When you hear the phrases “digital economy,” “gig economy” or “creator economy,” chances are you don’t immediately associate them with “tax compliance” or “tax transparency.” And that’s okay!
Tax may not be top of mind for digital platform operators, but it is for us here at Trolley. We’ve been having conversations with our customers (and other folks who pay out gig workers) about how they’re going to solve the problem of tax compliance, starting with DAC7.
That’s where Trolley comes in! At a high level, our job is to help educate the market about what’s new in tax legislation, but we’ve also got a strong vision for our Tax product. Every day we’re working on tools to help even more companies become tax compliant at all stages of the payout journey. Read on to find out more…
***Psst: In case you haven’t heard about what we’ve been up to lately, here’s the lowdown. The Trolley team has been busy gearing up for the launch of our DAC7 Tax product, which helps online marketplaces gain DAC7 compliance from end-to-end, no matter which of the 27 EU member states is being used for reporting purposes.
Don’t forget to check out the DAC7 Compliance product announcement after you finish this article! 🇪🇺
Where’s Trolley’s tax compliance product heading next? Short answer: everywhere!
Trolley’s Product Team has big plans for our Tax product. Next up: world domination! 🌍
We’re kidding of course, but we do plan to expand our Tax product to enable worldwide compliance beyond the EU’s DAC7 regulations. In order to help even more online platforms with the tax aspect of their payout process, the Product team is constantly looking for ways to expand our Tax offering.
According to Myles Foster, Product Manager for Tax at Trolley, “Our vision for Tax is to cover as many jurisdictions as possible, so that 100% of our customers don’t need to look elsewhere to solve their tax compliance challenges for payments to non-employees.”
The EU is one of the first groups of countries to adopt tax rules specifically targeted at online marketplaces and their sellers, but other OECD members, like the UK and Canada, will be following suit. Not to mention, the EU’s Directives will certainly continue to be updated and amended in the coming years. The Trolley team is already anticipating the future needs of even more jurisdictions, and ready to adapt their Tax product to meet those requirements.
“From a global tax perspective, some of the areas we’re exploring next are Australian Royalties Tax compliance (PAYG withholding, payment summaries, and reporting) and Canadian Contractor Tax compliance (T4As),” says Foster.
Next up for Trolley’s US IRS tax compliance product
While we love expanding our Tax product to include more breadth of features, we aren’t forgetting about the depth of these functionalities as well! We’re always striving to offer a flexible and comprehensive product that can accommodate the tax-related workflows of the largest, most complex organizations.
For example, when it comes to our US IRS compliance product, we’re looking at adding features to assist with State-Level filing, adding more robust correcting statement workflows (for those rare occasions when mistakes are made), foreign TIN validation (to help customers detect when the data submitted isn’t entirely truthful), and generating draft EoY summary forms like the 1042 and 945.
Another big milestone that we’re working towards is adding 1099-Ks to our supported forms, which will help the IRS account for payments received through third party networks, debit cards, and credit cards.
Upcoming UX Improvements
We’re also continuously looking to improve the overall usefulness of our Tax product. One of the ways we’re doing this is by creating an “Action Center” to help our customers group, monitor, and handle data discrepancies at scale—as they appear. With this new feature, both DAC7 and IRS Compliance users will be able to resolve issues before they get to the recipient.
This will be invaluable for those handling a large amount of payouts, and is a prime example of how Trolley grows alongside our customers.
Want to learn more about how Trolley Tax can help you operate locally & comply globally?
As a global leader in tax compliance, Trolley works with organizations across the gig and creator economies in North America, Europe, and more. We’re continuously working to stay up-to-date with new regulations and adapt our product to meet them, so that you can feel confident that your tax needs are taken care of. Leverage your internal engineering teams to build and grow your platforms, and let us help you comply with tax laws.
To learn more about how Trolley Tax is laser-focused on end-to-end compliance, contact a member of our team today.
