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Case Study

Optimize Your City Taxes Through Technology

The Challenge

This Topia client is a private equity firm headquartered in San Francisco.
The City of San Francisco, like many major US cities, imposes local taxes on revenue earned from employee activities performed within their city limits. In San Francisco, there are three combined taxes that can total up to 2.2% of total revenue, and it is up to the business to calculate their tax obligation and report it quarterly.

Due to the impacts of Covid, and subsequent transition to remote work, our client knew their employees were spending less time working in the city, but weren’t exactly sure how much. With less work being done in the city, it was possible the client was overpaying their tax obligation.

Our client needed an audit-defensible way to accurately determine how much time was being spent by each employee working in San Francisco, but also needed a solution that:

About Client

  • Private Equity Firm
  • 100+ Employees
  • Headquartered in San Francisco
  • $15B+ AUM
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The Solution

Our client needed a technology offering that would enable them to:

  • Accurately monitor employee working time within the city of San Francisco
  • Streamline tax calculations
  • Provide reliable data in the event of future audits

A manual approach would not provide the level of accuracy required to help our client achieve their goals. Learning of Topia’s success in helping organizations tackle local tax obligations in other cities, the client selected and began the implementation of Topia Compass.

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The Results

Every day without this information represented an additional day of potentially inaccuracies. As such, the Topia team was able to work with the client to deliver the solution within a month. Now, their finance team has the information to accurately calculate their San Francisco city tax obligations, ensuring accurate payment without adding extra work. Plus, they have the data to substantiate their reporting in the event of an audit.

Because of their Topia Compass solution, our client is able to prevent an overpayment of taxes, save a significant amount, and recognizing a full ROI in the first quarter of use, all while protecting their employee’s privacy.

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