Will AI replace tax professionals, or just the parts of the job that were never the point? 

The more useful framing isn’t job replacement, but rather skill redistribution. The Thomson Reuters Institute’s research on the profession describes 2026 as an inflection point: compliance work is becoming commoditized by technology, pushing both corporate tax departments and outside tax firms toward strategic advisory roles. 

In practice, that means firms earn their fee less by filling out forms and more by understanding a client’s financial picture: keeping them compliant with complex rulings, identifying savings opportunities, and helping them make informed business decisions. 

A firm built on volume (hundreds of similar returns, thin margins, seasonal crunch) was optimized for a world where the bottleneck was labor hours on mechanical tasks. Remove that bottleneck and volume stops being the advantage. Depth replaces it: fewer clients, chosen deliberately, engaged continuously rather than once a year.

To dig deeper, visit the original article on the Thomson Reuters blog.