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Hi, my name is Hanna, and today we’re interviewing Aaron Giles. Aaron Giles is the Founder and Managing Principal of Agile Consulting Group and SalesAndUseTax.com in the United States. Today he shares his views on important trends as we emerge into the post-pandemic world.
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This podcast channel is about successful international entrepreneurs successful expats, successful investor, sponsored by HTJ
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And Aaron we’re live. Good morning. How are you this morning? Good morning. I’m great. Derren thanks for having me. Fantastic. Thanks for sharing some of your time. Could you please introduce yourself to those who may be watching on YouTube as a listing on a podcast platform? Sure, absolutely. My name is Erin Giles. I’m the founder and managing principal of Agile Consulting Group also, we’re a boutique Sales and use tax consulting firm that helps folks either maximize the benefit of the exemptions for which they qualify or help them become a remain compliant with current Sales and use tax law. And for those who may not be quite up to speed, what exactly is Sales and Use task?
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What does it mean? So we got everywhere, I think everywhere else in, in the world, except for the U S we have there in fact, a VAT. So in the U S we don’t have that in the U S each state. He sets his own laws and collects sales tax on the transactions that when you acquire something, you generally pay tax at the time of sale. Now, there are certain occasions where if you acquire something in it, it was not text that you would owe taxes on the first use of that item. So thus sales and use tax right? And of course the rest of the world has like VAT. You have a GST, but are uniquely complicated.
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00:02:14
I heard that we have a lot of sales and Use sensors addictions in the U S is it, is it 10,000 or is that the correct number that I hear? I’m sorry, I don’t know the number off the top of my head, but it is very complicated, you know? So there are a handful of States that make it simple for folks in charge, a flat rate across all jurisdictions within the state, but that’s not the case for most States. Most States have different tax jurisdictions either by County and then some other ones that are even more complex words, Buy city and even districts within the city, right? Yeah. So, yeah, when I, when I listened to other so-called experts and I read what’s available on the line, the number of that keeps getting banding around his,
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10,000 Sales and use tax jurisdictions. But generally speaking, one point is the, where is the threshold for having to worry or be concerned about sales and use tax?
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Alright, well, you know, the, the simple answer for US sales and use tax for everything, if you want me to come in and be an expert, you just say, well, it depends because it really does depend, unfortunately. So, you know, going back to what we set about all of the States, you know, so they’ve drafted their own laws and they’ve, they’ve picked different thresholds for what constitutes establishing nexus. So, so nexus used to be at the US. You must have the physical presence within the state, you know, building an employee, the Wayfair case from June of 2018, really turned sales and use tax on his head here in the US. And, and basically the crux of the case was you didn’t need to have a physical presence anymore.
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00:03:59
If you were doing enough business with the state, then you had nexus now. So what is that? You know? And so, yeah, every state has defined it a little bit differently. I would say there’s, there’s been a clustering around certain thresholds. The, threshold’s in most States are a hundred thousand dollars in revenue or 200 transactions. But, but you can’t just assume that because it is very different. Some of the larger States like Texas and California have higher thresholds, but, you know, you can’t even make that assumption though, because there are some other large States that don’t go by that rule.
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So, you know, the answer is to, when you start, need to start worrying about it is really when you start selling into a new state, we have for you, you need to figure out what those rules are, so that, you know, when you need to, you know, be paying attention and, and, and when you’re approaching that nexus threshold.
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00:04:56
But if it’s as complicated as you are helping us understand, how is it possible for somebody who’s running a business and has so many of the things to worry about? How can they figure this stuff out? How can they stay on top of this?
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00:05:09
Well, I’ll tell you what I’m doing. That’s an excellent question. That is something I get, you know, we, we get folks calling and emailing on a daily saying, this isn’t fair. How are we supposed to know this stuff? And, you know, oftentimes, you know, the conversations we’re having is with someone who they realize now, in hindsight, that they’ve already established nexus and they’ve got sometimes some pretty significant liabilities and they say, well, how can the state of Dundas to me? Because you know, they didn’t notify me, you know? And, and, and I have a lot of empathy for that. And I don’t always have a great answer for that. You know, the state can’t notify you because they don’t know you’re there. If you haven’t registered, you know, how can the state know what you’re doing? But yes, I do have a lot of empathy and the fact that it is very complex and, and, you know, Sales new staff is not the first thing that any business is thinking of a, you know, they’re thinking about, you know, customer service delivery times, you know, we do all of his products and, and sales and use tax is just sort of along for the ride, if you will.
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So it’s a, it’s a really the best way to, to, to stay at, in front of it to make sure you don’t end up with some big liabilities is to just be proactive with it. So, you know, if you’re, if you’re selling it to a new state, if you’re selling it to the U S market for the first time, you know, figure out, you know, how, how are we going to be selling nationwide? Are we selling a few States and, and, and going into conversant with those laws and so on. So that’s where folks like you Derren are a wonderful resource for, for people that are trying to get up to speed with what’s going on with sales and use tax in the U S
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Okay. And what about software providers with the w is that like a, a, a good place to start off with, if, if I’m an online seller to figure out what, whether, you know, I need to pay attention.
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W well, so salt was great. All right. So you’re going back to the number you gave us of the 10,000 jurisdictions. Well, it is essentially impossible to keep up with those rates, you know, in theory, they change on the phone that they could change the first of every month, obviously, not all do you know, but a handful do every month. And you have to go in to manually update your system with rates is it is impossible. And so software is an amazing tool for that. There are a bunch of really great options out there. You know, there are a couple of that we’re really partial to because we’ve worked with them in the past. And, and we think that they, you know, their systems, our, our ideal, you know, really, you know, when we can talk a little bit about how you choose your software, but the software is a great tool to, to, you know, to do I guess, the blocking and tackling to make it a football analogy.
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00:07:48
I mean, it’s not a great analogy for the rest of the world in American football analogy, but, you know, so the problem with software is it’ll just, it’ll do what you tell it to do. So if you don’t know what to do, the software’s not going to help you too much. You know, now, you know, there are certain cases, you know, if you just want me to start collecting, TAX everywhere. Sure. Turn on the software, start collecting. TAX, you know, that is simple, but, but if your, if you’re paying attention to the nexus and the thresholds and things like that, you know, the software will just do what you tell us to do. So the, and you must say, okay, now it’s time to go turn on Georgia. Or, and now it’s time to go ahead and turn on California, but, but the, the, the, the software tools are amazing. And, and, and they do a really good job.
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Okay. And, you know, I want to take a step back a bit in terms of the transactions that need to be monitored, obviously, a physical product. But what about if you just providing service, is that subject to sales and use tax as well?
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Okay. So w when you talk about service, you know, that we can think about the two different ways. One is you actually has someone with boots on the ground providing service. Now, if you’ve, if you have had that situation, then you absolutely have nexus in that state. So you must collect tax. Now that doesn’t mean the service is taxable. You know, again, some state services taxable, some state services, not so, and again, and one other thing is the software is really good about is if you code your products correctly, it will figure all that out for you. Hey, should I be collect tax on shipping here? What about shipping and handling is that different? You know all these nuances that are really complex. And, and, and again, if you could just figure it out once for the U S it would be amazing, but, you know, there are 45 States with sales tax, so you’ve got to figure it out 45 different times.
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00:09:35
Wow. Okay. And how does one go about finding what, what is the first step, you know, I guess he just thought of business, and as you are going to be doing like a, a million dollars from day one, you’ll be moving up gradually, and you are going to be mindful of your costs. You don’t want to spend too much money up front. So in terms of being sensible yet at the same time being cost efficient, should my first step be to speak to a consultant or to look at a software? Yeah.
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I guess the answer to that would depend on how strong your internal team is in regards to the U S sales tax. Right? So what VC, oftentimes here in the US, you know, so we, we, we we’ve helped you in we’ve helped other overseas client’s in the past, but what the core of our business, our firm folks here in the U S and, and, and, and so they, they don’t even know what they’re doing here. So oftentimes, you know, that they’ll reach out to us and saying, hey, my, my, you know, a lot of these organizations have a controller or a CFO. They have no real established TAX team TAX department. And so, you know, the advice they’re getting is either from their CPA, their attorney, and, and, and again, it depends on the CPA or attorney that you have as to how sort of sophisticated they are.
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You know, a lot of CPAs know enough to know when w when you should be concerned, but, but a lot of them are really experts in sales and use tax because it’s such a niche. So a lot, a lot of times, you know, we will have, you know, prospective clients that reach out to us and say, Buy the CPA’s that are needed to solve this problem. And I don’t really exactly know what it is, but, you know, fill me in which they should, I am worried about, you know? So, so the first thing we like to do, you know, with, with anyone who reaches out to us that is, is we want to understand, tell us what last year looked like, where tell us what the current year to date looked like. Okay, let’s see your revenues; let’s see how they’re distributed across the States.
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And, and so, you know, so that’s really the beginning of what I would call it a nexus study. So the next, the study tells you where we are, have you established nexus, or, or, or where should you be alert to, you know, being, you know, your, on your, you’re near the cusp of the staff with the nexus and so on. So now once we have a stamped figured out where you have nexus, or you have concerns about nexus, well, then we can go about getting you registered. You know, that the registration is not a complex process. You know, it is, you know, like many things in sales and use tax. It is different from state to state. I’ll give you a perfect example of, of, of, of, of, of how it just makes people’s heads spin. So we have a longstanding client, there is a manufacturer; they’ve always sold wholesale.
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They just want to start selling retail. And as part of the process, they gave us a list of, Oh, I don’t know, 15 States or so where they wanted us to register for them. Well, so, you know, most States is this, you know, it is 20, 20, almost 2021. And you’d think you could go online and you could register. And, and, and in a pretty expedient manner, give a sales and use tax license. Well, not always. So for example, a client that they had, they had a, a, a, they had a withholding permit in the state of Colorado. And so if you already had a type of a different type of attacks license, even if you’re not using it anymore, you can’t go online and register, you must print out a paper application, fill it out, and mail it to them.
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And a, and it’s a four to six week processing time. Wow. And, and, you know, we, we registered them everywhere. The, the, the CFO came back and he said, well, what is going on with Colorado? Why haven’t we heard back a little bit? And it’s just a, you know, it’s another illustration of how it’s just different from state to state. And a, and he said, well, I just can’t understand. I want to give these guys money. And they don’t want my money, and I need a license to give the money.
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00:13:42
Okay. So if I was to summarize, so I have a business, I’m doing stuff online in the U S my first port of call really needs to be a nexus study. I need to find the professional qualified, experienced, decent track record, and go to them and say, this is what I’ve been doing. These are the stats. These are the jurisdictions I’ve been covering. Do I have exposure? And if I’ve exposure, what do I need to do to become compliant? That’s fair enough. Right. And you also pointed out that some jurisdictions, you can do it online. You cameras are on line, and then some of them tend to be quite manual in that case, if it is manual, then a software solution maybe is not available yet.
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So you’re looking at a manual compliance. Okay,
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Well, even if you want to read it for everything you said is exactly right, but even if you want to register, if you go in, in, in, in use a sales tax software program is not going to do that for you. You need to go on to get your own registration and, and, and then plug it into your sales tax software. So I guess the only point I would make to piggyback on what you said is that that’s really the, the most prudent way to go forward and, and also make sure your only collecting TAX and only, you know, I finally responsibility in the States where you have enough volume. Alternatively, you could, if you didn’t want to do a nexus study, you could just say, I’m going to collect tax everywhere. I’m going to register everywhere.
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00:15:12
You know, I can’t tell you that are wrong either. You know, it depends on your growth rate. It depends on what your plans are. And, and it depends on your capabilities for staying compliant and continuing those filings. So Sales, and Use, Taxes generally filed on a monthly basis. And, and again, it depends on the volume. So, you know, there are a quarter of the filings, there are a semi-annual filings are annual ones, but generally speaking, most of them are going to start you at a, at a monthly. And then if they see you don’t have a big volume, then they may back you down to a less frequent filing. So, but that labor labor-intensive too,
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00:15:49
It is, it is. And then there’s, I guess the two ways of looking at the compliance process as well, do I wait until my level of activity is such where okay. I’m seeing, yeah, my business is doing okay. Now I need to seek on a consultant to do a nexus study after the fact, or do I have my bills, projections? You know, this is my budget for the year and take my budget to that consultant for the next study. Which one should I be looking at?
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00:16:21
Well, so I guess it depends on how mature your businesses, I guess that would be my answer. So, you know, if you’re, if you’re a start-up, you’re just selling them in the U S yeah. We need to know what you think you’re going to is going to happen to your one. You know, if you’ve got good data from prior years and it’s reliable and, and you can have a predicted growth rate. Yeah. I mean, a combination of that is all good from, from my experience. Most people aren’t thinking about it all on the front end and, and, and maybe you’re seeing people being a more cautious, but usually people are coming to us after, after the, you know, the proverbial horses out of the barn. And, and they say, oops, you know, we didn’t realize, helped us get this right. And, and, and, and, you know, get compliant going forward.
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00:17:02
Okay. So, okay. So whether you do it proactively or reactively, you’ve come to a stage where you’ve engaged a consultant and you’ve done the next study and you have filing responsibilities. Now there are quite a number of software solutions, and they all seem to be all bells and whistles, and they can promise you the world. How do you decide which one to use? And they’re not cheap. Right. So how do you figure that out?
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00:17:33
Sure. So, is that an excellent question? And then we could spend an hour just talking about software probably. So, so let’s talk about the software and then let’s talk about filing unless you want to do with the other way around. Okay. So, so, so how do you select as a software provider? Yeah. So there are a bunch of solutions, you know, they all do the rates. Well, to be honest with you, I don’t think that one’s better than the other four, as far as collecting the correct amount of TAX from our customers on transactions. Did you, did you say that should be taxable, but they do have different strengths and weaknesses. So what I would say for, from our experience here is that certain software programs are geared to certain products.
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00:18:19
So if you are, if you’re selling medical products to hospitals, there’s a certain program that is going to be a great solution for you. If you’re selling arts and crafts on Facebook, there’s a different program that is going to be better for you. And then you’ve got everyone in between, right? You’ve got new nutritional supplements over here, and we’ve got a, you know, clothing. So you know that there are some things that will work well with a slight, you know, we have a closing will probably work well for all of the software providers that they’ve kind of five-hundred themselves in two different, different niches, if you will.
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00:19:00
And so knowing what you sell it is, would be the first step is to how we are doing points in one direction for the other. Now you also mentioned costs. So of course it is a consideration you’re right. There are certainly more premium solutions and then than others, and, and even a, and even within us software package, that there are usually tiers on some of the, some of the teams are based on volume, but there’s also tiers based on service. So, you know, one really big player in market, excuse me, a big player on the market. You know, there’s a pretty cheap solution and it works, but you better know how to set it up because, you know, they’re just going to, you know, if you want the cheap one that’s, that’s on you and your team to get it implemented.
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00:19:48
And so it was, we do a lot of that, helping folks with that. We’re not programmers at all, but we understand the tax law, you know, so, so another recent project we were helping someone with is that they wanted to use this particular program, but that the, their ERP system didn’t have a pre-built integration to it. So they went back to their, their programmers and said, we need to build something that the plugs in and pulls these rates out. So we can’t do any of the, any of the programming, but we can certainly tell you if it’s working and, and, and, and, and whether it’s, whether it’s pulling the right queries and things like that, but yeah, cost is a big issue. So if you, if you want them to help you implement it, if you want them to build an integration, some of them will, some of them will make you get a third party as far as implementation.
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And again, if you’ve paid with a certain level, they’ll come and give you a white glove service with it. But, but a lot of start-ups don’t want to jump in the deep end of the pool paying top dollar. We don’t particularly something that is, you know, again is usually an afterthought. It’s not like, you know, this is like, Oh, wait, now we need to pay this to, just, to, just to be on the syllabus. So,
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00:20:59
Okay. All right. So again, I’m going back to first principles. So I have started a business I’m selling stuff online, whether it is a, have a fantastic budgeting process. So I know what to expect, or I let it run for a while. So I get a run rate and I have a history. And with that, I can take it to a consultant and get the nexus study done. So at the nexus study, we’ll identify which jurisdictions a lot of jurisdictions. God knows how many there are. There are a lot I need to register with the registration process will be manual it’s. It’s not something that you can get us a, a solution, a software solution for you need to manually register with the jurisdictions in which you may potentially be exposed.
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00:21:45
Now, once you properly registered, you would have the on-going compliance, generally speaking, they returned Sales and use tax returns on a monthly, but that could be quarterly. They can be annually. It really depends. So you are looking for software and now the choice of software there is there’s no one size that fits all, perhaps a little thing, but generally speaking, some software will work best with some platforms and certain business models. And that choice, perhaps you would need some level of support. You need the same consultant, perhaps which would have helped you with your Lexus study.
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00:22:25
Can perhaps help you with the choice of figuring out what’s the right service is provided for you. And having even done that. There is the implementation process is not like you’re buying Microsoft XL. If you just download it and use it, it just works. No, you have to integrate it with your business. And that would require maybe some it supports or maybe it would be easy. It depends on how you do your business. Okay. I’m with you so far. So good. Now, suppose I’ve got that far and I realize through no fault in my own, I have been breaking the rules.
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00:23:08
So there are certain jurisdictions that I should have registered with, but I just didn’t know I was testing the market out. I didn’t know how much I was going to sell until after the fact we a year and things look good and have passed. The threshold is less pic, a particularly aggressive jurisdiction like California and I, all them skills and use tax. How should I approach dealing with outstanding debt?
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00:23:37
Sure. That that’s that, that’s a question that this is you have to ask is usually the next question right after we’ve got people with our next step is, okay, how do we fix this? Right. So, you know, the answer is that the answer I would give you a may not be the buy the book answer. I think that this is a real world answer. So there’s really two different ways you can move forward. Number one is you can do a, a, a, a voluntary disclosure agreement. No, a VBA. Yeah. So, so basically if that is you coming to the state saying, oops, I haven’t been doing this right. Here’s all of the, Sales the taxable sales that I’ve made. And, you know, I, I want to, I want to come in and, you know, I want to come in and begin doing this correctly.
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00:24:19
So if you file a VBA, you can, you can apply anonymously. If they grant you access to the VDA program, then you must fully disclose who you are, all of your Sales, et cetera. And, and, and if you do that, they will, every state is different, but they will generally waive penalty and sometimes interest. So, and, and, and then there are a couple States that will actually just make you a, an offer. So Use say, all right, we know we, you know, we, we, we underpaid by $10,000. They’ll say, Hey, if you’d write a check for 7,000 today, we’re good to go. So, so that’s a voluntary disclosure.
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00:25:00
So now the appeal of the voluntary disclosure is that you avoid, you know, the additional penalties and, and possibly the interest on it. You, it, it will, you will register through the VDA process instead of a separate registration. So they will help you with that. And, and, and it’s, it’s all above board, right? So it’s, it’s all just, you know, you, you’re just clearing up these problems with the state in, in the state of appreciates. You know, this is a question that I get a lot as well. Why would the state make all these, you know, you know, these, these generous offers to me, you know, if I, if I haven’t been doing this correctly and, you know, the States busy and all of these States are busy with, with on-going audits and, and, you know, so anytime you’re making their job easy for them, that you know, that they’re willing to work with you on it.
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00:25:51
So, so, so that is a, that is like the formal process. If you have unpaid liabilities, now, a lot of our clients say, Oh my gosh, you know, we should of been there for a couple of years, and now I’ve got, you know, that several a hundred thousand dollar liability. I don’t want to pay that. So, you know, and I, and I, yeah, and I have empathy for that. And, and so really what I would say is that if you don’t want to do a VDA, that really speaks to what your risk profile is, right? So if you find the VDA, you will, and you will not be audited for those prior periods.
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00:26:33
You’ve, you’ve come and you’ve is, as long as your you’ve been honest and truthful about what those product periods look like, you’ve got no problems. Now, you could just use the register and, and, and start collecting and start filing, you know, beginning today. And, and that is more appealing because there’s no outlay of cash, you know? So usually if you are, if you’re out of compliance, it’s not usually that you’ve been collecting tax from your customers and just not paying it just to the state, generally speaking, you haven’t been taxing anything. So any of those tax dollars comes straight out of your pocket. So, so a lot of folks we work with choose to opt for us to, to register or not even the folks we work with.
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00:27:16
You know, we, we, we hear the stories all the time, so yeah. So they’ll go in the register, they’ll start paying, going forward. And, you know, at work sometimes, you know, it just, it, it depends on the best of luck of the draw. Like I said, it depends on your, your, your risk profile, but, you know, it’s is one of the things that a lot of people do and, and, and they get away with it. But, but if you do get audited, then you’re going to have problems. You’re going to have to pay those penalties. You’re going to have to pay interest. So the way, the way it worked in most States is that if you’ve been filing sales tax returns, the state can only audit you for the prior 36 months.
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00:27:59
But if you’ve not been filing them, we can go back for seven years. Wow. So,
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00:28:04
And so essentially the statute of limitations is seven years,
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00:28:07
Correct? That is, the limitation is a seven year. So if you registered today and you start filing this month and, and, and, you know, next quarter, they flag you for an audit. Cause they, you know, for whatever reason they find it to be suspicious or it’s just, you know, not your lucky day that they can go back for seven years. Cause you haven’t locked in that 36 month timeframe of filing Sales and news tax returns. So, you know, I don’t have a great answer for you on that one. Unfortunately, you know, we, you know, we are, at the end of the day, we worked for our clients and, and we will do what they ask us to do. And, you know, I feel like my job is to educate them, to give them a, the, you know, if, if I work for the state, what would, what would the state of the situation?
2
00:28:54
And, and, and I can tell you what that is, and then what you choose to do with it as really, you know, it’s up to you guys. So, okay.
3
00:29:02
So that statute of limitations seven years, and I’m 36 month look back, is that across all 45 States, or just generally speaking,
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00:29:11
This is not that simple. So, you know, just like many States is clustered around the threshold of a, a a hundred thousand dollars in sales and a 200 transactions. Most of these have, has it at that threshold of a 36 months. It’s the look back period or the statute of limitations. But with that, there are a very one. So, you know, Texas as a 48 month state, you know, Illinois is, is a really unique one. It depends on what time of the year it is. If you, you know, if, if they come to audit today, they could go back and look at things from the prior meeting this, this year and the prior two years. And then the last half of 2017, that about is probably a really confusing, but the, the statute of limitations varies by state.
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00:29:58
So a 36.
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00:30:01
So at the federal level, the, I mean, there was a voluntary disclosure program, but it got discontinued a and the president Trump. But Lou similarly, what you would do is we’ll, it hasn’t been discontinued. It has been drastically altered, but essentially it’s the same thing that you register an Ali, you seek upset, acceptance in turn, and typically you would be accepted unless they have already identified you in, there is an on-going investigation, like a seal indictment or whatever. So you apply, you get accepted and then you, you come clean, whatever thing. And there’s a, a defined look back period, and at least six years for returns or whatever the case may be.
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00:30:46
And that’s for those who have been wilful versus those have been non-well for us at the federal level, that makes a distinction between those who is not compliant as well for the non-wilful. And again, there was no definition in statute. So we are looking at a case law. So in the case, law was telling us the distinction, being someone who knew of their legal responsibility and deliberately evaded that responsibility, that wilfulness in a nutshell, and we can apply into the voluntary disclosure if your non-compliance was non-well for you honestly didn’t know, then there was another program called streamlined with a shorter look back, period again, well, you get to weave some of the more egregious penalties as a civil and criminal.
3
00:31:36
So that was appealing. And the most, you get his interest if, if that, so that that’s how it was. And there were practitioners who, and, and like you said, and I’m just drawing that comparison between sales and use tax in federal taxation. Then with those practitioners who is saying, you know what? You can go with a quiet disclosure, you know, you can just don’t say anything, just slide it in there, or just go, Founder just forget the past, the past, the past is just go for it. But there were of course, risk associated with that, both for the taxpayer and increasingly for us as professionals. So if it is, for example, we, you know, offer somehow was associated with a tax payer who took a risk and did not report and just went follow it.
3
00:32:26
Then the RS may say, well, hold on, maybe this is a pattern, maybe that this is how they advise their clients. So let’s audit all of our clients or let’s take a healthy sample of their clients and have a look to see whether we can find anything. So then there was a serious risk. And at the end of the day, that boiled down to, you know, what come follow. So it was, it, it created an environment which encouraged taxpayers, you know, just, just come fall into that. And, but what I’m seeing and what I’m understanding is that in sales and use tax is not exactly that cut and dry to some extent it can, there is a strong enough incentive to just forget the past and, and look forward.
3
00:33:11
Is, am I being fancying that
2
00:33:15
Well? So the program that you described, it’s got a lot of similarities to the VDA program. Yeah. And you know, again, my advice is always, yeah, you should file the VDA, you know, but then, you know, people come back to me and say, I can’t do that. Or I don’t want to do that in, in situations like that. You know, I can’t force them to do that, you know, so, you know, but you’re right. So, so in, in a situation like that, you know, so if you came to me and said, I just want to register, you know, I’d say, yeah, but you’ve got a million dollars in liabilities here Derren California that may be too happy with and you say, you know, well, so it is, that’s the case, you know what I can do for you?
2
00:33:55
I, I can complete that registration. I can fill everything in, but you’re going to have to sign it and you are going to have to send it in because, you know, legally I can’t, I can’t attest that. Everything I put on that document is true. Alright. So that’s one of the statements of it. So I know that’s not true, so I can’t sign that, you know, but it is the business owners. If that’s what you want to do, I can certainly put on the right information on the right box is for you. And, and, and then you can do what you will with that. So, so that’s how we handled it. And, and, and, and you’re right. I do think that it’s a federal level. There’s a little more sophistication, you know, part of the state, some States are, some States are just as sophisticated as the IRS.
2
00:34:39
A lot of them are. And so, you know, you know, you mentioned it at the beginning of this discussion, Hey, let’s take a sample of this as let’s talk about a traditionally aggressive state like California. So yeah, the California is the, you know, we, we, we could go put in, you know, we could put them all in a list and kind of rank them is just, you know, who should you mess with? And, you know, if, if, if your, if you’re more likely to mess with them here, they’re going to catch you. And there’s some other ones that, you know, maybe not, but yeah, just go with the sophistication because of the organization and, and you know, it, it varies.
3
00:35:18
And so of the 45 or so States, which of the last, say the five that you definitely do not mess with.
2
00:35:25
Oh, the five we definitely don’t mess with for a sales tax. All right. Well, yeah, the California, I agree with me on that one. I would say Texas is very aggressive. A text is also a 48 month statute of limitations and, and they have pretty high tax rates. So, so that’s another state that is that this is challenging to deal with. New York is also a pretty aggressive. And then I would say probably after that, I probably say Illinois is another one that is very accommodating through their VDA program, but I actually, they call it the VDP program.
2
00:36:05
Just be different that there is an illustration of why sales tax is different everywhere. They can’t even call it the same thing. So Illinois and the other one, and that, I guess that’s probably, I’d say the state of Washington who is also a pretty aggressive. Alright. And
3
00:36:21
Oh, the one on the other side of the spectrum of the five States, none of the calling them out, but they are not as sophisticated. They’re not as sophisticated as the other five.
2
00:36:32
Yeah. So I would say that there are some States here in the Southeast that maybe aren’t as sophisticated. So now as it is, I’m not saying that there are a sophisticated, so there’s still some States they haven’t figured out this nexus thing yet. All right. So, so Florida is not even had it, doesn’t have an economic nexus standard is not that you can get away with it. There is that they, they haven’t decided what they are going to do yet. So so-so in, in Missouri is in another state where they have not yet sorted out the economic nexus. So they are not on the list of people. You can just, you know, so if someone’s watching this 12 months from now and they’ve got a program, Hey, Erin said that we haven’t yet. So things are always changing is for you and for me, but that, but there are some States that do have sales tax and maybe are not as diligent at, at, at the auditing and, and, and catching people.
2
00:37:26
And so I would say it’s, but you know, it is probably States that if I had, you guess you’ve probably guessed them because they are not huge volume States, that don’t deal with a lot folks, you know? So, so I would say States like Mississippi, Nevada, Oklahoma, Arkansas. Right. You know, so there’s a handful of them that I would list for you. And you know, now maybe the washes, there’s a video of this Podcast and you know, you, and they’ll say we boil, we better get out of the door.
3
00:38:04
Okay. So, okay. So going back to your risk profile, I am aware of a certain, a tax attorney who specializes in sales and use tax. And I’ve heard that what he’s advised, not, I’m not. So this is a second-hand in for this is from his clients, not from him. So who knows what he really said, but his, so we have a mutual clients and apparently has advised more than one occasion, you know, go forward, forget the past is past the school, but he’s gone even further to say, well, you might want a form, a new entity with a different EIN on a completely different legal entity and Use, and just discontinue sales on the other one.
3
00:38:56
So in the event that they do catch up with you, it’s, they they’re coming after the entity that just does not exist. It’s gone. So that’s how, you know, you know, if that is in fact the case that, and we’re not saying that it is, or isn’t, that sounds a bit aggressive. Well, what are your thoughts on that?
2
00:39:18
I, I may know the individual you’re talking about and, and I’ve, I actually don’t know him personally, but, but like you, I have some clients who’ve either bounced those ideas off of me all over the company for a second opinion. Or sometimes people, you know, we want to check with her, I say, and go get a second opinion from, from this is probably not just one person. It’s probably a bunch of everything. So yeah, I’ve heard that story too. And, and I’ve had people come back and, and tell me that. And I say, I mean, that’s not right. You know, in the end of the day, you can do what you want. You know, again, I can fill in this form and you can send it off, but that is, I wouldn’t be doing my job.
2
00:40:01
You know, if, if I told you, yeah, that sounds like a great idea to me, you know? So, you know, you know, I had a client that this happened with, you know, in the last, probably two months or so. And so I went to the, the, the CFO called me and said, Hey, I got a different opinion. And this is what this person thinks. And I said, well, I guess, I guess you need to tell me what you want me to do. Do you want me to tell you what, what, what, like the honest, if, you know, again, if, if I worked for the state and I audited you, do you want to know what that answer is? Or do you want to know that like the most optimistic rosy picture is, and yeah, you might get away with it, you know, but, you know, I mean, if he knows is not right, it’s a, I have a hard time doing stuff like that.
2
00:40:48
So, you know, but, but I heard the story. Yeah. Just registered going forward. Yeah. That’s, that’s more reasonable than me than creating a whole other entity and, you know, pretending that we, Hey, we just set up business here. So, but maybe I’m the naive one. I don’t know. I, I try to, I try to live by, you know, a code of ethics and honour, and yeah, that, that wouldn’t sit right with me. And, and I can guarantee you that if any state figured it out, they wouldn’t, they would not say that was okay, so we can take that for what you will.
3
00:41:24
Sure. And I guess it really; it goes back to the previous point. It depends on the state. There are some States that would be that have the sophistication to perhaps join, you know, joining the dots. And then there’s some that may not. So, you know, it, it, it really depends. But if they catch on to that, they realize, you know what, it’s the same brand, even though it’s a different LLC or whatever, it’s the same physical product. And they do figure it out. I would imagine that they would be very unimpressed and they will be a bit more aggressive than otherwise. I would imagine. I mean, the radically,
2
00:42:05
I agree with you. I agree with you all are doing
3
00:42:08
Now. And again, during the comparison to federal taxation. Cause you know, that’s, that’s where I said part of the negotiation with the federal government. Sometimes they encourage you or they give you a brownie points for calling out your advisor. So if it is part of your misstep is because you were advised. If you give them a name, they will let it slide. I mean, just like with criminal proceedings, it’s civil, but you know, give us the name, just give us the name of it. You get the most sophisticated state’s on that side of the spectrum.
3
00:42:48
Have you noticed that type of behaviour or not yet?
2
00:42:51
So I’ve not seen that, that that’s, that’s really interesting. So yeah. So the name, the bad actor here who gave you the best advice. Right? Exactly. And, and that’s really a way that’s a really clever actually. So I’m not aware of the site. I know nothing, but Sales and Taxes, so you are always enlightened me of about federal tax and we talk that that’s a really interesting, and, and, and that sounds like something that if I was in a state, I would certainly be asking, you know, I think that a lot of times though the answer would be, we just didn’t know. You know? So, you know, usually when, when people come to us with these problems, it’s, it’s the one state has figured that out. And so they they’ve been, they’ve been audited or they’ve been notified of an audit.
2
00:43:32
And so if you, if you’ve been notified with all of you cannot opt into the VDA program. And so oftentimes they say in, in usually, you know, you’re very pregnant and a lot of times they say, Hey, I got a letter from California. You know, if I, if I was handicapping them, that would be, if I had a, if I had a guest, which one it was, I would say in California and yet California audited notified me that they think I have nexus in that I haven’t been collecting TAX what does that mean? You know, and I’m also in a case like that, if California said to them, well, who, who miss advise you? The answer is probably nobody, you know, that the government was just asleep with the switch and, and, and not, not even tuned into this is something that we should be concerned about.
2
00:44:17
You know? So that’s not always the case obviously, but I think a lot of times in sales tax, that would be the answer. Is that something that you see on the federal level to where it’s just, it was unbeknownst to anybody or, or is bad advice more often?
3
00:44:33
Hmm. It really depends. So going back to that distinction between full and non-wilful, there are times when the tax payer genuinely was unaware of their responsibilities, they just didn’t know. And then of course there are times when they didn’t know, and that took a decisive, incredible steps to evade, not just avoid, but to evade this known legal responsibility. So it varies, but an in our practice, we get most of the people that it was an accident genuinely didn’t know, although every once in a while, the other type would walk in the door. But I, as you mentioned that with the California deuce, with the federal government, the federal government, there’s a relationship between the franchise tax boards and the IRS.
3
00:45:20
So they, they talk to each other. So if one picks up on an issue, this ended up the road, or the centre of downtown, does that happen with States as well? So that, like, if California picks up on something, would they send a, like an email to the state next door, Hey, you might want to have a look at these guys. I’m just saying, you know,
2
00:45:39
No, and that, I mean, that’s, that’s, you know, you, you and me, he said, you know, we just start running some of these department of revenues because we do, we find from revenue has been leaking out the back door. No, they don’t do that. So, you know, I’m looking at it in, in Atlanta, you know, and, you know, Florida is a neighbouring state. You know, we got an office in Florida. If somebody gets audited in Florida, Florida, doesn’t tip off Georgia and say, Hey, you should look into this. You know, they weren’t doing stuff right here. You know, I know you’re my neighbour, or, or that I’m making the analogy of neighbours, but, you know, Hey, Florida’s, I don’t know what that number stated. It is for the size. I guess it’s a tough five States for a population, you know, they don’t, they don’t email the other for and say, Hey, you guys should be suspicious of this stuff here.
2
00:46:26
You know, maybe, maybe a fourth of kicking the tires. So no in the States do not do that. And, and, and, and one thing I’ve noticed in the last decade that’s really changed is that even a decade ago, you could get audited in one state for one kind of TAX. And they wouldn’t even like, communicate with the other department, like, like, so like you could be, you know, you could be audited for income tax you’re in a GA or payroll TAX and they, and if so, you know, again, if, if, if you’ve got a problem with your payroll tax, well, if I’m the state of Georgia, I sure would want to look at your other taxes.
2
00:47:09
Because why would, I think you are doing those as well? Exactly. That didn’t happen. That that didn’t happen a decade ago and it’s beginning to happen now. So, so oftentimes if you get all of the different one type of tax in a, certainly the more sophisticated States and they see a problem, we expect a steady stream of auditors coming in through your door saying, Oh, well, now we’re here to look at a franchise TAX Oh, no, we’re here to look at income tax, you know, and, you know, and so a again, that that’s something that’s really changed. So they’ve that they’ve become more sophisticated and I’m sure they’ll continue to do that because it just, it just makes sense. Right. If you’ve got a problem, you know, why would you think that they’re great at filing everything except for one type of tax, you know?
3
00:47:49
Okay. So, okay. That leads us into; he leads me into another line of thought. What if I were to ask you, I know, you know, it’s not your thing, but if you were to predict the trends that we need to pay attention to, so I’m guessing, you’d say one of them would be that sharing of information. So more States were get into that even within themselves, different tax departments will begin to speak to each other. If the, you know, to look for common infractions, what else do you think would be a trend in sales and use tax? Just imagining.
2
00:48:26
Yeah. So let me, so the other thing that we, we spent a lot of time thinking about it and being alert to it is, is changing TAX ability of items. So, so, so that can go both ways, right? So, so, you know, this is really sort of two parts to our business. So, so, you know, we’ve always helped you in, in your clients with, with the compliance side and making sure that people are registered and, and collecting TAX correctly and filing a correctly so that there is another part of the business that we go back and we’d like hunt down refunds for people where they’ve overpaid their taxes. Okay. So yeah, that doesn’t really know the, you know, so there’s two sides to every coin, but, but those, the changing definitions of what subject attacks and what isn’t subject to tax is, is, you know, it’s, it’s, sometimes it’s done through changes in legislation a bit more often, it’s actually done through, you know, court cases, ruling requests and things like that.
2
00:49:14
So, so my day starts every day by reading a little digestive, every, every new ruling that came out in, in the us related to the Sales TAX yesterday, and we get to get a cup of coffee is going to be exciting, you know? But so, yeah, so it’s a change in definitions, right. So, you know, so you can, you know, going back to the software thing, so you can set up everything today, correctly, and, and then on the first of the next month, well, you know, the thing that you thought was not subsidy the tax now is, and, you know, so it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s moving the, you know, we are moving in, moving the gold line on you are moving the goalposts on you as well. So, so that’s always the concern that it has, has always been, and always will be concerned.
2
00:49:57
I’m not sure, is it necessarily a, a new one? So, you know, the other thing that will be interesting to see here is, you know, it, and maybe it kind of dovetails with that is, is like digital products. Right. You know, so, so much more of our world is, is non-tangible. And, you know, so just, just like the state’s figured out, it took them awhile, but you know, this economic nexus issue, you know, just like, just like they figured out to get that revenue from, let us look through their fingers, you know, as, as things become more and more digital and less, less tangible, you know, that they’re going to change the definitions and, and make sure they don’t lose out on the potential revenue from that.
2
00:50:39
Now, I don’t know if that is going to happen on the next year or so, but you know, that that’s certainly something that we are looking at that, you know, I think that’s something to be concerned about. And yeah, you know, that is your sales tax as well is always a changing and a dynamic and a changing rules, changing rates, changing laws. So,
3
00:51:05
But a general trend would be a movement to capturing more and more transactions. So transactions that may be out of scope right now, keep an eye on it because one would expect that they would, at some point in time may become in school. And I know you and give the example because everyone knows about a physical product, but yeah. Digital products and apps games, or whatever, some States do, some States don’t, but keep an eye in those that don’t because they may do. Right. Sure. Okay. That’s fair enough. And again, I guess the other trends will be borrowing from other well, other areas of TAX of, for example, as we set with federal aware, there’s a greater sharing of information, basically creating mechanisms for capturing people.
3
00:51:59
We may be avoiding or evading that level of sophistication. So that gap between the top five or the bottom five, one would expect over time that that narrows as everybody plays catch up. Okay. And then, and then two, we’re looking at this, we live in a strange yet, you know, COVID-19 and we’ve seen many changes. So like in California, people talking about this Exodus, right? So some of those tax payers would have left California with a left in New York as well. And they have budgets to balance and suddenly their revenues down.
3
00:52:41
So they need to be more intelligent with how they collect from the taxpayer is that they do have, so we expect things to be more aggressive in those spaces as well. So I guess it’s just all about the efficiency of collection and widening that net.
2
00:52:58
Yes. I agree with that. I agree with what you’re saying. Right. Is this ever shifting, ever moving and you’re right. You know, that those two States you called out yeah. You know, California had a revenue problems, you know, in the past. And, and so they just wiped all of the exemptions off the books and said, everything’s taxable and, and then became hyper aggressive. And, and, and some of that is remained, you know, obviously, you know, you and I both called it out as being one of the most aggressive States is still the aggressive right now, even though the revenue problems with, you know, improved. So yeah. But I, I think you’re right. I think that, you know, share of information, sharing that information between States is, is, yeah, I guess I’m surprised they don’t do it more. You know what I mean? There, there is something called the streamlined sales tax board.
2
00:53:39
And so I can’t remember how many States are a member of it. I want to say there’s no 25 or so States in the objective of that is to, in theory, what they’re trying to do was make life easier for tax payers. You know, that they’re trying to cluster around similar definition or the identical definitions of what is taxable here, what is taxable there, but, but you know, that it hasn’t worked quite as well as they would hope because a lot of States don’t want it, you know, that they want the autonomy to do what they want to do. So, and that there are States that are partial members, but, but, you know, it would seem to make sense to me that those guys would be sharing information, but it doesn’t yet appear to have happened.
3
00:54:22
Okay. So one last question. The, as we mentioned, along the way, there’s so many service providers who claim to be experts in sales and use tax. If I’m a entrepreneur, I’m a new business owner, how do I really choose a provider to help me with that nexus study, with determining what the right software solution to help coach me through implementation? Just basically home. I had to the process, how do I do that? What, what factor, what criteria am I looking for?
2
00:54:54
Sure, sure. Well, you know, I mean, you know, just like software programs are different fits for different companies. I would say that there are, there are a bunch of competent, capable folks out there know who can do this. And part of it is just, is it a fit? You know, so, you know, you and I met and we hit it off and, and you know, it’s a part of his personality and who you, who you like, you know, if they’re, if they are thinking about ethics and morals, the same way that you do well, then, you know, that’s probably a good choice. You know, if someone’s, if someone’s telling you something in your thinking that doesn’t sound right to me, then, you know, go find someone different. You know? Now if, if, if, if you think that me saying you should file PDAs is yeah. If that doesn’t, that doesn’t suit you fine.
2
00:55:35
And then, you know, you know, there’s, there’s other folks that will just do what you want them to do. So to me, I would go and look at someone’s resume. I’d go look at their experience. So, so I’ve been doing nothing but sales tax for 20 years. That certainly isn’t the longest Indian history, but I see a lot in 20 years, you know? And so, you know, I would say experience, you know, a resume and experiences is how I would make that decision. So
3
00:56:01
Resume experiences and ethics.
2
00:56:03
Yep. The personality fit ethics. Yeah. So
3
00:56:07
Aaron, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate you sharing your, your insights and, and your 20 years of experience, any final words,
2
00:56:17
You know, I guess one thing we didn’t touch on I’ll, I’ll give you a quick soundbite, but, and maybe we do a part two and we talk about because someone, no one ever wants to talk about it is audits. So let’s say you do get all of it. Right. Okay. So, you know, the, the, you know, you can go find someone to help you with that audit. You know, the, the, the alternative is either, I guess there are three alternatives. You can tackle it. In-house, you can just give everything to the state and see what happens. Or you could have someone like you are like me coming to help and say, Hey, let’s, let’s go through this together. Let’s figure out what we think the right answer is and present that to, to the state. And, and so, you know, there’s a lot, you know, you talked about tax evasion, you know, there is a great saying is there is a world of difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion.
2
00:57:03
Right now we can go ahead and present the facts in a more favourable way and still be ethical. Right. You know, so, but if you, you know, so if you are audited, you know, I would encourage someone to go and get professional help for audit defense are audit representation, because we know that that’s part of this whole nexus. And as part of the compliance thing is there are going to be occasions where they find you before you come forward, instead of just help out there for, you know, for that.
3
00:57:34
So is there like a rule of thumb? So what are the general, like triggers that would distinguish a client or tax payer or entrepreneur who says, I can handle this myself, or, you know, what I need help with what distinguishes one from the other?
2
00:57:51
Yeah. So I think is probably just a way people are wired, to be honest with you, you know, so, you know, you know, CPAs, you know, often we’ll be the first line of defense on that. And, and, and look, you can’t beat the CPA for auditing experience. Like they’re going to definitely guide you well for auditing, but they may not be a sales tax experts. Right. Exactly. And so, you know, we, we partner with CPAs obviously with, you know, in, in, in, in others as well. And, you know, they’ll, they’ll field inquiries, you know, they’ll, they’ll send us something and say, Hey, I’ve done the best I can for this guy, but I don’t think that they should be assessing Taxes all of these things, but I don’t know how to argue in, in, in, in, in, and get those things removed, you know?
2
00:58:33
And, you know, so it’s is often a little bit of experience from, from doing this in the past that, that, that maybe, you know, moves at that last mile. So, you know, what I would tell you is that a representative will always help you, you know, sometimes you were worried about the fees were going to save you more money than you’re going to pay us in fees. You’re going to be, you’re going to be the winner of that equation every time, because we pride ourselves on delivering value to folks and, and just like you do. Right. You know, so if you don’t deliver value, that’d be the last time they ever use you. Right.
3
00:59:06
That’s for sure. So it depends on the, the potential risk, you know, how much money is at risk here. And it depends on your personal risk tolerance and, and yet your personality, whether you think this is something I want to handle in house, or, you know, what I, I need to call and some support. Okay. Sure.
2
00:59:29
Okay, great. Yeah, that, that, that’s an important part of the compliance puzzle that we didn’t talk about it. And it’s, you know, it’s the, again, it’s no one, no one likes the, a word audit word, so, but they do happen. So you just tell you, we got to move through it as best you can.
3
00:59:42
Let’s take a look at that in with the federal, again, the comparison with federal, because of resource constraints and the greater use of technology, the probability at least depends on your profile with the probability of being audited is actually declining over time. But I would imagine what sales and use tax is going into the opposite trajectory. They are throwing more resource into it, so that the probability of being audited is on the increases on the up and up. Right. Am I correct in saying that?
2
01:00:16
Yeah, I agree with that
3
01:00:19
Now with the federal Taxes I know, well, we know that there are people that just get picked up and the statistical a random sample, and you cannot avoid that. And that those, the certain red flags that the IRS does look four, for example, a lot of sheds you’ll see transactions, someone who is a sole proprietor, they tend to get picked up more people, probably that into crypto. And again, you know, they got a, a closer look than someone who is not a crypto trader. So on, on the sales of Use TAX site, are there any hallmarks, any flags that draws their attention of the team’s in sales and use tax with the various States?
2
01:01:01
Sure, sure. Yeah. So, so there, there are some things that are red flags. So if, if you’re a, if you’re a, like an online retail e-commerce retailer and, and, and you start up and with one and you, you know, so, so let’s say they chose the path of just registering and, and, and finally, Taxes going forward. If you come out of the Gates with like astronomical Sales and they’re going to be suspicious of that, right. Because that’s not usually we would love the business is the boom from day one, but that’s usually not how it goes. Right. I’m not saying that there is any impropriety there, because in theory, you could just start in selling this and to all the different state or, you know, but, you know, if you come in boom, in a high level, that they’re going to, they’re going to think that that’s interesting if you’ve been reporting a very little bit, and then it jumps up, there are also going to that, that that would be more of a red flag for that.
2
01:01:56
And, and then another thing that it would, it would only matter for a company is that physically have like operations within the state, like a physical presence. Yeah. But if you file taxable sales and you never report any Use TAX than the state knows that it’s wrong because you have to be buying some stuff that comes in from overseas or from, for a retailer, it not taxing you. And so if you have a month after month after month of the zero, zero, zero, zero on the Use TAX, you know, they know that is not right. So, so that will eventually come in and, and kick the tires on that.
3
01:02:31
And can you, can we go over that again? So this is if it is, so if it is that you have a income tax to me, like sort of a state income tax,
2
01:02:43
If you have a physical presence. So if you have a few of a warehouse in the state, okay. Right. So you have a establish, a physical place here and you file sales tax returns. So, you know, we talked to the gate Sales Taxes is the TAX
3
01:02:58
Pay out right.
2
01:03:01
When you buy things, but Use TAX if you acquire something that is not subject to TAX, you should is you should have paid tax on it. Well, then you should be remitting Use TAX on that. So there’s a, this doesn’t mean anything for an e-commerce retailer, but if you physically have a location here and you never report Use TAX, the state is going to say that doesn’t look right, because we know that they buy stuff that is not taxed and the team at the time of sale. So that’s a red flag for someone who physically is located in the state.
3
01:03:33
Right. And, and that ties back to the conversation. And the point that you raised earlier that the various tax departments do speak to each other and, you know, payroll might have a quick look to make sure that, you know, that those are being remitted. Right. You know, the state income tax, you know, if it applies excise taxes as well, you know, everyone just has to look to make sure that they’re getting their, their fair share. Okay. Right. And any other, any other flags that draw unnecessary attention
2
01:04:02
And, you know, I, I would say those were part of the big ones that you do hear just, you know, the stories of people being randomly selected that, that that’s always going to happen. But no, I, I think those were the red flags, you know, a wide range is in, in, in your sails and the unpredictable. Right. You know, it’s like a seasonal business. You’d understand that, but you know that if you see this huge spike or a, you know, that was that you had, you’re a big changes report is a win for the taxable Sales
3
01:04:32
Okay. That’s, that’s, that’s a good to know. That is good to know. Now with, again, draw the comparison with federal taxation, the higher, all things being equal, the higher your income, the greater, the probability of being picked up in a statistical round themselves, or is it the same with Sales and use tax, the bigger your volumes, the greater of the probability of being picked up randomly, or doesn’t work that way?
2
01:04:58
I, I think that’s true, but, you know, I don’t have any evidence to say that that’s factual, but that would just make sense to me because why would you audit someone who is making a thousand dollars a month in sales when you can, you know, audit someone who is making, you know, a million dollars a month in sales, you know, so, you know, there’s just more meat on the bone. So, so that would be, that would make sense to me. And, and, and yeah. You know, the folks that are reaching out to you, and so maybe, maybe that maybe I’m maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I don’t have the right perspective on it, but the people that are reaching out to US art, you know, a thousand dollars a month in sales folks, it’s, it’s all the larger businesses. So,
3
01:05:35
Exactly. Okay. So just to kind of summarize the sales and use tax for the audit perspective. So the chances of being audited will be higher. If there are irregularities in your sales patterns, if you just start off from zero and suddenly you’re a hero, you know, that kind of draws some, some attention a and you know, the gist, logically speaking, the, the higher you, your activity, the greater your chance of getting some questions, getting some questions asked. And if you have been noncompliant in any one era of taxation, the understand that the TAX teams talk to each other and, you know, so questions, maybe US from other areas of TAX as well.
3
01:06:24
Okay, great. And, and to summarize again, whether or not you should be looking for a professional support to go through and audit, it depends on the mountain of money at stake, obviously, and your risk profile, whether you think, you know what, I can really handle it, your personality, or whether you think, you know, just to be safe, I wanna bring in some, some support, but keep in mind that, especially when it comes to audits, they professional support pays for itself because once you choose the right team, which is of course important, once you choose the right team, they will make sure that their fees will be much less than in money that you would have saved all the things being equal, no promises, but generally speaking, that’s how they prove that value.
2
01:07:13
Correct. That the everything you said, I think you hit the nail on the head with that. Yeah.
3
01:07:18
All right. Wonderful, great. So, okay. Anything else? Any other parting words?
2
01:07:24
What is it that I appreciate? Let me slip that the part in there about audits, but no, I don’t have anything else.
3
01:07:31
Okay. Aaron, thank you very much for your time. And if someone wants to reach you, how do they do that? How do they find you?
2
01:07:37
And that they can find us on the internet@asalesnewstax.com. So we are
3
01:07:44
A very expensive domain to, to get into the first week, I guess you were early, right? Yeah.
2
01:07:48
I, yeah, I got, I got it. I got it early. So I was advised by someone said, you should totally get out of, I didn’t understand the time. I said, why would I pay that when I could just go by Sales dash and dash Use and he just said, Oh, just buy it. You don’t know what you’re talking about 40 years later. I’m a very, very thankful I listened to him. Okay.
3
01:08:11
All right. Wonderful. Aaron, thank you very
2
01:08:12
Much for your time. Derren. Thank you. Bye-bye
0
01:08:18
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