In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic organisations are under increasing scrutiny. In this altered business landscape, and particularly for tax teams, agility is of paramount importance as demands for greater transparency and accountability from investors, regulators and other interest groups add resourcing pressure to tax teams to provide more information on top of their existing compliance obligations.

As tax risk governance sits with boards, tax teams are expected to play a pivotal role in assuring risk exposures are monitored, managed, and adequately reported.

This demand for more detailed and rapid reporting will continue to increase due to the market uncertainty caused by the pandemic and as governments seek to claw back budget deficits through taxation and to protect their revenue base.

The demands are even more significant for tax teams in organisations operating across multiple jurisdictions, which face a matrix of government and regulatory obligations that are driven by both local requirements and global measures like those from the OECD.

Keeping pace with advancements

One of the main challenges such firms must contend with is keeping pace with revenue authorities’ technology advancements, which are now deploying sophisticated digital tech and advanced analytics to improve tax administration and assessments and test and hypothesise tax compliance risks.

It’s against this complex and fast-shifting backdrop that Wolters Kluwer’s global expert solution for corporate tax teams and professional service firms, CCH Integrator, stands out from its peers. Its unique ability to seamlessly integrate the end-to-end tax workflow process ultimately frees the tax function from the complexity it’s often fraught with when working with multiple systems and spreadsheets.

As Andy Hung, Wolters Kluwer’s Segments Director, CCH Integrator, Tax and Accounting, Asia Pacific and Kim Olsen CA, Head of Product, Enterprise Software, Tax and Accounting, Asia Pacific, explain, the CCH Integrator tax platform helps organisations collaborate remotely, enables a single source of truth for decision making, and reduces risk with controls over accuracy and timely reporting.

The result, according to Hung and Olsen, is a transformation of the tax function leading to greater employee and customer engagement, improved business process efficiencies, and an uplift in quality and integrity of tax data for analysis, review, and reporting.

“CCH Integrator’s functionality means it automatically becomes your tax data management solution providing auditability, transparency, integrity and insight over your tax outcomes.”

Can you describe CCH Integrator’s transformational potential when it comes to tax compliance, tax reporting and tax data management?

Olsen: At its essence, CCH Integrator is a cloud-based tax reporting and tax compliance platform. More specifically, it can be described as a cloud-based automation tool that enterprises can use to manage the collection of tax data, and collaborate internally and externally. They can then use it to calculate their taxes and, finally, report that data. Inside the one platform, we have solutions for tax provision and direct tax compliance including corporate, trust, partnership, Australian funds and Australian Managed Investment Trusts. Additionally, we have a GST tax compliance solution and transfer pricing solutions for Australian Local File and Country by Country Reporting. Most recently, we launched CCH Integrator EasyLodge, an online solution that provides a hassle-free way to validate and electronically lodge the Australian tax compliance forms. It’s an efficient way for businesses and professional firms to meet their KPIs and deadlines and offers the potential of earlier access to you or your client’s tax refund.

Trusted by some of the world’s best-known enterprises, what sets CCH Integrator apart from other platforms?

Olsen: Notably, what CCH Integrator achieves is something different to many other tax reporting and compliance products on the market. That is, all of CCH Integrator’s solutions are housed on one platform. This means data collected for one purpose can be easily reused for multiple purposes. So, for instance, all the work you do to prepare your tax provision can be used for your tax return, which can also be used for your country by country reporting. As a result, customers have generated significant time savings. Another benefit, on this front, is that CCH Integrator becomes your single source of truth for tax purposes that can be reconciled to financial systems. Its integrated functionality means it automatically becomes your tax data management solution, so tax data held to determine your tax position can be used to influence and help other business decisions.

What about for businesses operating across multiple entities and jurisdictions?

Hung: CCH Integrator is ideal in a post-COVID business landscape in which many more people are engaged in flexible and remote working solutions. Indeed, in this regard, CCH Integrator is ideal to meet the changing nature of work. It contrasts, for instance, with many spreadsheet-based processes, which can be challenged by being disconnected to source data and the changing nature of work. The cloud-based nature of CCH Integrator also makes it easy to collaborate between advisor and client, across jurisdictions and entities. For large multi-jurisdiction organisations, in particular, it provides the necessary flexibility needed to adapt to the unique structures, systems and processes of these organisations balanced with the controls and standardisation needed to drive accuracy and efficiency. Overall, it leads to gains in efficiency and productivity and empowers the tax team with the deep business data the platform holds to focus on higher-level strategy.

Andy Hung

A self-described “tax geek” with qualifications in taxation, law and international studies, and a background in corporate advice and financial services, Hung has a depth of experience in transforming tax reporting functions. Today, as Segments Director, CCH Integrator, Tax and Accounting, Asia Pacific, at Wolters Kluwer, he brings his insight into ‘best practice’ technology transformations that facilitate end-to-end connectivity between corporations, advisers and regulators through the CCH Integrator platform.

Kim Olsen CA

After completing degrees in accounting and law, Olsen worked for a number of years as a tax adviser at EY before building a career with Wolters Kluwer around the world – New Zealand to Australia, a stint in the United Kingdom, and now back in NZ. In this time, she has developed a forensic understanding of Wolters Kluwer’s flagship compliance and reporting platform, CCH Integrator, and what the customer needs from their tax platform. Now as Head of Product, Enterprise Software, Tax and Accounting, Asia Pacific, Olsen has a clear vision of CCH Integrator as one of the leading corporate tax platforms in the world and what it will take to get there.

Find out more

To help start your tax technology transformation Wolters Kluwer have developed a Corporate Tax Technology Buying Guide. It will step you through all you need know.

Inside our complimentary guide you will discover how to:

• Recognise the signs that you’ve outgrown your existing tax processes or software.
• Determine the level of functionality required.
• Select a tax solution that best meets your business objectives.
• Successfully implement your new tax platform

To download the Corporate Tax Technology Buying Guide click here

For a discussion or CCH Integrator demo contact: [email protected] or 1300 300 224