ACCELA LAUNCHES BUSINESS TAX ON ACCELA CIVIC PLATFORM TO BRING TRANSPARENCY AND SIMPLICITY TO LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Accela, the leading provider of cloud-based productivity and civic engagement solutions for government, today announced the latest addition to its Finance and Administration suite, Accela Business Tax, on the Accela Civic Platform. Accela Business Tax drastically improves outdated tax management processes, increases productivity across government agencies and brings the complexities of local business tax filings and payments to an easy-to-navigate online portal.

“Accela Business Tax furthers our commitment to seamlessly integrate technology into the civic space,” said Maury Blackman, President and CEO of Accela. “By providing real-time access to current tax returns, supporting documents and transaction history, Accela Business Tax will give cities and counties a customizable solution for tax filing and management. This launch continues Accela’s mission of providing digital solutions for governments and their constituents by engineering an intuitive user experience and bringing what used to be a cumbersome process online.”

Many city finance and administration departments are limited to antiquated and tedious methods of filing business taxes. With non-standard forms, business taxes vary from state to state, and even from county to county, making filing or paying for returns troublesome. Paper-based return documents are costly to upkeep, take hours for government agency staff to file and must manually be tracked for historical records. With Accela Business Tax, taxpaying businesses and government agencies can manage the entire tax process online, reducing paper, process and time spent.

Key Features of Accela Business Tax include:

Benefits for Local Government

Efficiency – Taxpayers can file and pay online from anywhere, resulting in less paperwork for agency staff.
Automatic Updates – Tax returns and supporting documentation are automatically updated and attached to the return transaction record for quick and easy retrieval.
Cost Savings – Agencies can eliminate extra storage hassles and the high costs associated with maintaining paper records.
Payment Options – Online credit card, debit card and e-check payments save valuable customer service time.
Configurable Forms – All tax forms and documentation can be customized to each city, county or state to capture required information.

Benefits for Business Constituents

Secure Payments – Payments for outstanding balances or current return filing is secure through online credit card, debit card or e-check options.
Easy Tracking – After completing the tax form, the system creates a link to track the return for greater taxpayer convenience and transparency.
Paper Elimination – Easily upload required supporting documentation and attach to return filing.
Progressive Disclosure – Taxpayers are walked through a series of questions to complete their return forms and irrelevant questions are skipped based on taxpayer answers.
Connectivity and Convenience – Last-minute filings and payments can be made from the convenience of taxpayers’ connected devices.