Tackling State-to-State Domestic Withholding with Topia

As a growing company with offices in several states and countries, Watlow constantly has employees on the road. Mike Buescher, Watlow’s Director of Global Tax, struggled to manage the tax challenges created by all of that travel.

What was a minor headache became a major issue in 2013, just after Watlow acquired a company based in California. “We had an unusually high amount of travel and we knew it was going to be continuing. That was the impetus to look for a solution,” says Buescher.

Business travelers were creating substantial exposures for Watlow, but managing those exposures was a time consuming process. Watlow prides itself on running lean and the payroll and tax teams simply didn’t have time to document and manage the exposures manually. They tried coordinating with the company’s travel department to download all of the company’s travel, but knew they needed a better system. “It was not a fun job,” says Jim Arnold, Tax Manager at Watlow. “We were doing a manual process and it just wasn’t very efficient.”

Furthermore, many company executives weren’t even aware that travel was creating tax exposures. “While the VP of HR and the CFO were certainly aware of it, we had to do a lot of education for everybody else,” explains Buescher. Travel was creating liabilities for both the company and its employees; the problem had to be addressed.