Highlights
- CoCounsel Tax helps junior tax staff work through multi-step questions on their own, with cited outputs.
- In-house tax teams report saving an average of 32% of their research time.
- 61% of corporate tax professionals surveyed see accelerating technical research and analysis as one of AI’s most valuable applications.
Fresh talent enters corporate tax departments eager to contribute but often gets stuck in manual research loops, spending hours on routine questions that could be resolved quickly. According to the 2026 Corporate Tax Department Technology Report from the Thomson Reuters Institute and Tax Executives Institute, 64% of corporate tax professionals surveyed say their departments are still at the chaotic or reactive stage of technology maturity.
When junior staff can’t find answers independently, departments either absorb the time cost of senior review or incur external advisor fees for routine matters. Thomson Reuters CoCounsel Tax transforms this dynamic, helping junior colleagues move from research assistants to analysts who can work through multi-step questions on their own. For direct tax teams stretched thin by reactive compliance work, AI matters most inside the platform where the work happens. CoCounsel Tax is embedded in ONESOURCE direct tax solutions, giving junior staff plain-language access to tax data, faster research, and sharper analytics.
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Why do junior tax staff struggle with traditional research?
How does CoCounsel Tax support junior tax staff?
Strategic benefits for tax departments
How do junior tax staff use CoCounsel Tax in real-world scenarios?
Next steps for tax department leaders
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Why do junior tax staff struggle with traditional research?
Traditional tax research tools require senior-level interpretation skills to apply findings to specific company situations. This creates a predictable cycle: junior staff identifies a tax question, spends hours in traditional research tools finding general guidance, but still can’t apply findings to the company’s specific facts. At that point, senior staff either steps in (time cost) or the department engages external advisors (financial cost).
The data reveals the impact of this dynamic. In the 2026 report, only 8% of respondents say hiring is their main answer to capacity constraints. Another 32% turn to process optimization instead of hiring or new technology. Junior tax professionals often lack confidence to provide definitive guidance, leading to over-reliance on external validation.
Documentation and review requirements keep growing in volume and sophistication. For early-career direct tax professionals, that often means reconciling data and re-checking numbers by hand, and reactive compliance work crowds out the analysis that builds judgment.
How does CoCounsel Tax support junior tax staff?
Unlike traditional tools that provide general guidance, CoCounsel Tax applies Checkpoint’s expert content to your specific company documents and scenarios. The workflow transformation is significant:
- Upload company partnership agreements, contracts, or transaction documents
- Ask specific questions about tax implications for your situation
- Receive analysis that applies tax law directly to your facts
- Get audit-ready documentation with full citations
Junior tax staff can work through multi-step questions on their own and produce cited outputs, so they don’t have to escalate every complex question to a senior colleague. In a survey of in-house tax teams, users reported saving an average of 32% of their research time, and 35% reported saving 50% or more.
Strategic benefits for tax departments
Optimizing advisory relationships: Junior staff come to advisor meetings prepared with comprehensive background analysis, maximizing the value of external expertise. This approach builds internal capability while ensuring advisory time focuses on strategic guidance and complex judgment calls.
Scalable expertise: In-house tax teams using CoCounsel Tax report saving an average of 32% of their research time. That matters at a time when 67% of corporate tax professionals surveyed say recent technology investment has enabled more strategic, proactive work.
Building tomorrow’s senior talent: Junior colleagues build confidence and capability faster when they can work through multi-step questions on their own and check the cited sources behind each answer. The learning curve on unfamiliar topics gets shorter. That helps address the capacity constraints most departments face.
Compliance confidence: Automation helps, but unevenly. In the 2026 report, 36% of corporate tax professionals surveyed say it has completely or significantly improved accuracy and reduced errors, and most others call the gain moderate. CoCounsel Tax supports junior staff with cited research and documentation on the work automation hasn’t reached yet.
In the 2026 report, 61% of respondents see faster technical research and analysis as one of AI’s most valuable uses. Yet only 9% call their department an active AI user. CoCounsel Tax represents the practical application of this technology shift, delivering measurable results rather than experimental initiatives.
How do junior tax staff use CoCounsel Tax in real-world scenarios?
Partnership agreement analysis: A junior colleague uploads a 150-page partnership agreement, asks about Section 754 election implications, and receives specific guidance for their entity structure.
State tax compliance: Using CoCounsel Tax templates to research multi-state tax implications for specific business transactions, ensuring consistent methodology across different jurisdictions.
Transfer pricing documentation: Analyzing intercompany agreements for U.S. inbound and outbound transactions and extracting relevant details for transfer pricing studies, building internal expertise for advisory conversations.
Tax provision support: Researching complex accounting methods and their tax implications for quarterly provisions, and asking questions of provision data in plain language, enabling more accurate forecasting.
Return comparison: Upload a prior-year return and review it side by side with the current year. CoCounsel Tax shows percentage changes on key figures and a line-by-line breakdown, so reviewers start with what changed instead of rechecking every line.
M&A due diligence: Quickly analyzing target company tax attributes and potential issues, allowing junior staff to contribute meaningfully to transaction teams.
International tax planning: Understanding U.S. treaty benefits and foreign tax credit implications for specific U.S. inbound and outbound transactions, building U.S. international tax competency.
Next steps for tax department leaders
Immediate value: Help your junior tax talent move from researchers to analysts who work through multi-step questions on their own, while building internal capability that complements external expertise.
Strategic positioning: Build internal perspective before seeking external validation. Come better prepared for advisor conversations. Free advisors to focus on strategic guidance and complex judgment calls.
Contact: Schedule a personalized demo to see how CoCounsel Tax applies to your department’s specific challenges and junior colleague development needs.
