Matthew Lauer Email & Phone Number

Antioch, Il, Us

Antioch, Il, Us

Durham, Nc, Us

As a valued member of a creative and dynamic team, I play a key role in providing exceptional service to taxpayers enrolled in the Premium Returns Service. My responsibilities encompass preparing, reviewing, and filing multi-jurisdictional sales/use, business and occupation, and gross receipts tax returns; managing internal and external communications related to customer return services; and setting clear compliance expectations while ensuring information is conveyed in an easily understandable manner. Additionally, I oversee potential escalations, ensuring prompt and effective communication is always maintained.Key Contributions Thus Far:1. Customer-Facing Representative. I serve as the primary point of contact and actively manage a portfolio of approximately sixty distinct customers, overseeing all matters related to Sales and Use Tax Returns.2. Consistently identify and implement process improvements that reduce manual preparation time during the filing cycle, including enhancing return filing automation and optimizing workflows to streamline customer communication.3. Effective team player and relationship builder: I have traveled, and will continue to travel, to our offices in India to enhance cross-team collaboration, deliver training, and support return filing as teams adapt to a new structure. I guide new associates both in the U.S. and India, ensuring smooth transitions and quick integration into the team, enabling them to make timely contributions to key tasks. I host open forum Zoom meetings focused on routine tasks, fostering collaboration and providing support to new hires.4. Continuing to build trust and confidence among team members, I quickly transitioned into a growing leadership role by volunteering for additional tasks to support Direct Managers and Senior Managers, effectively freeing up their time and allowing them to focus on high-level planning and strategic initiatives.

Milwaukee, Wi, Us

Fulfilled all Baird’s corporate tax compliance and reporting obligations, as well as provided audit defense and strategic consulting services to the Firm. Delivered exceptional client service while mitigating tax risk to company stakeholders through high value “big picture” planning. Routine functions consisted of data gathering, calculations, and analysis for Baird’s tax compliance efforts. Primary areas of focus were sales and use tax, business personal property tax, other indirect taxes, depreciation, and state and local income tax.Key Contributions:1. Quickly moved into an expanded role of lead analyst and final reviewer for indirect taxes. Cross trained and expanded my knowledge with the gathering, preparing, and reviewing State and Local Apportionment and Tax Compliance items.2. Was lead for indirect tax audits and defense strategies. Saved the firm thousands of dollars by carefully reviewing contracts, statements of work, and reaching out to experts within the firm to document vendors for use tax audit defense. Many audits resulted in a refund or low to reasonable assessments after negotiating and strategically presenting our position with an overall goal of less tax, penalty, and interest out the door. 3. Implemented process improvements which freed up days of analyzing and reviewing sales and use tax obligations to prioritize best practices for the firm while remaining in compliance. Continuously analyzed other areas of improvement and cross trained with Alteryx to proactively provide suggested path forward on implementing process improvements in other areas of indirect tax and state and local tax compliance. 4. Trained new associates and consistently influenced them in a positive way. Managed interns and participating in various mentor programs.5. Effective team and relationship builder in and outside of the office.

Milwaukee, Wi, Us

Chicago, Illinois, Us

Assisted in a growing market of outsourced trust tax preparation for outside banks that had a custodial relationship with BMO Harris Bank. Quickly transitioned into an expanding roll and preformed and completed pretax season preparation and monitoring. The months of January-April consisted of final tax preparations and generating and auditing Agency 1099s, Revocable Trust Grantor Tax Letters, Irrevocable Trust Form 1041s, and Form 1042 and 1042-S for NRA beneficiaries. Key Contributions:1. Volunteered for a lead analyst role for a new large outsourcing client. Completed conversion tasks and setup accounts with our tax software in a favorable two month pretax season timeline. Prepared, audited, and delivered roughly 1,590 1099s and 425 tax worksheets in a timely and accurate manner.2. Revamped the NRA withholding and Form 1042 process. Evaluated IRS regulations and instructions to improve withholding procedures to avoid exposure to IRS penalties and correspondence.3. Evaluated the taxability of corporate reorganizations. Perused SEC documents to interpret the taxability and proper posting and reporting for U.S. holders.4. Trained new employees in system software, terminology, and daily tasks.

Chicago, Illinois, Us

Provided daily trust accounting for common, collective, and unitized funds in compliance with generally accepted accounting principles and the OCC. Preformed routine reconciliations of trades, balances, accruals, and verified security pricing in order to strike a net asset value on various assigned funds. Key Contributions:1. Co-Lead annual report team. Produced year end worksheets, income statements, and balance sheets for select BMO Funds in order to fulfill reporting obligation to investors. Reviewed team members work for accuracy before reports went for audit by an outside firm.2. Maintained Microsoft Access database to accommodate changing business environments. Reprogrammed to add a new fund company and various requests for needed reports.3. Lead training for new employees. Assembled training binders and setup scheduled training sessions with fellow team members. Was main point of contact for questions that arose.

Chicago, Illinois, Us

Hired on into a well-established team and was responsible for the settlement of domestic and foreign trades in employee benefit, personal trust, and outsourcing relationships. Met department and market time critical deadlines to avoid market exposure and potential losses while monitoring and clearing internal control accounts. Evaluated failing trades, outstanding wires, and overdrafts on a daily basis.Key Contributions:1. Signed up to be the main point of contact for a new large outsourcing client. Assisted in conversion tasks and helped to setup trading format for DTCC and Fed trading instructions for external money managers. 2. Appointed the task to settle/post complex trades. Trades included, but were not limited to, options, pairoffs, treasury TIPs, and repos.3. Lead training for new employees. Assembled training binders and had new employees shadow me. Verified new employees processing and was main point of contact for questions that arose.

San Francisco, California, Us

Assigned to assist in reviewing and assembling all documentation necessary for loan negotiator to review defaulting mortgage for retention and/or liquidation options to avoid foreclosure. Key Contributions:1. Appointed to audit other loss mitigation team members work. This ensured completeness and accuracy prior to forwarding material on in order to postpone a foreclosure sale date.