Key Takeaways
- •Embedded tax reduces filing time to under 30 minutes.
- •April built first new national tax engine in 15 years.
- •Real-time tax insights integrate with banking, payroll, wealth platforms.
- •API enables instant tax planning for stock sales, paycheck optimization.
- •Partnerships focus on fintechs, neobanks, payroll services, not consumers.
Pulse Analysis
In this episode, Ben Borodach, founder and CEO of April, explains how his company is reshaping the tax landscape by embedding tax functionality directly into everyday financial products. April launched the first nationally licensed tax engine in over a decade, leveraging AI and a modern data architecture to deliver a faster, cheaper alternative to traditional filing solutions. By positioning tax as a core component of banking, payroll, and wealth‑management apps, April addresses a fragmented market where four legacy firms dominate 80% of returns, creating a sizable opportunity for fintech innovators.
The technical feat behind April’s platform lies in building a tax engine from scratch that can process federal, state, and complex filings such as K‑1s and RSUs in real time. Using an API‑first approach, the company feeds live transaction data into its engine, enabling instant tax impact calculations for events like private‑market stock sales or paycheck adjustments. Partnerships with NASDAQ Private Market and Gusto illustrate how real‑time insights empower users to optimize withholdings, avoid over‑paying the IRS, and make informed financial decisions without leaving their primary app.
For businesses, April’s B2B model offers a differentiated value‑add: a seamless, embedded tax experience that reduces average filing time from eight hours to under 30 minutes while lowering costs. This integration drives higher engagement on fintech platforms, improves customer retention, and opens new revenue streams through premium CPA‑style services. As embedded finance matures, turning a once‑annual, burdensome task into a continuous, data‑driven service could become a standard expectation, reshaping personal finance and expanding the role of fintech in everyday money management.
Episode Description
I don’t know anyone who enjoys filing their taxes. It is something we begrudgingly do every April, or earlier for the well-organized, and it is usually a somewhat painful exercise. What if filing your taxes was easy, taking less than 30 minutes? What if tax planning wasn't a once-a-year chore but an embedded feature in your banking app, payroll platform, or investment account?
In this episode, I sit down with Ben Borodach, founder and CEO of april, the first company to build a nationally licensed tax engine in over 15 years. Ben shares how april is transforming tax from an annual burden into real-time financial intelligence, partnering with banks, fintechs, and payroll platforms to embed tax services directly into the financial tools Americans already use. We discuss the massive technical challenge of building tax infrastructure from scratch, why embedded tax makes sense for financial institutions, and how bringing tax decisions to the point of transaction, whether selling stock, adjusting payroll withholding, or buying a home, can fundamentally change how people manage their financial lives.
In this podcast you will learn:
How he came to the idea of building a fintech company focused on tax.
How april was incubated inside Team8.
Why they decided to create an embedded tax solution rather than go direct to consumer.
What their product offering does.
How they are helping consumers to think about taxes beyond once a year.
The three categories of companies they are focused on.
Why banks should be offering tax services to their customers.
Why being integrated into the banking cores is not a high priority right now.
How april is different to the big tax providers, TurboTax and H&R Block.
How their customers present the tax offerings.
What it means to be a nationally licensed e-file provider.
How they integrate with the IRS and the state tax agencies.
How they are leveraging the growth of embedded finance.
What is involved from a technology perspective to integrate with april.
How he thinks about tax policy, as a tax infrastructure company.
Ben’s vision for april.
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Show Notes
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