TROY, N.Y. — (BUSINESS WIRE) — March 25, 2011 — Pitney Bowes Business Insight, a global leader in customer data, analytics and communication software and services, has formed an alliance with Second Decimal, LLC, a leader in the tax automation space, to provide several geospatial sales and use tax rate determination and monitoring solutions. As a result, customers can now use location intelligence to streamline tax rate management, increase tax compliance and reduce operational costs.
Companies continue to experience challenges with accurate tax rate assignments that can lead to audit exposure and penalties for incorrect filings. Common problems include: understaffed and under-funded tax departments, out-dated or zip code-based tax software products and the need to research thousands of state and local taxing jurisdictions to keep up with the constantly changing rates and jurisdiction boundaries. This alliance enables customers to use an integrated solution to find the correct jurisdiction and rate for any address or latitude/longitude coordinate. In addition, customers can store their locations and leverage Pitney Bowes Business Insight’s geospatial suite to determine exact tax jurisdictions for those locations automatically – then monitor them for rate changes. Second Decimal’s RatePoint software will facilitate the data load and pair the locations with detailed sales and use tax rates. The offerings can be deployed as a premise-based solution or hosted by Second Decimal. Customers will also be able to include the functionality in their own products and services through the availability of a standard application programming interface.
“There is demand in the market for location-based rate monitoring powered by a geospatial engine with a software package that can be hosted, delivered locally, or made available through a Web services API,” said Jayme Fishman, CEO of Second Decimal. “The geospatial data from Pitney Bowes Business Insight will eliminate common errors that stem from incomplete data – usually in the form of a standard postal address that does not have enough granularity to ensure accurate jurisdiction/rate assignment – because they can transform those addresses to an exact location on a map and return the correct tax jurisdictions, down to the rooftops. Customers with locations that don’t have a street address will also benefit from the fully automated system’s ability to use latitude and longitude coordinates in lieu of postal address data.”
In addition, Second Decimal will offer Pitney Bowes Business Insight’s address cleansing solution as a service that can take street address data, cleanse and standardize it, and return additional data elements to a standard zip code. As a result, customers can capitalize on more reliable address data for correct tax determination.
“With this alliance, Pitney Bowes Business Insight and Second Decimal are filling an industry void,” said Tony Burton, Pitney Bowes Business Insight, GeoTAX product manager. “Together, we’re helping companies eliminate the guesswork and uncertainty that has encumbered traditional tax jurisdiction and rate assignment.”
About Pitney Bowes Business Insight
Pitney Bowes Business Insight is a software and services company that provides solutions to help organizations acquire, serve and grow relationships with customers and citizens. These solutions enable lifetime customer relationships by integrating data management, location intelligence, sophisticated predictive analytics, rules-based decision making and cross-channel customer interaction management to increase the value of every customer communication while also delivering operational efficiencies.
Pitney Bowes Business Insight is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Pitney Bowes Inc. (NYSE: PBI), a customer communications management technology leader. For more information, please visit www.pbinsight.com and www.pb.com.
About Second Decimal
Second Decimal is a technology company that transforms corporate tax departments through an innovative approach and design that combines the power of tax expertise and technology. Second Decimal infuses the intellectual capital of the most seasoned tax and technology experts in the industry with a suite of intuitive and powerful software applications that exponentially improve accuracy, productivity, and processes. For more information, please visit www.seconddecimal.com.
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