deal with the particulars of property taxes, as you’ll learn more about below.

If you’re reading this, chances are your tax team is so caught up in mundane tasks they can’t address higher-value work such as research, planning, and analysis. So strategic tax questions for your organization go unanswered.

The typical tax cycle can be daunting: filing returns for your business personal property (BPP), keeping up with notices of assessment for BPP and real estate, handling valuation appeals, and paying tax bills. You can easily have 1,500 returns; 90 notices; and 50 bills due next month. It’s enough to keep you and your tax team working overtime, especially if your strategy is reactive, so that you’re only taking action after you receive tax documents in the mail.

There are a variety of tax research tools available, all of which aim to give you the most up-to-date tax information so you can prepare accurate returns and make informed tax decisions. But the best tax research software solutions provide a range of features that not only keep you informed, but also make your tax workflows more efficient.

If your business has locations in multiple cities or states, you could benefit from tax preparation outsourcing—having a third party or software solution handle one or more areas of your property tax cycle. Outsourcing is an appropriate solution for teams that:

If you’re wondering about the difference between secured vs. unsecured property taxes, I’d wager a guess you live in California. Why? Because it’s the only state in the union that uses this terminology in reference to this common ad valorem tax. Everywhere else, “secured property tax” is simply called real estate tax (real estate is attached to or secured by land); and “unsecured property tax” is called personal property tax (movable property not permanently affixed to a particular location).

By now you’ve heard all about it: Technology is changing the way people work. That’s true across all industries and workplaces, whether it’s the floor of a manufacturing facility or the office space of an insurance company.