Intaxication: The Red Moon Solutions Tax Blog

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Property Tax…A Different Animal?

Posted by Kelley Lear on May 15, 2013 in Compliance, Fixed Assets, Process Improvement, Property Tax, Software, States, Tax, Tax Planning | 0 comments

Most folks don’t realize what a different beast property tax compliance and payment processing is comparative to other tax types. In many tax departments that I deal with, this may be handled by a separate group altogether, accounting, or a subgroup of the regular tax department. As you know, Federal and State Income Tax and Sales & Use tax for example, typically provide for regular return processing that is calculated based on taxable income and processed through the return with a tax liability. There is also a component of either estimated payments for income tax or monthly payments in the instance of sales and use tax.

Business and Web 2.0 – From a Tax Pro Perspective?

Posted by Kelley Lear on May 9, 2013 in Innovation, IT, Process Improvement, Software | 0 comments

I love reading studies by my colleagues at the Big Four, Gartner and other great sources such as McKinsey & Company. Since the bulk of my reading often centers around tax, tax process, finance and other compliance and regulatory activity, I love it when I can delve into generic business topics or straight enterprise technology concepts. One recent article by McKinsey Quarterly, the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), and McKinsey practices titled “Business and Web 2.0: An interactive feature” provides a study with data points that spans six years. The study comprises of reaching out to the corporate community each year with an annual survey that asked pointed questions with respect to how businesses use new web technologies and tools. As this is pertinent to all business professionals out there, I thought I would share.

Tax Remittance Made Easy!

Posted by Kelley Lear on May 7, 2013 in Compliance, Process Improvement, Sales & Use Tax, Software, Tax | 0 comments

Most corporations have a great solution for their tax compliance solutions. These solutions work to automate the process of collecting, calculating and completing all the necessary corporate tax forms required to be filed with IRS and global, state and local taxing authorities. Some have even been bold enough to get a provision solution in place and integrate it with their general ledger or a data warehouse, to fully automate the provision to return process. However, one area where I still see folks still seeming to “piece meal” together a solution is tracking of and payment of tax and tax related fees and remittance. It is can be an extremely labor intensive process across many entities, many jurisdictions/localities and tax type (as well as non tax payments such as business licenses, etc.).

Email Lessons Learned

Posted by Kelley Lear on May 1, 2013 in Empowerment Series, Leadership | 0 comments

I just received a call from a tax pro out there in industry that just had the most frustrating thing happen to him. I thought I would share it with you all as I forget how frequently email can be abused out there. Even though email can be so efficient and effective in our business communications, it can also be misused and perhaps even abused. In fact, I would contend that poor email etiquette and email “culture” can be cancerous to morale and operations. It is important to treat this cancer immediately so that it does not spread and derail your operational effectiveness.

The story I am about to share however, also includes concepts in leadership skills and is a great example we can all learn from. I will keep the details in the abstract to protect the innocent (I did get permission to share the story though!).

Spreadsheet Jockeys Unite!

Posted by Kelley Lear on Apr 25, 2013 in Audit, Empowerment Series, IT, Process Improvement, Software, Tax, Training | 0 comments

Calling all spreadsheet jockeys…and yes, that does include all you tax pros out there. I just read a great article on spreadsheet errors. I know, I am sure I just made you all cringe. And probably wonder how I could put “great article” on “spreadsheet errors” in one sentence. As tax pros, we have been talking about this topic for many years as we all know that spreadsheets can be our lifeline as well as our bane. They are our savior and our curse. They are two sides of the same coin. With heightened audit scrutiny on spreadsheet exposure, most of us have defined procedures written into our SOX documentation and/or definitively written into our corporate risk management plans.

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Blog Authors

Jim Shedivy

Jim focuses on the long term strategy and the alliance opportunities for Red Moon Solutions, a privately held family business. He has over twenty years of experience in managing tax technology projects and businesses.

Kelley Lear

Kelley is a member of the executive leadership team and leads our sales and marketing efforts at Red Moon Solutions. Kelley’s extensive experience in project management, product management, and consulting with Fortune 500 and Global 1000 clients is extremely important in this role.

Susan Sabatini

Susan Sabatini is the Client Services Manager at Red Moon Solutions. She uses her project management experience and a client focus to ensure Red Moon Solutions’ clients have successful implementations. Susan also leads our client support team.

Traci Wheeler

Traci is a member of the executive leadership team and leads our sales and marketing efforts at Red Moon Solutions. She has over ten years of software business experience serving small and large clients in a variety of industries.