Shell TaxTax Support Journey

A new way of working

Tax SupportJourney.

From a question to a reviewed answer, with the right people involved.

Explore the journey
September 2026 / Internal review copyAI assists. Tax remains accountable.

Contents

The journey
at a glance.

How to ask for support, track the work and equip Tax Advisors with a more capable assistant.

Asking for tax support

Asking for tax support

Back to journey

Start with
Ask Tax.

People in Shell's Business, Finance and other functions can go to Ask Tax for self-service tax support. They explain their question and share the facts so Ask Tax can provide guidance or identify when a Tax Advisor is needed.
Ask Tax in Copilot Studio loads its routing skill and uses SharePoint actions to create the dossier and save the request.

Asking for tax support

Back to journey

Get self-service
support.

Ask Tax assesses what help the requester needs. For straightforward questions, it consults relevant specialist agents and brings their guidance together. When human involvement is needed, it recommends a support level and hands the request over to the Tax support process.
Copilot Studio displays Ask Tax's generated response and workflow receipt. The receipt confirms submission, not completed tax advice.

Asking for tax support

Back to journey

Keep a
tax dossier.

Ask Tax creates a Tax Dossier containing the requester's original question, supporting information and handoff summary. The Tax Advisor can then pick up the case with its context, while subsequent drafts and records stay together.
SharePoint lists the request, routing records, handoff summary and workflow receipt created through Ask Tax's file actions, linked by a common case reference.

Asking for tax support

Back to journey

Confirm who
should help.

After handoff, Tax Support Orchestration reassesses the request and determines the handling route. At L2, Tax Assist prepares work for advisor review. At L3, a Tax Advisor leads; at L4, tax leadership leads. Ask Tax's recommendation informs this decision but does not determine it.
Copilot Studio's GitHub Harness workflow shows classification and conditional routing to L2, L3, L4 or triage. This designer view is not evidence of a completed run.

Asking for tax support

Back to journey

Orchestrate
tax support.

When the requester needs more than self-service guidance, Ask Tax hands the request and case context to Tax Support Orchestration. The workflow coordinates assessment and the appropriate next steps, while the Tax team remains responsible for review and follow-up.
Illustrative placeholder for the Copilot Studio conversation showing Ask Tax invoking the GitHub Harness-based Tax Support Orchestration workflow. This is not a captured conversation or execution result.

Asking for tax support

Back to journey

Tracking of
tax support.

Tax leadership reviews incoming requests, support levels and case progress to understand demand and identify work needing attention. The handling advisor remains responsible for the next action; an acknowledgement or prepared draft does not mean the requester has received an answer.
Tax AI Tracker displays captured conversation and case metrics with filters. This snapshot predates the Treasury example shown in the journey.

Assisting with tax work.

Assisting with tax work

Back to journey

Delegate to
Tax Assist.

A Tax Advisor can give Tax Assist a task directly or continue work started through the L2 support process. The advisor defines the required output, case material and approval limits; Tax Assist carries out the preparation within that brief.
A saved Copilot Cowork prompt specifies changes, file preservation and send approval. This is a later follow-up task, not the original preparation instruction.

Assisting with tax work

Back to journey

Bring together
the facts.

Tax Assist brings together the available case information and highlights gaps. The Tax Advisor checks those gaps and asks the requester, Treasury or other relevant colleagues for clarification, keeping confirmed facts separate from assumptions.
The PDF viewer displays the request stored in the SharePoint Tax Dossier. This is source material, not a new Cowork response.

Assisting with tax work

Back to journey

Research
the tax question.

Tax Assist uses available approved sources and relevant research skills to help investigate the question. The Tax Advisor checks the authority, relevance and currency of the evidence and resolves source gaps before taking a tax position.
Copilot Cowork shows an IBFD research skill and dossier-file reads. The draft reports unavailable authoritative guidance; invoking the skill does not demonstrate successful research.

Assisting with tax work

Back to journey

Prepare
the working draft.

Tax Assist turns the assignment and available evidence into a working briefing, checklist or analysis for the Tax Advisor. Practical guidance is separated from supporting detail, with missing facts and unresolved tax questions kept visible for review.
Word displays v0.1 generated by Copilot Cowork, with its case reference, version and draft status. Supporting analysis and source limitations remain in the document.

Assisting with tax work

Back to journey

Review and
improve it.

The Tax Advisor checks the work and gives Tax Assist specific corrections. Tax Assist prepares a revised version while retaining earlier drafts. The advisor reviews the changes and returns to the requester or relevant sources when information is still missing.
Teams displays the review response and AI-assisted notes against the draft. Conditions for sharing and outstanding tax approvals are recorded separately.

Assisting with tax work

Back to journey

Approve
the next action.

The Tax Advisor checks the exact document, recipient and proposed message before authorising the next action. Tax Assist may prepare a send or meeting invitation, but approval to share material remains separate from approval of the underlying tax position.
Copilot Cowork displays a pending Send approval for a Teams invitation linked to v1.0. The screenshot shows an approval request, not delivery.

Assisting with tax work

Back to journey

Keep
the record.

The Tax Advisor ensures the request, supporting material and document versions remain together in the Tax Dossier. They also record what was reviewed, what was sent and who owns outstanding actions, so another advisor can understand and continue the case.
SharePoint lists the case files and separate draft versions. This view does not confirm that review notes were filed, the answer was delivered or the case was closed.

Assisting with tax work

Back to journey

Tracking of
tax work.

Tax leadership uses the work tracker to understand what advisors delegate to Tax Assist and where tasks need attention. Advisors use the underlying records to follow up on their work; leadership uses recurring gaps to prioritise improvements to skills, sources and support.
Tax Work Tracker uses 22 Cowork tasks and 70 public messages captured in September 2026, including skill and tool metadata. This is one test account, not Shell-wide production data.

Powering Progress for Shell Tax.

Powering Progress

Back to journey

Suggested roadmap
for 2027

Tax leadership selects the first use cases, names accountable owners and agrees a controlled pilot with IT. Tax Advisors test the work and review its quality before wider adoption. Expansion depends on demonstrated value, reliable operation and effective controls; the dates remain proposed planning targets.

  1. Q4 2026

    Start a controlled pilot

    Choose advisors, tasks and owners. Agree access, data rules and budget. Train users to brief and review. Make the L2 handoff and recovery reliable.

    Lead: Tax sponsor and IT

    Before growingCases complete reliably. Access tests pass. Measure time, review effort, quality and cost.

  2. Q1 2027

    Improve the sources

    Add approved Shell guidance and external research. Fix access and licence gaps. Test skills for briefings, research and document checks.

    Lead: Tax source and skill owners, with IT

    Before growingSources are current and traceable. Advisors can see missing facts and unverified points.

  3. Q2 2027

    Add business data

    Start with one trusted set of legal-entity and intercompany finance data. Use supported Power BI access first. Keep source dates and owners clear.

    Lead: Tax, Finance data owners and IT

    Before growingFigures reconcile to the source systems. Entity links are right. Restricted data stays restricted.

  4. Q3 2027

    Allow more tasks

    Add selected actions, such as case updates and approved follow-up. Agree who may act, what needs approval and how to recover from failure.

    Lead: Tax process owners, IT and control owners

    Before growingPermissions and approval rules work. Actions are recorded. Failures can be stopped and recovered.

  5. Q4 2027

    Extend what works

    Bring proven tasks to more advisors and tax teams. Keep training, support, skill checks and access reviews in place.

    Lead: Tax leadership and service owners

    Scale with evidenceShow value after review time and running costs, with acceptable quality and control results.

About the case, screenshots and roadmap

September 27 text review: all chapter screenshots are temporarily replaced with placeholders. Captions remain for editing; the case and screenshot notes below describe the backed-up version, not images displayed in this copy. Original image files are retained.

The case screenshots all come from TD-362BFE12A2A1, the France-Belgium Treasury loan request sent on 22 September 2026. The routing view shows the Tax Support Orchestration workflow itself, and the Tax AI Tracker screenshots were taken earlier the same day, so they do not include this case. The cover is a Shell sign photograph supplied for this page.

Screenshots keep their original pixels, wording and application branding; nothing was reconstructed or altered. Where an application scrolls, a screenshot shows the part that matters for that step. Share only with an authorised audience.

The Orchestrate tax support image is an explicitly labelled illustrative mockup, locally rendered from orchestration-placeholder.html. It is not a captured conversation or execution result and will be replaced when the real screenshot is supplied.

The review was prepared with AI assistance and says so in its notes. The Teams invite was prepared but not sent. Rate sign-off and IFP/TMFC approval remain open, and the documents state no tax conclusions.

  • Ask Tax conversation: h-treasury-asktax-maker-request.png; h-treasury-asktax-maker-response.png.
  • Orchestration placeholder: orchestration-placeholder.png. Illustrative mockup / screenshot pending; not runtime evidence.
  • Tax Dossier: h-treasury-dossier.png; h-treasury-dossier-tiles.png.
  • Cover: title-bg.avif.
  • Workflow: SCR-20260922-jmvh.png; SCR-20260922-noqs.png (L2 designer, marked Draft).
  • Tax Assist draft: h-treasury-cowork.png.
  • Tax Advisor review: h-treasury-teams-review-completed.png. The earlier review-request screenshot is retained with the backed-up asking sections.
  • Final version and Teams invite: h-treasury-cowork-meeting-invite.png.
  • Tax AI Tracker: dashboard-overview-dark.png; dashboard-conversations-dark.png; dashboard-about-the-data-dark.png.
  • Tax Work Tracker: tax-work/overview.png; tax-work/work-register.png. Full-page captures of the working offline dashboard, with all 22 selected tax tasks and no extra filters.

The Assisting with tax work chapter follows the same case through seven working steps, using the original preparation task and the later advisor follow-up task. Its assignment and correction captures (h-advisor-assignment.png and h-advisor-feedback.png) were taken read-only on September 23 from the saved conversation; no new prompt or approval was submitted. It also uses h-treasury-original-request.png and h-treasury-word-draft.png, plus the other case screenshots. The source-check step shows the reported research gap, not successful external research. These views explain the work; they are not one uninterrupted workflow run.

The review was AI-assisted, the workflow needed manual recovery, and the invite was not sent. The dossier view confirms files, not saved review notes or delivery. The roadmap describes the controls and source access still needed for wider use.

The roadmap is a proposal for Shell adoption, not a funded programme or a Microsoft release plan. Platform facts were checked against Microsoft Learn on September 23, 2026: Work IQ, Fabric IQ, Foundry IQ, Fabric IQ in Cowork, the GitHub Harness Foundry IQ connection, Entra Agent ID, Cowork governance and the Purview support matrix. Source links and approval boundaries are recorded in design decision D87.

The Tracking of tax work chapter uses a separate Cowork snapshot: 57 tasks inventoried, 27 within the creation-date period and 22 tax-related tasks included. Five non-tax or confirmation-only tasks and 30 older tasks were excluded. The collection excludes thinking and raw tool payloads. See D88 for source checks and limits. No task, send or approval was executed for the dashboard.

Process references: the project overview, implementation plan, D81-D88 decisions and the journey capture record. All notifications are restricted to Pascal. Visual direction draws on Harvey's editorial style; no Harvey assets or logos are included. Navigation symbols use Lucide icon geometry.

Screenshot