Navigating the complexities of corporate tax compliance is an ongoing challenge for businesses worldwide.
With ever-changing regulations, manual processes, and fragmented data systems, tax professionals often find themselves stretched thin, facing mounting pressure to ensure accuracy, meeting deadlines, and managing tax risks for their organisations or clients.
To address these challenges, Wolters Kluwer is developing and enhancing their technology offering with cutting-edge inclusions like AI and fostering strategic partnerships to deliver timely and innovative solutions.
Andy Hung, Director at Wolters Kluwer Asia Pacific, has revealed how the company's flagship platform, CCH Integrator, is helping tax professionals streamline their processes, reduce risk, and achieve greater efficiency.
"Our vision is to solve the internal challenges of our customers," Hung explained. "Ultimately, it's about working smarter and more efficiently, so clients can gain confidence and improve the quality of their outputs to make the right decisions for their organisations and clients."
For many corporations, tax management is burdened by inefficient compliance and reporting workflows and the complexity of keeping up with dynamic tax regulations, locally and globally.
These pain points not only impact operational efficiencies but also increase the risk of non-compliance, which can lead to costly penalties and reputational damage and other unintended exposures.
Hung underlined three key "currencies" customers seek to optimise: time, energy, and money. This drive to maximise returns for clients anchors Wolters Kluwer's development and integration strategies.
The role of technology partnerships
When asked how Wolters Kluwer identifies relevant emerging technologies, Hung highlighted a "contextual inquiry" approach.
"We stick very close to the customer," he said. "Understanding their needs first is critical, and then we look for complementary technologies that can be incorporated at the right stage of their workflow."
For Wolters Kluwer, the goal is clear: improve efficiency, accuracy, and integration to enable clients to tackle problems faster.
Selecting Technology Partners
Hung also spoke on the process of evaluating technology partners, pointing to shared values and mutual understanding as key criteria.
"We assess whether they share a similar customer base and whether their solutions align with our goals for efficiency and integration," he said.
One successful partnership is with OneTeam Services, specialising in workflow automation.
"This collaboration addresses our mutual customers' challenges with workflow and data integration," Hung explained. "At the end of the day, the hero isn't the product—it's the customer."
Innovations with AI
AI plays an important role in Wolters Kluwer's roadmap for its CCH Integrator platform, but Hung is careful to temper expectations.
"AI is a complementary tool, not a replacement for human judgement," he said.
The platform will be seeking to leverage AI and other advanced automation technology to streamline data cleansing, mapping, enhance accuracy, and prompt clients with timely insights.
However, Hung stressed the importance of a measured approach: "In a tax audit, you can't just say, 'AI determined this outcome.'
Clients must maintain oversight, judgment, and expertise to ensure compliance, accuracy, and personalised client service. And of course, ensure they have robust governance, systems and processes that can be confidently relied-on and defended.
This philosophy reflects the ethical framework guiding Wolters Kluwer's AI use.
"We pilot innovations carefully, seek external feedback, and ensure that AI serves as a supportive tool," Hung added.
Client Pain Points and Industry Trends
CCH Integrator addresses several client pain points, particularly in data management and time pressure.
According to Hung, many customers face the daunting task of analysing vast datasets from disparate systems.
"Our aim is to shift them from reviewing line-by-line to reviewing by exception," he said. "Clients want to focus on high-value work, and our tools seek to help them achieve that."
Hung also highlighted emerging trends shaping the future of tax technology, including automation, enhanced collaboration between finance and tax functions, and the integration of specialised tax tools into broader ecosystems to adequately address the specificity and complexity of tax, for example, BEPS Pillar Two that is being implemented across 140 OECD countries.
Staying Ahead
Hung is confident about CCH Integrator's position in the market.
"We're proud to say it's tax tech for tax people, by tax people," he said. The platform is developed and implemented by professionals with deep tax expertise, ensuring it meets the unique needs of tax specialists.
A recent example of leadership in innovation is the platform's rapid adaptation to the OECD's BEPS Pillar Two global tax rules., which aim to ensure multinational corporations pay a minimum level of tax regardless of where they operate. By incorporating automated compliance tools and real-time updates aligned with these complex regulations, CCH Integrator helps businesses navigate the new requirements with ease and accuracy, reducing the risk of non-compliance.
"Tapping into our core technology, leveraging our proven technology and combining this with our deep understanding of the tax workflow, We were able to interpret the rules, build solutions, and bring them to market quickly for feedback and iteration, while keeping the cost low for customers," Hung said.
Looking Ahead
As 2025 unfolds, Wolters Kluwer aims to continue evolving its platform, focusing on data management, integration, and timely content delivery.
A particularly impactful integration on the roadmap provides ABN lookup and GST validation checks for Australian organistations, as well as high-volume transaction analysis and data management for use cases such as fixed assets, trial balance mapping, and more efficient data preparation, and enhanced connectivity between ERP systems for tax reporting.
"We're working on a number of exciting developments and platform integrations and [we] can't wait to deliver these innovations to our customers," Hung concluded.
Ultimately, Hung's vision for Wolters Kluwer is simple: to empower customers to work smarter, faster, and with greater confidence. As he aptly put it, "The real hero is the customer."
Corporate tax teams are under immense pressure to manage complexity, ensure compliance, and drive efficiency. Wolters Kluwer's CCH Integrator platform is transforming how tax professionals approach these challenges.
By automating manual processes, integrating disparate data, and staying ahead of regulatory changes, the company is enabling its customers to not only meet their compliance obligations but also unlock new opportunities to improve the tax function. Andy Hung's vision underscores the importance of combining advanced technology with strategic collaboration to redefine what's possible in corporate tax management.
