If you never miss a plane, you're spending too much time at the airport.

I shared this quote from economist George Stigler at the 7th Annual VAT Management Summit in London, and it sums up the mindset shift tax leaders need to make. For too long, tax has been about playing it safe, checking every detail, and delaying takeoff until everything is perfect. But in today’s global, high-speed, API-driven business world, that approach holds us back.

What if we optimized not for total certainty, but for total efficiency?

If you couldn’t make the summit, this post captures the key ideas I shared from the stage: How modern tax teams can embrace real-time processes, reduce risk through better data, and shift their focus from perfection to progress. 

If you're responsible for tax, finance, or product—and you want to spend less time circling the runway—check out the key takeaways.

1. The compliance model must evolve

Historically, VAT has been managed in retrospective cycles: prepare, file, and reconcile weeks or even months after a transaction. But business today happens in milliseconds. And if tax can’t keep up, it becomes a bottleneck or, worse yet, a liability.

We must stop treating tax as a backward-looking task. Real-time VAT compliance means validating, enriching, and reporting data as it happens. Reporting intervals and deadlines are just a matter of when to push the button. Checking data happens as it comes in and is rechecked continuously before you face compliance obligations. This shift is not just about keeping up with regulation—it’s about building a resilient, scalable, and cost-efficient business.

You don't have time. That's not a scare tactic. It's the new operating reality.

2. Automate the routine so you can focus on risk and exceptions

Roughly 80% of indirect tax workflows are rules-based and automatable. Yet many teams spend hours each week validating tax IDs, checking formats, or correcting basic errors.

When machines handle the routine, tax experts can spend more time addressing exceptions—the 20% of cases where judgment, nuance, or strategic alignment matter most.

This isn’t just efficiency; it’s value creation. It’s how tax teams evolve from compliance support to business partners.

3. Clean data is the first step to risk reduction and better cash flow

Real-time tax compliance doesn’t work without high-quality data. We saw one client with a 15% invoice failure rate across 65 million transactions—simply due to data issues. Once cleaned and validated in real time, success rates rose above 99%.

Clean data is the foundation for:

• Higher e-invoicing success
• Accurate reporting
• Faster cash collection
• Fewer audits

And how do tax teams accomplish clean data? It’s not enough to validate tax IDs at onboarding. Up to 13% of tax IDs change or expire every year. If you aren’t regularly validating, you aren’t compliant. 

4. Perfect is the enemy of good enough—aim for strategic risk reduction instead

Perfect compliance is not only impossible; it’s costly. Trying to eliminate every tax risk leads to more reviews, slower launches, and missed market opportunities.

Smart leaders recognize that tax risk = impact × likelihood.

This means learning to:

• Prioritize high-frequency, high-impact risks
• Accept and manage low-probability outliers
• Justify decisions with data, not doctrine

It’s time to treat tax risk like we treat financial or operational risk: with quantified models and targeted mitigation.

5. AI in tax: A co-pilot, not an autopilot

Artificial intelligence (AI) will reshape tax. But it’s not a silver bullet—it’s a co-pilot that still needs training. In our experiments, accuracy improved from 64% to 94% only after two rounds of expert review.
AI can detect anomalies, simulate scenarios, and flag risks—but for now, only when combined with human insight and process discipline. If you’re not building tax fluency in your team, AI won’t save you.

What now? Start measuring what matters

The best-performing tax teams we see aren’t perfect—they’re proactive and deliberate. They measure, iterate, and partner with their product and finance teams.

If you're looking to modernize your tax function, learn how Fonoa’s end-to-end indirect tax automation platform can help you put each of these key takeaways into practice. From tax determination to e-invoicing, reporting, and returns—we support real-time, global compliance with a single API.