Preparing partners' tax returns is not sexy and not remotely strategic, but in a multinational firm with hundreds of partners and dozens of permutations of home/foreign jurisdictions, it can amount to a serious headache and distraction for financial-department personnel who could be doing things that might be more interesting than keeping the auditors at bay.

According to Deloitte, as much as 70% of the work involved is done manually; technology now is mature enough to cut that by 30-40%, according to this article.

It's not sexy and it's not going to win your CFO a promotion, but it's all part of "making the trains run on time" as efficiently and transparently to the partnership as possible.