How McLarens gained visibility over foreign taxes in 42 countries using Loctax

About McLarens

McLarens is a global insurance services and forensic consulting firm headquartered in Norcross, Georgia, with over 2,500 experts across 45+ countries. With over 90 legal entities in complex commercial markets, McLarens requires a robust and scalable approach to tax compliance to enable timely tax filings & financial reporting.

The Challenge

As a US HQ, McLarens is eligible to claim US tax credits against foreign taxes paid. This requires the Group Tax team in the US to have visibility of all foreign tax filings. With a decentralised tax model and operations in over 42 countries, McLarens lacked this visibility outside of the US & the UK.

The tax team heavily relied on manual processes, including emails and Excel, to gather local tax data - this was time-consuming & difficult to track leading to inefficiencies and delays in filing the US tax return. Because of the reliance on manual processes, the Group Tax team lacked the bandwidth to gather data from all jurisdictions, focusing only on material jurisdictions. Without visibility, it was impossible for the McLarens team to know if they were maximising their deductions for foreign taxes.

Additionally, tax information gathered from teams came in different formats, which then took time to standardised & store locally for future audit readiness.

The Solution

McLarens implemented Loctax to centralise global tax compliance tracking and created automated workflows for collecting final tax returns & payment data. The platform standardised how information is collected across jurisdictions, included built-in approval flows, and maintained a structured data repository for financial and tax documentation. Standardised workflows enabled McLarens to request information from all global entities, giving them complete & real-time visibility. This reliance on automation significantly streamlined the foreign tax preparation and the structured data repository reduced time spent on standardising information and improved audit readiness for any potential enquiries from the tax authorities.

The Results

• 100% visibility of corporate tax due dates across all jurisdictions
• Gather 60% more information with the same time commitment. Loctax enabled McLarens to do more with less.
• 20% reduction in preparation time of US tax return
• Built a centralized repository of 150+ tax documents
• Standardised data gathering processes, improving visibility into potential risks & gaps and improving audit preparedness

Use Cases for McLarens

Automated & structured tax data requests

McLarens replaced ad hoc email and spreadsheet-based data collection with automated workflows. Tax data is now gathered in a standardised format across all jurisdictions, with built-in approval flows to ensure accuracy. This allowed McLarens to collect more tax data from more countries with the same time commitment as manual data collection.

Visibility into our worldwide tax profile

With better visibility into tax payments and returns across 42+ jurisdictions, McLarens was able to identify and include previously untracked foreign taxes in their US tax return.

Centralised tax compliance calendar

Loctax’s centralized compliance calendar gives McLarens complete visibility into local tax filing deadlines across 42+ jurisdictions. This allows the US group tax team to track when returns and payments are expected and proactively identify where information may not be available in time for US reporting. With this foresight, the team can escalate requests to local teams early, adjust estimates where needed, and improve the accuracy and timeliness of their US tax reporting. It also helps highlight persistent data gaps, enabling long-term process improvements and better alignment with local teams.

Quick payment reports

Previously, compiling corporate tax payment data required hours of manual effort in Excel and back-and-forth emails. By leveraging Loctax & workflows, McLarens can generate a complete, standardised payment report in under 30 seconds. This on-demand access to accurate data has drastically improved efficiency and freed up time to focus on high-impact strategic work, rather than manual and administrative tasks.

Stronger audit preparedness

By centralizing all tax documentation, including final returns, payment details, and statutory accounts, in Loctax, McLarens is well prepared for any potential inquiries relating to foreign tax credits. The structured repository ensures that audit-relevant data is easily accessible and consistently organized, significantly reducing reliance on individual team members and key person dependency risk.