Liquid Engines STx R3 Sets a New Standard for Multi-State Income Tax Planning and Management.

SUNNYVALE, Calif. -- Breakthrough Capabilities for Apportionment Modeling Enable Corporate Tax Departments to Balance Effective Tax Planning with Corporate Governance Compliance

Liquid Engines, a leader in corporate tax software, today unveiled the latest version of STx, its multi-state tax planning and management software solution. In the face of today's requirements to balance risk with financial performance, STx R3 sets a new standard for state income tax planning and management by delivering unrivaled capabilities for tracking, modeling, and optimizing income tax apportionment. Liquid Engines STx R3 enables a previously unattainable level of certainty and control for tax departments of U.S. corporations.

Delivered within a flexible application framework, STx R3's new apportionment management capabilities enable state tax professionals to balance effective tax planning against corporate governance requirements. STx R3 permits the identification of optimal apportionment methods while complying with state apportionment rules, and ensures the highest level of data integrity.

"Income tax apportionment is one of the most critical aspects of the state income tax landscape," said Bob Montellione, vice president in charge of state and local taxes at Prudential Financial and former chair of the Council On State Taxation (COST). "Liquid Engines' new functionality not only addresses the challenge of managing complex apportionment data, it also offers automated capabilities to determine appropriate apportionment methodologies from both a tax planning and tax compliance standpoint. In today's Sarbanes-Oxley environment where policies, procedures, and data controls are imperative, these types of enhancements will pay for themselves many times over."

"Tax represents the largest line-item on a corporate balance sheet, yet too few organizations are proactively optimizing their tax profile to improve their overall corporate health," said Gwen Spertell, president and chief executive officer of Liquid Engines. "Liquid Engines arms tax departments with the data, analysis, and reporting capabilities to accomplish this, and now with the introduction of STx R3, we are unlocking the ability to leverage apportionment modeling as a key tax planning lever."

About Liquid Engines STx R3

Liquid Engines STx -- specifically designed for real-time, multi-year, multi-jurisdictional planning, audit analysis, and forecasting -- combines tax-specific modeling tools, breakthrough optimization technology, and comprehensive reporting capabilities with a centralized tax data repository and embedded tax rules. Built to handle complex corporate tax structures, Liquid Engines enhances data integrity and visibility, streamlines modeling, and simplifies record-keeping procedures. These capabilities enable tax professionals to focus on value-added analysis and decision making versus data gathering and spreadsheet maintenance. They also permit the achievement of an optimal tax profile and improve the overall efficiency, accuracy, and transparency of the tax function.

With R3, Liquid Engines delivers the first tax planning application that captures and leverages apportionment data at a granular, sub-account level and addresses the unique needs of industries such as transportation, broadcast, financial services, and telecommunications that are taxed according to state-specific apportionment rules. Built on a proven foundation, Liquid Engines STx R3 allows tax departments to rapidly perform comprehensive "what if" analysis to determine optimal apportionment methods and efficiently track and update special apportionment metrics.

"The special apportionment rules that apply to industries such as transportation, energy, broadcast, and financial services are so complex and poorly understood that identifying the optimal tax treatment has been virtually impossible," said Walter Hellerstein, the Francis Shackelford Professor of Taxation at the University of Georgia Law School. "Liquid Engines' ability to address specialized industries as well as its increased versatility are impressive. The enhanced capabilities for 'what if' state tax analysis makes its unique approach to tax modeling even better. STx R3 is light years ahead of anything else I have seen."

"Best Method" Special Apportionment Optimizer

When a taxing jurisdiction does not specify an exact apportionment method, or allows for multiple methods, STx's Apportionment Optimizer can be used to quickly determine the optimal apportionment method -- across jurisdictions and entities -- which will yield the lowest tax liability. This analysis can be performed on a multi-year basis to ensure a company is electing the most beneficial method to apportion its industry-specific property, payroll, sales, or fourth-factor amounts.

Robust "What If" Apportionment Modeling

For industries with unique apportionment methods, R3 also offers robust "what if" apportionment modeling capabilities that make it possible to quickly determine the full tax impact of M&A activity, changes in the business forecast or legal entity structure, proposed legislation, and audit settlements. Examples of R3's specific industry measurements include:

--Revenue miles, revenue tons, takeoffs/landings, and tons handled for transportation;

--Subscribers and audience size for broadcast;

--Banking receipts and deposits for financial services;

--Barrels and pipeline traffic units for energy.

Comprehensive Apportionment Database

Liquid Engines STx is built on a comprehensive, configurable database that centralizes and standardizes critical data associated with state and local taxation. By integrating this data, STx eliminates integrity issues associated with independent data silos and individual spreadsheets. With STx R3, the database has been expanded to capture and leverage detailed apportionment data. The data can be drawn directly from source systems without summing, grouping, or modifying it, preserving the ability to model apportionment methods at a granular level. These key advancements in data management not only dramatically reduce time spent on data collection, but also increase confidence in the decision-making process by ensuring a higher level of accuracy and transparency.

About Liquid Engines

Liquid Engines, a technology leader in corporate tax management, provides the industry's only software solution specifically designed for tax planning, audit analysis, forecasting, and financial reporting. Developed in conjunction with recognized tax experts such as Jim Fuller, Larry Langdon, Walter Hellerstein, Prentiss Willson, and Charles Rossotti, as well as tax executives from PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, Intel, and Cisco, the Liquid Engines solution optimizes tax performance in large, complex, multi-national organizations.

Liquid Engines' software offers tax professionals an up-to-the-moment, integrated view of a company's global tax positions. In addition, the solution's patent-pending optimization engines and embedded tax intelligence enable sophisticated, real-time, multi-year/multi-jurisdictional modeling and analysis, optimization, and reporting -- driving an increased level of accuracy, efficiency, and transparency into the decision-making process. With Liquid Engines, leading Fortune 1000 companies are striking the delicate balance between risk management and tax minimization -- and are proactively leveraging the tax function to enhance corporate performance. For additional information, please visit www.liquidengines.com or call 408-585-9000.

Editor's Note: All Liquid Engines' brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of Liquid Engines, Inc., in the United States and other countries. All other products or company names mentioned are used for identification purposes only, and may be trademarks of their respective owners.