Talking Shop: Looking for Solutions To Optimize Global Tax Payments

# Payments

# Technology

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Member question: “We are working to centralize and optimize global statutory and tax payments. What kind of solutions do you have in place? “Entities will have unique tax restrictions, so we will need various solutions depending on the region and country. We’re hoping to understand what kind of solutions you may have uncovered or already have in place.

“Does your company have a centralized process for managing global tax payments?

“What types of applications or payment types are used for processing tax payments (centralized or not)?

“For countries with no tax payment solutions through your primary or local banking portal, or regulations requiring payments via check or mandated to be made by local employees, what solutions have you come up with to try and streamline the process?”

Peer answer 1: “We do not, but it has been a space that we have also looked to incorporate more into our standard payment processes. Today, they still tend to make payments through bank portals or even use checks when wanting to combine with a document.

“We have explored how to include the documents with an electronic payment as well as how to link the electronic payment with the underlying document submission. We have not found any great solutions so I will be watching for other ideas.”

Peer answer 2: “Our US tax department is looking into an improved process—currently they use a bank portal that is quite manual. They heard about a provider called Anybill that we are going to research further.

“Coincidentally, I just heard that our Brazil tax team is also looking to find some efficiencies in this space. They have identified Dootax as a potential service provider. A global provider would be ideal, but not sure yet if one exists. Definitely interested in hearing what others have to say.”

Peer answer 3: “We have a decentralized process. We use a combination of checks, ACH debits by some taxing authority and ACH credits initiated from our banking portals, for tax payments in the US.

“For countries where no tax payment solutions exist, we leverage PwC or other such providers that offer tax payments on behalf of clients. It’s a lot more disjointed than we’d like, as all our divisions make their own tax payments, and we don’t have a common solution for any given tax authority.”