The Five TX Laws are a form of universal truth. We know this because, after taking the tech-centric route for some time, astute individuals always arrive at the same conclusions.
This is the fifth and final article where we examine each law in turn―first with a guiding principle, and then with a conversational narrative that provides real-world context in everyday language. For this, we imagined chatting with an intelligent friend, sipping brandy in comfortable armchairs by a fire (mental imagery inspired by The Economist Style Guide).
TX Law #5: Transformed skills are 80% ‘soft’ and only 20% tax or IT
Principle: Effective taxtech & digitalization is 80% ‘soft’ transformation and only 20% Tax or IT skills.
Fireside chat:
Taxologist: “In Hong Kong, for a month every Christmas, there’s a huge Brands and Products Expo with an endless showcase of gadgets and devices. If you’re starting a small business, there’s no shortage of products to sell. The real challenge lies in the complexities of marketing, sales, distribution, finance, regulations, and building a sustainable corporate identity.”
Intelligent friend: “What’s your point?”
Taxologist: “The same applies to skills. The Indian universities churn out a million IT graduates yearly, but that doesn’t mean they’re business-ready. That takes years of work experience. It’s like tax advice—it only becomes valuable when embedded into an organization, and that’s the hard piece. It takes time, effort, and can take years to master.”
Intelligent friend: “How’s that relevant for tax technology?”
Taxologist: “The principle is the same. Just because the technology exists doesn’t mean it’s business-ready, or, for that matter, that the business is technology-ready. Either way, it’s a challenge, and the stakes are sky-high. In today’s world, digital competency isn’t just about utility; it’s often about competitive viability and survival. For tax, it is core to their new value proposition.”
Intelligent friend: “Sure. We’ve talked about that before. So why is this any different?”
Taxologist: “Because the digital dimension can’t be learned ‘on the job’ and it defies the ‘experience’ rule. Tax, business, and IT people can go their entire careers and not figure it out. It’s too foreign, too intangible, and the shift is too great. Companies are no different—leadership is anxious, budgets overrun, success is elusive, projects are risky, and data remains a mystery. It’s like being a retail investor—80% of individuals lose money on stocks and shares even in a bull market.”
Intelligent friend: “Ha, ha—interesting comparison! I’m not sure it equates, but then you are on your third brandy.”
Taxologist: “The point is, you need a guided journey to get there. Without that, working it out independently or gleaning it from a slide deck is all but impossible. And you certainly can’t buy the answer off the shelf. You have to see it for yourself and work with it directly—step by step—over time. Think of Galileo and his telescope in Renaissance Italy. He overturned centuries of belief that everything revolved around the Earth by simply observing Jupiter’s moons. Transformation is our telescope for tax technology.”
Intelligent friend: “No more brandy for you.”
Taxologist: “But Galileo is our taxologist, and transformation is the lens we need to understand tax technology. It’s the missing piece of the puzzle. It takes digital adoption, Agile methods, the data sciences, and a host of other skills like knowledge management and uses them to make technology work for business. The issue is that these talents aren’t seen as professions—like doctors, accountants, or tax lawyers—so they’re given lip service as ‘soft’ skills. Yet, Dr. Corrie Block argues that they make up 80% of transformation. As technology dominates business, these so-called ‘soft’ skills become the only way to effectively implement the 20% of ‘hard’ ones. That’s what needs to change.
“For the previous articles in this series, see TX Law #1, TX Law #2, TX Law #3, and TX Law #4.
Curious about how the 5 TX Laws work in practice? Watch this space. New services launching next year!
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