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AI is changing how junior tax practitioners research and learn. The challenge is ensuring they can check sources, question conclusions and understand how an answer has been reached.
AI has made tax knowledge much easier to access, with its ability to search legislation, summarise guidance, analyse documents and produce a first draft in seconds. This gives junior practitioners exposure to more complex research, compliance and advisory work much earlier in their careers.
That access brings clear benefits. It can help new professionals understand unfamiliar topics, organise their thinking and move through routine work more efficiently. It can also give them a useful starting point when they are faced with a technical question for the first time.
While junior practitioners can find an answer quicker, that doesn’t mean it is accurate, properly sourced and relevant to the client’s circumstances.
Our February 2026 survey of 446 tax professionals from the UK and Ireland found that 66% see verification and source-checking as the biggest skills gap among junior practitioners. This placed it ahead of deep tax reasoning and argumentation, selected by 58%.
AI is already widely used across tax work. Some 84% of respondents use it for tax research, while 68% use it for knowledge management, 67% for document analysis, 65% for drafting internal communications and 64% for drafting client documents.
Among those using AI, 53% said they are producing work faster and 32% said it is helping them produce higher-quality work.
For experienced practitioners, AI can reduce repetitive work and create more time for analysis, review and client conversations.
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For junior practitioners, the same tools that speed up research may also reduce the amount of time they spend working through and properly understanding the material.
Jane MacKay, Tax Partner at Crowe, describes the risk clearly:
“There is a risk that juniors bypass foundational learning, such as navigating primary legislation, building technical structure and developing critical scepticism.”
The slower parts of tax work have traditionally played an important role in professional development. Tracing legislation, reconciling HMRC guidance, reviewing tribunal decisions and testing calculations all help practitioners understand how a conclusion has been reached.
They also expose practitioners to ambiguity. Tax questions do not always have a single, neatly defined answer. The right conclusion may depend on incomplete facts, competing interpretations or the weight given to different sources.
Ian Bowden, Tax Partner at BDO, says this work helps build technical confidence and professional judgement:
“When AI handles foundational tasks, juniors naturally do less of the ‘heavy lifting’ that historically built muscle memory: tracing schedules, reconciling balances, tying out source numbers, performing manual calculations and researching in primary sources.”
The underlying problem is that junior practitioners may become comfortable reviewing a polished answer without being able to reconstruct the reasoning behind it.
Bowden describes the risk directly:
“The danger is we could create a generation of professionals who can review AI output but cannot independently reconstruct the logic behind it.”
Source-checking is sometimes treated as a final step, completed once the substantive analysis is finished. In practice, verification is part of the analysis itself.
Practitioners need to ask where a conclusion came from, whether the source remains current, how much authority it carries and whether it actually supports the point being made.
They also need to distinguish between different types of source. Primary legislation, case law, HMRC guidance, commentary and generated explanation do not carry the same weight.
Even where AI provides citations, those sources still need to be opened, read and assessed. A cited response is easier to verify, but it is not automatically correct.
This helps explain why 74% of respondents are concerned about inaccurate or fabricated outputs, while 53% are worried about over-reliance. A further 44% raised concerns about data confidentiality.
Paul Aplin, President of the Chartered Institute of Taxation, warns that junior practitioners may lose the experience they will later need to assess AI-assisted work at a more senior level:
“There is a real danger that using AI in some tasks will deprive junior staff of the very experience they will need in order to assess the accuracy and reliability of AI output when they progress to more senior roles.”
Verification therefore needs to be developed deliberately. Junior practitioners should be expected to show their sources, explain their assumptions and identify any uncertainty in the answer.
The answer is not to keep junior practitioners away from AI.
Almost two-thirds of respondents, 63%, said AI should be treated as a “thinking partner” rather than a shortcut.
Used in this way, AI can help practitioners identify possible issues, structure an initial analysis, compare interpretations and locate relevant sources. It can also challenge an initial view or point towards an area that may have been overlooked.
The practitioner still needs to test the output and reach the final conclusion.
MacKay says this distinction has shaped Crowe’s approach:
“We’ve focused on guidance, training and positioning AI as a first-pass tool rather than an answer engine.”
Trust also improves when AI is grounded in reliable material. Some 71% of respondents said they feel more confident using AI grounded in tax sources.
That confidence is understandable. Trusted sources make it easier to trace an answer and understand how it has been constructed.
Even then, verification remains necessary. As Adrian Hextall, Director at S&W, explains:
“It may be able to do the research for you, but the results must be proofed before they are used.”
AI is making tax knowledge faster to find and easier to navigate. The next challenge is ensuring junior practitioners continue to develop the judgement needed to assess it.
Technical knowledge remains essential. Its value will increasingly be shown through the ability to verify, interpret and apply it with confidence.
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