Designing a digital tax form for RBC Wealth Management clients
What is the W-8BEN-E Tax Form?
A W-8-BEN-E tax form is an American tax form that is completed by Canadian business owners who have income from the U.S. The purpose is to reduce or eliminate withholding tax on their income.
What was my role in this project?
I led the end-to-end design of a new experience for tax forms by transforming complex legal requirements into a clear, user-friendly interface. By collaborating closely with legal, product and engineering teams, I spearheaded a newly designed tax form to improve completion rates and reduce client support requests at RBC.
In order to move towards digitization, the bank’s business goal is to digitize physical forms that users have to manually complete, including the W8-BEN-E tax form.
Before the redesign, the tax form existed in a PDF format with 4 pages of information that clients have to manually complete.
Who and what does the W-8BEN-E tax form impact?
Before starting the designs, I communicated with the legal team to ensure that I had a good understanding of legal constraints.
The business goals are focused on digitizing forms, reducing client support inquiries, and boosting form completion rates.
Research revealed that the tax form makes users feel confused and overwhelmed due to the unorganized user flow, complex legal jargon, and unclear interface.
With the problem and goal in mind, how might we design an intuitive tax form that is quick to complete, easy to understand, and user-friendly?
Our design goals are focused on solving the above problems by enhancing the experience through a personalized flow, contextual help, and refined visual design.
We collaborated closely with legal, product, and development stakeholders to ensure tax compliance, business alignment, and technical feasibility.
Iterations were done collaboratively by receiving feedback from the PM and guidance from the legal team to pinpoint a design direction that provides the most value for users.
We prioritized a responsive design for a seamless experience across devices, making it accessible for on-the-go mobile users while maintaining full functionality on desktop.
After our final iterations, the following prototype wraps up the end of the design phase.
The redesign led to a more scalable, compliant, and user-friendly tax form experience, delivering operational efficiencies and supporting key business and client outcomes.
An impactful design comes from clear communication with stakeholders, strong collaboration with teammates, and understanding both user and business needs.
