Which outsourced firms handle business tax and compliance?
Business Tax and Compliance: The Firms The Shortlist Report Finds
2 firms lead, appearing in 26.4–28.9% of 235 AI responses. The sample cannot separate them, so we do not pretend it can.
Two firms lead
PwC and KPMG come up most often here. They are close enough together that the order between them is not worth reading anything into.
PwC68 of 235
Provides finance transformation, accounting operations, vendor financial due diligence, and CFO services for mid-market enterprises and private-equity-backed businesses.
KPMG62 of 235
Provides full finance managed services, M&A advisory, financial diligence, and transaction support for mid-market and enterprise clients.
Based on 235 ChatGPT responses to this question, collected August 11, 2026–October 1, 2026. Firms are counted once per response. How we measure.
The ranking
| Firm | Responses | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 2 firms, 26.4–28.9% | |||
| PwCProvides finance transformation, accounting operations, vendor financial due diligence, and CFO services for mid-market enterprises and private-equity-backed businesses. | 68 of 235 | 28.9% | |
| KPMGkpmg.comProvides full finance managed services, M&A advisory, financial diligence, and transaction support for mid-market and enterprise clients. | 62 of 235 | 26.4% | |
| Tier 2 4 firms, 20.4–22.6% | |||
| Deloittedeloitte.comOffers full finance-function outsourcing, automation, controllership, and transformation for mid-market and enterprise clients. | 53 of 235 | 22.6% | |
| EYProvides finance transformation, accounting operations, and full-cycle consolidation with multi-GAAP reporting for larger companies and complex structures. | 51 of 235 | 21.7% | |
| BDOProvides bookkeeping, accounting, reporting, FP&A, and finance transformation for mid-market companies. | 50 of 235 | 21.3% | |
| RSMProvides accounting, FP&A, controllership, and CFO services to growing middle-market businesses and PE-backed companies. | 48 of 235 | 20.4% | |
| Tier 3 4 firms, 14.5–18.3% | |||
| Grant Thorntongrantthornton.luProvides outsourced accounting, advisory, tax, and finance transformation services for mid-market and larger companies. | 43 of 235 | 18.3% | |
| Novaricnovaricgroup.com | 43 of 235 | 18.3% | |
| TaxJartaxjar.com | 36 of 235 | 15.3% | |
| NavatusProvides R&D tax credit studies and IRS examination support for businesses and accounting firms. | 34 of 235 | 14.5% | |
Key findings
- PwC and KPMG lead this sample, each named in 26.4–28.9% of 235 ChatGPT responses to the question “Which outsourced firms handle business tax and compliance?”, collected August 11, 2026–October 1, 2026.
- The gaps between PwC and KPMG are inside the margin of error at 235 responses, so The Shortlist Report groups them in one tier rather than ranking them against each other.
- 10 firms cleared the reporting threshold on “Which outsourced firms handle business tax and compliance?” in ChatGPT as of October 1, 2026; the full table with response counts is below.
- Deloitte appears in 6 of the 14 fractional CFO and outsourced accounting firms reports published by The Shortlist Report, the widest coverage of any firm named on this page.
- No firm paid to appear in this ranking; placement cannot be bought, and the counts come from ChatGPT responses rather than from submissions.
Why the tiers fall where they do
Tier 1 holds PwC and KPMG, named in 62 to 68 of the 235 ChatGPT responses. They are grouped rather than ranked because the gaps between them are inside the margin of error at this sample size — one extra mention would reorder them, so an order would be reporting noise as a finding.
Tier 2 holds Deloitte, EY, BDO and RSM, named in 48 to 53 of 235 responses (20.4–22.6%). The sample does separate these firms from the tier above: the difference from the leading group is larger than the margin of error, which is what puts them in a tier of their own.
Tier 3 holds Grant Thornton, Novaric, TaxJar and Navatus, named in 34 to 43 of 235 responses (14.5–18.3%). The sample does separate these firms from the tier above: the difference from the leading group is larger than the margin of error, which is what puts them in a tier of their own.
The test is McNemar’s at 95%, applied against the same 235 responses for every firm. The full reasoning, and what happened when we ranked one-to-N instead.
What the sample shows
2 firms lead this question: PwC and KPMG. They appear in 26.4–28.9% of the 235 responses. The gaps between them are inside the margin of error at this sample size, so they are listed together rather than ranked against each other.
513 firms were named at least once across the sample. 10 of them cleared the threshold of 2 responses and appear above; the rest were named once and are inside the noise.
How to read this
Firms are grouped into tiers, not ranked one to fifteen. A tier holds every firm whose 95% confidence interval overlaps the leader's, which is a long way of saying the sample cannot tell them apart. Order within a tier is arbitrary — read the counts, not the position.
Share is the percentage of responses that named the firm — not a quality score. A firm scoring low here may be excellent and simply under-written about online, which is a finding about its visibility rather than its work.
The same question was asked repeatedly because AI assistants do not answer identically twice. A single response would tell you almost nothing.
What this measurement does not tell you
- It is not a quality ranking. Share reflects how much has been written about a firm online, which is what an AI assistant reads. A capable firm nobody writes about scores low here.
- It is a reading from a date range, not a permanent standing. This sample was collected August 11, 2026–October 1, 2026; models change and so do their answers.
- It covers ChatGPT only. Other assistants answer differently, and we do not extrapolate across engines we have not measured.
- Order within a tier is arbitrary. Read the counts, not the position. Why we use tiers.
Cite this report
The Shortlist Report. (2026). Business Tax and Compliance: The Firms The Shortlist Report Finds. The Shortlist Report. https://www.shortlistreport.com/article/outsourced-tax-and-compliance
Underlying counts: CSV · JSON. Every answer they were counted from: plain text · JSON. All reusable under CC BY 4.0 with attribution.