Introducing Longview Tax
Tax Provision calculates your company’s global tax provision, effective tax rate, and deferred taxes for tax provisioning purposes. Since Tax Provision uses the same technological platform as your corporate performance management solution, the tax reporting process is directly integrated into the corporate close process. As one solution, consolidated pre-tax income can be reported by legal entity to accurately calculate consolidated income tax provision and deferred taxes.
When corporate accounting finalizes the period end close and all necessary amounts, such as permanent and temporary differences, tax rates, factors, and foreign exchange rates, have been entered in the system, Tax Provision automatically calculates the current and deferred income tax provisions by legal entity and by jurisdiction. From the provision calculation, Tax Provision produces a draft income tax disclosure complete with supporting schedules. This detail supports the required disclosures in the income tax disclosure, including:
- a breakout of pre-tax income between foreign and domestic entities
- a breakout of the consolidated tax provision between national current and deferred, and foreign current and deferred taxes
- a reconciliation of the company’s statutory tax rate and its consolidated effective tax rate
- the make up of net deferred tax assets, liabilities, and valuation allowance (where applicable)
The Longview Tax suite
Tax Provision is a suite of applications that allows users to select the appropriate application to access the Longview Tax database.
The following is a list of some of the applications included with Tax Provision:
Longview Tax
Longview Tax is the portal through which users can access input apps and reports to complete a tax provision, and administrators can access tools and editors that can help them manage the Longview Tax system.
Longview Dashboard
This is a web page that you can access through your browser. It will also contain a link to Longview Tax.
Longview Application Administrator
This is a Windows-based client that Administrators can use to perform system set-up and maintenance.
Longview Analysis and Reporting
This is a data analysis tool that you can use to perform data queries and to create and run custom reports.
Longview Designer
This is a tool from which administrative users can create, design, manage, publish, and assign apps.
Longview Server Manager
This is a Windows-based client that Administrators can use to start, stop, and configure the servers, and to perform migration tasks.
Longview Add-In for Office
This application is the add-in that Longview provides for Microsoft Excel. The add-in allows users to dynamically export data from the Longview Tax database into Microsoft Excel where the data can be manipulated using Excel functionality.
Tax roles
Tax Provision is comprised of different components to achieve multiple objectives. In Tax Provision, data access and functionality can be granted depending on the role you are assigned in your organization.
Tax User
The Tax User is responsible for preparing the tax provision for the legal entity to which they are assigned. Tax Users typically access various Tax Provision input apps and reports for their entity through the Tax Provision Dashboard.Tax Reviewer
The Tax Reviewer is responsible for reviewing and approving the tax provision for the legal entity to which they are assigned. Tax Reviewers typically access various Tax Provision reports for their entity from the Tax navigation pane.Tax Administrator
The Tax Administrator is responsible for maintaining the entity-level and consolidated input apps for the tax packages. Maintenance includes updating foreign exchange rates and national tax rates and importing data into the system.
IAS and ASC
IAS 12 (International Accounting Standard) is the IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standard) used for income taxes in most areas of the world. The other common standard is ASC 740 (US GAAP), which is used predominantly in the United States. Tax Provision supports both the IAS 12 and ASC 740 tax standards.
The Tax Provision process varies depending on the standard used by your company. You have access only to the relevant input apps and reports for your company’s tax standard.
In addition, Longview Tax includes user guides that are specific to the tax standard: the Tax Provision ASC User’s Guide and the Tax Provision IAS User’s Guide. Make sure to use the appropriate guide for your tax standard.
Tax input apps and reports
Longview Tax includes multiple preconfigured tax input apps and reports for IAS 12 and ASC 740. Tax input apps and reports are numbered in order of typical use.
Tax input apps and reports adhere to the following naming convention:
[X|Y](N|R|S|C)(A|F|G|S|C)(0|1|F|C)[0|1](xxx)[R|S|G]
Pillar Two input apps and reports adhere to the following naming convention:
(P2)(xxx)
where:
- X|Y is an optional prefix. X indicates that it is an administrative input app or report. Y indicates that it is a calculation reference report.
- The 1st character is N (National), R (Regional), S (Multi-Regional), or C (Common)
- The 2nd character is A (Actual), F (Forecast), G (Multi-Regional Group), S (Multi-Regional Separate), or C (Common)
- The 3rd character is 0 (ASC 740), 1 (IAS 12), F (Multi-Regional Interim) or C (Common)
- For Multi-Regional Interim the 4th character is 0 (ASC 740), 1 (IAS 12)
- xxx is a three-digit identifier, ranging from 001 to 999
- The last character is used for multi-regional provision reports and is R (All Regions), B (Blended Deferred), S (Separate Nexus Regions), or G (Group Nexus Regions)
Examples:
XCCC100 – FX Rates
NA1201 – Current Tax Charge
SSF0201 – Current Provision Forecast
SA0301S – Temporary Differences
P2200 – GloBE Income
Note: You can submit data to administrative input apps only if you are signed in as an administrator.
Database Basics
Your company uses a large database to contain its financial data. A Longview Tax database consists of dimensions, hierarchies, and symbols. You can work with Longview Tax more effectively if you understand the basic concepts first.
The database contains a wealth of information, divided into different categories. For example, some of this information describes the accounts in your General Ledger, the world-wide locations in which your company does business, and so on. The basic units of the database are symbols. Symbols are organized in hierarchies, and hierarchies are organized in dimensions.
Symbols
A symbol is a plane of data within the Longview Tax application. Symbols identify specific cells within a hierarchy and are used to store information in the Longview database. An example of a symbol is an account named Sales or a time period named March.
Hierarchies
Symbols in the Longview Tax database are related. The relationship between individual symbols is called a parent/child relationship. The relationship as a whole is known as a hierarchy.
| Symbol type | Description |
|---|---|
Child | A child symbol has at least one level of symbols above it in its hierarchy. The values of the child symbols determine the value of the parent. |
| Parent | A parent symbol has at least one child symbol beneath it. The values of the child symbols determine the value of the parent. |
| Leaf | A leaf symbol has no symbols beneath it. Its value can be entered manually or by import, but it cannot be determined by a rollup like the value of a parent symbol. A leaf symbol may also be referred to as a child symbol. |
| Root | A root symbol is a parent symbol whose value doesn't roll up to any other symbols. There is only one root symbol in any hierarchy. |
Dimensions
The Longview Tax database is a multidimensional database, which allows you to relate data on many different levels. For example, you can input and view data by location (ENTITIES) or by time period (TIMEPER). In the Longview Tax database, each broad category of data is called a dimension. A dimension is a grouping of like symbols or similar business elements. For example, the time period dimension contains all symbols associated with time periods.
The dimensions in your database are configurable and may have been renamed to closer match your business needs. The general concepts remain standard for all systems.
Active Dimensions
When viewing an input app or report, the dimensions displayed are known as active dimensions. Although Longview Tax databases are multidimensional, you do not have to view all dimensions.
For example, in a standard Income Statement report, you can choose to view accounts listed vertically and time periods listed horizontally. Using this example, only the ACCOUNTS and TIMEPER dimensions are active dimensions.
Fixed dimensions
When viewing an input app or report, the dimensions that are not displayed are known as fixed dimensions.
For example, in a standard Income Statement report, you can choose to view accounts listed vertically and time periods listed horizontally. In this example, the ACCOUNTS and TIMEPER dimensions are active dimensions, and all other dimensions (ENTITIES, DETAILS, CURRENCY, SEGMENTS, ELEMENTS, and CONTROLS) are fixed dimensions.
Note: You can view only one symbol at a time in the Fixed dimensions.
Contacting Longview
Questions? We are ready to help. For contact information for Longview, visit our web site at https://insightsoftware.com/longview/.