An artificial intelligence agent is a software program that can interact with its environment, collect data, and use this to autonomously perform tasks to meet predetermined goals. Agentic AI uses multi-agent AI systems to enhance productivity, efficiency, and customer engagement. It is context aware and adaptive, using relevant data to make decisions, and adapt as data or interactions change.

Are there examples of tax agencies using modern data sharing frameworks?

Success stories include the UK’s secure open banking with HMRC enabling more user-friendly tax payments, and Denmark’s real-time cross-government data checks to validate tax returns at the point of filing.

What is a real-time economy model?

A real-time economy model is where economic events are recorded, checked and shared instantly.

What is the EU AI Act?

This act regulates how artificial intelligence is used in the European Union. The European Commission describes it as: The first-ever legal framework on AI, which addresses the risks of AI and positions Europe to play a leading role globally. It aims to support AI innovation and start-ups in Europe with risk-based rules for AI.

What is the Real-Time Economy project in Finland?

This project ran from 2021 to 2024 and was set up by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment in Finland. The Finnish Tax Administration was one of the participating authorities. Its aim was to build a national digital ecosystem for businesses that would allow real-time and secure transmission of financial information between different parties, such as orders, e-invoices, digital receipts and business data. It has contributed to Finland’s Vision 2030, which is a fully digitalized business economy ecosystem that works seamlessly both nationally and internationally.

Trends in tax and customs for 2026 – real-time, personalized transactions informed by AI

Capgemini

Mar 17, 2026

Tax and customs authorities are undergoing rapid change. From the EU’s VAT in the Digital Age (ViDA) to Finland’s Real-Time Economy initiative, technology is reshaping service delivery. Beyond technology modernization itself, success will be measured by whether citizens and businesses experience services that are simple, fast and trustworthy. In a digital-first future, compliance should feel effortless, and staff should have tools that let them deliver support efficiently.

In summary

Tax is increasingly real-time and embedded in daily business transactions
Citizens and businesses expect a consumer-like tax experience
To scale AI, authorities must instigate robust governance frameworks
Government teams should ask how AI and humans can collaborate to improve tax services
Reporting tax is becoming simpler, more predictable, and compliance friendly

The incentives are clear. The World Economic Forum predicts that scaling digital platforms and automation could reduce efficiency-related costs by 30%, with savings of $5.8 trillion by 2034.

In an example recently reported by the OECD, the Finnish Tax Administration and participating authorities launched The Real-Time Economy project – see FAQs, below. This is projected to save almost €6 billion annually for the digital economy by 2030.

These savings will come through the standardization of digital documents, with €430 million per year in benefits from centralized exchanges of data alone.

What tech and AI trends are shaping tax and customs?

We live and work in a rapidly evolving digital landscape. People expect their government services to be as slick as those used elsewhere in everyday life.

In this context, our article outlines the following five trends shaping tax and customs transformation in 2026:

Modern data foundations / resilient IT
Robust AI governance
AI innovation
VAT digitalization
Real-time economy

These are the core building blocks for joined‑up, citizen‑centered tax and customs services.

How do leaders build trust in AI and new digital platforms?

Despite the predicted savings and efficiencies, countries continue to face barriers, from legacy IT to fragmented data and fast-moving regulatory change.

Organizations need to ensure transparent and consistent decision-making and governance that places the customer and public trust firmly at the forefront. The following article looks at how public sector bodies are already taking steps to resolve these challenges and achieve better tax and customs outcomes for tax customers and employees alike.

Legacy IT systems remain one of the biggest barriers to compliance and customer satisfaction. Upkeep is expensive, and when systems fail, citizens can’t access benefits or file returns.

Public sector organizations are also being increasingly targeted for ransomware campaigns. These are driven by extortion and disruption, underlining the need for robust security.

Cloud adoption is a technical solution that underpins strengthened security, agility, scalability and uninterrupted services. Approaches are varied, for example:

Singapore has adopted cloud at scale
Sovereignty concerns keep some countries, such as Germany and Portugal, cautious
France is restricted to using a mix of on-premise government cloud and those cloud services that are approved by France’s national cybersecurity agency (ANSSI) to handle sensitive data.

To both enable seamless services and build trust, governments must balance strengthening cyber resilience with opening up data.

Interoperability depends on legal alignment, common data standards, technical compatibility and secure data-sharing. This is no easy feat.

Modern data-sharing frameworks are key. They reduce friction for citizens, prevent duplicate data requests, and enable real-time validation – see FAQs, below. Modern IT and interoperable systems are not optional; they are the foundation of better outcomes for citizens.

2) AI governance: safeguarding trust in an era of rapid capability growth

AI is moving from narrow, specialist systems to widespread use of generative and agentic models. With this shift, the ethical risks have multiplied.

Scaling AI without a robust governance framework brings dangers, especially in multi-agent systems: bias or decision-making we can’t see or explain, privacy violations, and unexpected behavior that even the designers didn’t foresee.

The result can be a deeply unsatisfactory customer experience, a drop in public trust and even legal consequences.

How can government agencies build trust in AI?

Strong AI governance is now essential infrastructure. Alongside AI law, such as the EU AI Act, organizations must establish clear ethics principles unique to their context, culture and history.

These principles should be human-centric, fair, explainable and transparent, secure and accountable.

Our recent point of view, Architecting AI agents in the public sector, provides a useful framework for organizations to assess the unique technological, psychological, sociological and geopolitical impact of their AI-use when defining their ethics principles.

Who is responsible for ethics principles?

Many organizations are employing an AI ethicist. Their task is to ensure the right questions are asked around AI implementation and risk.

However, accountability ultimately sits with the executive team to ensure that ethics principles are applied across all levels of the business.

Processes must be put in place to monitor and manage bias over time, while ensuring diverse perspectives in testing.

New AI opportunities are emerging daily. Organizations need to be both agile and strategic to successfully harness the potential of AI while protecting against the potential for risk.

3) AI innovation: the next frontier for public sector customer experience

A report by the OECD collected 200 global use-cases of AI across government functions in 2025. This showed that there are typically three types of AI solutions being explored to improve customer experience.

These aim to make internal processes more efficient and deliver more joined-up services:

Delivery accelerators, such as code writing
AI for improving government department efficiency. For example, Brazil uses AI to group tax appeal cases to speed up processing
The use of generative AI in customer-facing contexts, such as the chatbot developed in Singapore to assist taxpayers with enquiries and payments.

How can AI be successfully scaled?

The report found several barriers to successful scaling of AI initiatives. Further, most of the European Union’s use-cases were still in the pilot or development stage in 2025.

Beyond modernizing IT and data-sharing frameworks, success in scaling a personalized and seamless customer experience will lie in the changing of processes and people.

Government teams should identify whole customer journeys, such as a small business owner complying with quarterly reporting. Then they need to ask how AI and humans can collaborate to improve it.

Architecting AI agents in the public sector, provides a decision framework to prioritize which touchpoints of the journey can be assisted by AI. These should ideally be high-volume, low‑risk and highly structured tasks.

Crucially, the public expect to be able to speak to a real person; AI should enhance, not replace human contact.

How will AI improve the customer experience in tax and customs?

2026 will see the focus shift from prompt-driven generative AI to agentic systems. These can act as autonomous, context aware collaborators – see FAQs, below.

Germany’s Federal Employment Agency demonstrates this in practice. It uses multiagent systems to automatically extract information, structure tasks and generate high quality IT service tickets at scale.

This shows how agentic AI can already take on repetitive, rules-based work at scale, while freeing staff to focus on complex, value-adding tasks.

What does agentic AI look like in a customer-facing public sector context?

It could be a “citizen agent” that can receive a complex enquiry (about benefits or compliance, for example), gather information from multiple systems, draft a response, and escalate to a human if needed, all while logging actions for audit and learning. As long as teams have robust governance in place, this could be the next frontier for public sector AI and a hugely improved customer experience.

4) ViDA: accelerating VAT digitalization in consultation with businesses

The EU’s VAT in the Digital Age (ViDA) initiative is driving forward e-invoicing as the global standard for VAT compliance. We expect to see adoption accelerating in 2026.

Through the initiative, tax authorities are aiming to close the tax gap by gaining access to better quality data. Countries such as Spain, Italy, Portugal and Greece report major gains in VAT compliance after adoption.

At the 2025 Intra-European Organisation of Tax Administration (IOTA) conference, officials and industry experts (including Capgemini) from 17 countries shared experiences and insights on real-time economy development and ViDA.

What’s the key to successful VAT digitalization?

The countries making the most progress are those that have spent time working directly with businesses, understanding their processes. They have then adapted rollouts based on real operational constraints.

To avoid unnecessary burden on businesses, especially small ones, the OECD’s latest guidance on digital continuous transactional reporting (DCTR) suggests countries should only ask for the data they really need.

Further, they should use common e-invoicing standards that work together, and give businesses enough time and stable technical rules before changes go live.

A strong theme from across Europe is the importance of early consultation with small traders who still rely on paper. For these groups, the shift to structured e-invoicing is significant.

It is clear here that engagement helps identify practical barriers (such as system costs or workflow changes) before they become adoption blockers.

Representatives at the IOTA conference also highlighted the need to prepare for behavioral shifts: real-time VAT compliance changes how businesses operate day-to-day, not just how they report.

How will ViDA make a difference for businesses, citizens and tax authorities?

Done well, ViDA should make VAT simpler and more predictable.

For businesses, it means fewer duplicate requests, fewer corrections, and more certainty
For tax authorities, it provides better quality data to support decision-making
For customers, it means a compliance experience that feels seamless and more aligned with the digital services they use elsewhere.

5) The real-time economy: embedding tax in everyday transactions

Tax authorities are adopting real-time economy models – see FAQS, below. These are enabling them to move away from static, periodic returns.

In the real-time economy, tax agencies can draw on live data from invoicing systems, payment providers, customs channels and social welfare platforms. In short, tax becomes part of everyday digital processes rather than a separate task.

How will tax and customs benefit from real-time data models?

Real-time data gives tax authorities a clearer picture of economic activity. It also reduces the need for repetitive reporting.

That’s not all. Real-time data makes it easier to identify errors early, improves accuracy, and creates opportunities for future pre-fill. These are small but meaningful wins for customer experience.

What are the building blocks of a real-time data economy model?

To make this work, authorities need modern, interoperable and secure data infrastructure. Additionally, the move to real-time reporting may depend as much on culture and trust as on technology.

In highly digital, cash-light economies, the shift happens faster because people are used to data being shared between systems.

In more cash-based or privacy-sensitive cultures, authorities need to invest more heavily in communication and safeguards to build confidence.

How does real-time reporting affect businesses?

Tax authorities will need to support businesses as they adapt to new expectations around transparency, speed and data quality.

As data becomes more immediate, models such as split payments (where the VAT amount of a payment is withheld from the seller and sent direct to the tax authority) may reduce fraud but can also affect small-business cash flow.

Some countries have chosen to restrict this model to specific industries and businesses, with small businesses being exempt. Once again, engaging with industry early may help navigate any unintended negative impacts.

What impact will real-time reporting have on tax customers?

For customers, the real-time economy promises fewer forms, faster refunds, and less duplication between government systems.

Real-time validation can reduce errors at the point of filing, while consistent data standards mean businesses don’t need to provide the same information twice.

Over time, this creates a tax system that feels more connected, predictable and efficient than ever before.

Conclusion –– how AI and modern technology are reducing friction in tax and customs

These five trends –– modern data foundations, robust AI governance, AI innovation, VAT digitalization and the real-time economy –– reflect the momentum toward seamless, trustworthy tax and customs services.

Digital transformation isn’t just a technology challenge. It’s about improving people’s experience: reducing friction, supporting compliance, and giving staff the tools they need to serve effectively.

Authorities that build strong foundations and invest in user-centered, well-governed innovation will be best positioned to unlock the full value of digital investment.

Authors

“Technology offers so much that can transform effectiveness and improve outcomes in tax and customs. I work to bridge borders and connect communities, sharing examples of leading practice and innovation that authorities can apply in the context of their own digital transformation journeys.”

“We transform how taxpayers and businesses manage their payments through innovative, secure, and reliable digital solutions. We bring deep knowledge of payment flows, open banking and user needs to streamline payments. Our work helps our clients improve accuracy and deliver payment experiences that feel modern, seamless, and trusted.”

“We combine deep expertise in digital tax services, agile delivery, and data‑driven product strategy to help organizations modernize at pace. Our focus is on simplifying complexity, improving compliance journeys, and delivering high‑performing digital services that meet the needs of citizens, agents, and businesses.”

Portrait of Karl Heinz Krug with backdrop highlighting public finance and technology integration.

“I am passionate about tax and public finance and how technology and digitalization can improve governments’ ability to improve taxpayers’ experience, revenue collection and government spending. The core areas of ministries of finance, such as tax, customs, budget and financial markets, are the focus of my interest. I help my clients address their biggest challenges by providing best-in-class technology solutions.”

“Digital technologies have the power to reshape how tax and customs authorities operate and serve society. My role is to connect ideas, regions, and practitioners—highlighting proven innovations and practical approaches that organizations can adapt to advance their own digital transformation agendas.”