“Converting to Tax Series has enabled Omnicom to lower our international tax
compliance cost and has provided us with much more data and reports for both
planning and tax accounting.”
Travis Dowell-Assistant Director International Tax’
Omnicom Group Inc.
TTI has successfully provided international tax compliance solutions for
companies that own as many as 3,000 foreign entities while achieving cost
effective solutions for clients with as few as 30 foreign subsidiaries at the
same time. As expected, our larger clients require far more complex processing.
For such companies, we provide cost savings through automation of tax
processing. At the same time, we acknowledge that smaller companies frequently
struggle with their international tax compliance primarily due to a lack of
resources with the knowledge necessary to effectively overcome the inherent
complexities associated with preparing Forms 5471, 8865, and 8858.
We provide well-trained resources to ensure efficient and accurate processing
for any size company so that they can get the most value out of this already
cost-effective service. We also provide
hands on training
to help companies compensate for their lack of expertise or resources for
international tax compliance.
Provision Implementation
We recognize the importance of provision software.
Consequently, we do whatever is necessary to ensure all of
our provision clients get their implementation completed as fast as possible
without compromising the integrity of the data and processes. We have achieved
true global provision implementation for our clients in a very short period of
time. Our average implementation for U.S. Federal and State provision module
takes approximately two to three months (even for the largest companies with
over 300 U.S, companies).
Generally, non-U.S, provision (foreign provision) implementation comes soon
after the U.S. Federal and State implementation is completed. Thus, in most
cases, our implementation can be completed over the span of two quarters.
Provision Data Collection
For the most part, calculation of U.S. provision (US Federal and State) does not
require the use of a data collection tool. On the other hand, we support
non-U.S. provision computation using our data collection module as it supports
flexible yet complex local country tax liability computations. Although global
provision can be implemented without the benefit of data collection tool, the
flexibility to accommodate foreign provision computations in detail is being
viewed as great enhancement to most global implementations.
The data from data collection schedules is seamlessly
integrated into the global provision process with the simple click of a button.
At the same time, local controllers can review their own set of provision
reports for their entities so they can maintain deferred assets and liabilities,
review effective tax rates, produce journal entries, and maintain the tax
liability reconciliation.
Through interaction with compliance data collection and
existing data in various parts of Tax Series,
eDataCollector ensures that the same data
is not required more than once. Also, as Tax Series is a multi-year system, it
does not require users to maintain multiple sets of data, thereby avoiding the
tedious and confusing processes associated with multiple sets of data
maintenance.
Compliance Data Collection
TTI has successfully implemented data collection projects for large companies.
With modules flexible enough to support annual and quarterly data collections,
eDataCollector has proven to be an effective tool for our clients. For annual
data collection, we have, in some instances, as many as 1,000 users reporting
tax specific data for a single client globally. Our global implementation of
compliance data collections ranges from 30 to 1,000 users per client.
Using built-in task tracking and overall integration with all tax return
modules, our clients can pre-populate existing information on each entity’s
schedules (trial balance in local ledger format, exchange rates, account
balances from prior year, and so forth), automate adjustments, collect
look-through analysis data for the Subpart F analysis, collect intercompany
transaction data for Schedule M reporting, and other administrative information.
Quarterly data collection is used to produce quarterly projected financial
results (including that of controlled foreign corporations and their foreign tax
credit impact for planning and provision).
In most cases, a global data collection project can be completed in two to three
months from its inception. In smaller projects (less than 100 users worldwide),
implementation can be completed as quickly as two to three weeks.
Standard Return Processing
We have provided standard return processing services to
our clients. For example, we can proudly say that we have processed over 500
Form 5471s successfully for a single client. We have worked diligently to ensure
that we can provide the
resources, processes, and tools necessary to effectively process Form 5471s as a
cost effective and reliable service to our clients. As a testament to our
efforts and our clients’ success, we are expanding the standard return
processing service to support federal and state return processing as well.
e-File Validation
Over the years, we have found many instances of substantial discrepancies
between the content of the paper return and that of the transmission file
submitted to the IRS. We discovered these discrepancies by converting our
clients’ entire transmission file, which is mostly XML (essentially computer
programming code), into a far more legible format – PDF. Thereby, we have been
able to grant our clients the ability produce output that is compatible to that
of their paper return (on tax forms and spread schedules).
Some of our clients did not even know their transmission
file (tax return) suffered from non-inclusion of critical forms (such as Forms
5471, 8865, and 8858) until they became our client and had a chance to review
the content of transmission file after it was converted into PDF tax forms and
schedules. At the same time, the IRS has enhanced the enforcement of penalties
and started sending out automated notices of non-filing.
The IRS and all interested parties (primarily software vendors and professional
service providers) are working hard to come up with solutions to the issue of
discrepancy between paper return and e-filing. Currently, there is no better
solution available other than what we provide to our clients - having the
transmission file translated from its confusing XML format into a legible and
clear PDF format