Top Sales Tax Compliance Strategies for e-Commerce Sellers

September 14, 2021

Kelly Stojka

Account Executive with TaxJar

Listen to the podcast

Kelly Stojka is an Account Executive with TaxJar, a sales tax software company that helps businesses of all sizes automate and manage their sales tax lifecycle across multiple channels. TaxJar’s cloud-based platform simplifies sales tax compliance to remove barriers for growth for businesses. Prior to TaxJar, Kelly held Account Executive roles at a number of software and service firms, including Flock and Lokion. She holds a bachelor’s degree in cognitive science from the University of California, Berkeley.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

Kelly Stojka explains how the Wayfair court ruling changed the way sellers are held accountable for sales tax
The role Amazon plays with sales tax compliance and what multi-channel e-commerce sellers need to know
How sellers can simplify sales tax compliance across different states
The pros and cons of voluntary tax disclosures
The states that are most aggressive about sales tax compliance and how sellers can reduce their chances of getting audited
Kelly discusses what sales tax audits and non-compliance can cost sellers
Kelly’s thoughts on the future of tax audits as more sellers shift to the e-commerce space
The services TaxJar provides to e-commerce sellers and what their acquisition by Stripe means

In this episode…

The 2018 Wayfair Supreme Court ruling had a huge impact on the way sales tax was collected and filed in the US. This affected not only sellers with physical stores, but also e-commerce sellers who sell their products across state lines. So, what do these sellers need to know about sales tax compliance?

Unknown to many businesses, several states use information taken from Amazon to go after non-compliant e-commerce sellers. According to Kelly Stojka, this is why it’s crucial for sellers to keep good records of their returns. As a sales tax compliance expert, Kelly is here to share her advice to Amazon sellers looking to avoid the costs of non-compliance and better manage their sales tax lifecycle.

In this episode of the Buy Box Experts podcast, James Thomson is joined by Kelly Stojka, an Account Executive with TaxJar, to discuss how the 2018 Wayfair ruling impacted sales tax compliance for e-commerce sellers. Kelly explains what Amazon sellers need to do to remain compliant, how to navigate compliance across different states, and the valuable services TaxJar provides for e-commerce entrepreneurs.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Sponsor for this episode…

Buy Box Experts applies decades of e-commerce experience to successfully manage their clients’ marketplace accounts. The Buy Box account managers specialize in combining an understanding of their clients’ business fundamentals and their in-depth expertise in the Amazon Marketplace.

The team works with marketplace technicians using a system of processes, proprietary software, and extensive channel experience to ensure your Amazon presence captures the opportunity in the marketplace — not only producing greater revenue and profits but also reducing or eliminating your business’ workload.

Buy Box Experts prides itself on being one of the few agencies with an SMB (small to medium-sized business) division and an Enterprise division. Buy Box does not commingle clients among divisions as each has unique needs and requirements for proper account management.

Learn more about Buy Box Experts at BuyBoxExperts.com.

Podcast Episode Transcripts:

Disclaimer: Transcripts were generated automatically and may contain inaccuracies and errors.

Intro 0:09

Welcome to the Buy Box Experts Podcast. We bring to light the unique opportunities brands face in today’s e-commerce world.

James Thomson 0:18

I am James Thomson, one of the hosts of the Buy Box Experts Podcast. I’m a partner with Buy Box Experts and the former business head of the selling on Amazon team at Amazon, as well as Amazon’s first account manager of the Fulfillment by Amazon program. I’m the co author of a couple of books on Amazon including the recent book, Controlling Your Brand in The Age of Amazon. Today’s episode is brought to you by Buy Box Experts. Buy Box Experts takes ambitious brands and makes them unbeatable. When you hire Buy Box Experts, you receive the strategy optimization and marketing performance to succeed on Amazon. We also support investors with due diligence services go to buyboxexperts.com to learn more.

Before I introduce our guest today, I want to send a big shout out to the team at GETIDA, a global leader in Amazon FBA auditing and reimbursements. GETIDA analyzes your Amazon data, reconciles your FBA inventory and files claims for reimbursements on your behalf. Go to getida.com to learn more. Our guest today is Kelly Stojka, an Account Executive with TaxJar, a firm that helps businesses of all sizes remove barriers to growth and compliance by helping firms manage their entire sales tax lifecycle from calculations and Nexus tracking to reporting and filing. Prior to TaxJar, Kelly held Account Executive roles at a number of software and services firms. Kelly, thanks for joining us today on the Buy Box Experts Podcast.

Kelly Stojka 1:42

Thanks for having me.

James Thomson 1:45

Let’s start with one of the big turning points. A couple years ago the Wayfair Supreme Court ruling changed the way that e-commerce sellers were held accountable for paying sales tax. Since then, Amazon has made some adjustments around what sales tax services it offers FBA and third party sellers. And clear responsibilities remain in place for those third party sellers. Tell us more about what actually changed and what Amazon sellers need to continue to do to remain sales tax compliant.

Kelly Stojka 2:15

Sure, so the common misconception that I see whenever I’m talking to customers, or FBA sellers, they tend to think because of Wayfair, pre Wayfair, they were having to charge a remit their own sales tax. They think now that Amazon handles that, that they’re handled, clean out of the picture don’t have to do anything. And the misunderstanding there is that although they’re not collecting and remitting the sales tax, they’re still required to pretty much report those gross sales with the $0 returns to the states where they have physical presences. Now they might not be based in that state. But as we all know, Amazon has warehouses across the country. And so if their goods are being held in those states, then they’ll have a requirement to file in them as well. So those are kind of some of the ways as well as due to the economic Nexus. So due to their volume of sales into states, they might also still be required to file those $0 returns, especially if they’re multi channel sellers. So if they’re selling through other avenues, those sales can also go towards those gross volumes towards those Nexus thresholds.

James Thomson 3:21

I went through the process of actually filing paperwork on a shell account once upon a time just to see how incredibly annoying and complicated this process was. I’d love to get a refresher from you on what does Amazon do or not do as part of its sales tax offering for third party sellers? And where does TaxJar come in to help close the gaps between what Amazon does and what a seller needs to do to be tax compliant?

Kelly Stojka 3:45

Sure, so they are charging and remitting the sales tax at point of purchase. So that’s not actually going into sellers hands at any point. Now the thing is, the states are still requiring the gross sales to be counted on those returns, they still have to file although the $0 tax return will be filed to the state, they still need to populate that with the sales data. And we’re taxed or comes into play, especially with Amazon sellers is where are those warehouses? Where are these items being stored? Where are they being shipped out of? Where do you have requirements to file and we actually indicate that on their account where they’re actually having those items shipped from since we’re importing that data in from their Amazon account. So that’s probably the key requirement that I think a lot of folks Miss is if they’re based in California, they think, alright, I’m filing my return in California. And it’s clean, I’m good to go. But the states can come after you and they really do like to audit folks where it’s those $0 returns because they know there’s money on the table. They haven’t been filing in a state where their goods are being shipped out of.

James Thomson 4:48

So for for e-commerce sellers that sell in more channels than just Amazon. Tell me a little bit more about what responsibilities likely changed as a result of Wayfair

Kelly Stojka 5:00

Sure. So with these marketplaces, previously, they were having to collect and remit sales tax across the board for all of their channels, because marketplaces didn’t exist by the law. Yep, now a multi channel seller, let’s say they’re selling on Amazon, they might have their own account where they’re selling on an e-commerce platform. Now on that account, they’re required to collect and remit the sales tax TaxJar can do those calculations, a lot of the platforms have their own calculators that they’re actually populating that data. Now, with that in there, that can definitely add towards those economic thresholds, including those Amazon sales. And so that can actually push you over the finish line to have to go ahead and require to file in other states due to your volume of sales as well, outside of that physical presence, that actual economic threshold, Baker hitting, and those will not be $0 returns, if you’re selling multi channel, you will have actual sales tax that you’re remitting to the state. But those Amazon orders do need to be aggregated on that report, as well as part of the gross sale, just with $0 of tax.

James Thomson 6:08

Historically, when I go into Seller Central, and I start pulling, sales, data, sales tax data, often it’s confusing, because Amazon doesn’t make a lot of historical data available for long periods of time. So I’d love to hear a little bit more of your thoughts in terms of best practices for a seller who’s trying to keep track of things and doesn’t necessarily do this on a regular basis. How do you see sellers being able to keep on top of their data, when they’re operating with whatever is available today in Seller Central?

Kelly Stojka 6:40

Yeah, so one thing they’re gonna want to do, because the look back window for audit is seven years. So you’ve got a window of time there that you are essentially, at risk of being out of compliance, if you don’t have that data, like you mentioned, a lot of the platforms, they either charge you extra to go back and get that archival data, or they just don’t have it available, they’ll wash that data out. Um, so as the seller, I mean, that’s your responsibility, if you need to download reports do so make sure you’re aggregating and keeping that in a safe and secure location. So you have that all, you know, tax charter does, we do track archival data. So we have the lifelong account all in there. So they have a filing history. And it’s all there in a clean space. So we find, you know, sellers that use our platform have a really clean record. But if you’re not using a third party, make sure that you’re on top of that, because you’re putting yourself and your business at risk. If you’re not keeping that data for up to seven years, and you want to make sure it’s secure. Data Security is a huge issue nowadays. And you don’t want you know, archival information like that, that could really, essentially show the entire sales of your business to be exposed.

James Thomson 7:48

So as I mentioned earlier, you know, five years ago, my business partner and I, we set up an LLC, we registered and at that time, only 25 states, just to see how complicated the sales tax process was. We saw the grand total of $0. This was never meant to be a sales effort. It was meant to be a let’s see how how messy things are across 25 different states. And so the process of having every state do things differently, create a little bit of a nightmare, getting all the paperwork to states, even when you only had we had $0 of sales. All of that is background. I’d love your thoughts on how does a seller simplify its life around sales tax compliance, when the seller is actually thinking they’re going to be selling across the country. I’m a new seller, I’m getting started on planning on going big. How proactive Do I have to be versus retroactive when it comes to thinking about sales tax?

Kelly Stojka 8:48

Well, my boss always likes to say, Where did you sit in the class? Do you sit at the front of the middle? Or did you sit in the back? Now,

James Thomson 8:56

there’s a cost to sitting at the front? Let’s be honest, there is a cost

Kelly Stojka 9:00

there is so there’s always that cost versus risk analysis that again, where did you sit in class? Are you okay with that risk versus the potential of being audited and having to pay, you know, fines and interest for any, you know, unpaid or overdue tax returns? So I think it’s really, you know, we obviously always advise to stay compliant, if possible, but like you mentioned, this is a huge burden, especially if you’re a smaller newer seller, you’re just testing out the waters aren’t sure what your sales exposure is going to be. But Amazon with those warehouses just immediately adds these requirements and more states than you think right off the bat due to their physical presence. Sometimes they’re moving your goods from warehouse to warehouse, it’s not even in one state. So you know, this is important information to not only track and keep compliant and on top of, you know, I don’t want to toot our own horn too much. That is why folks come to us I think, if you are trying to file returns in 25 states in that case, They all have different deadlines, they all have. Unlike Florida, you have to get it in a few days early, because it’s not going to hit right away. And it’s going to take days to process. And you can try to make your own spreadsheet and keep this all going. But it’s going to drive people crazy. And we’ve had companies come to us that have been doing it manual, and it just gets out of control. I’d say after 10 states, they’re just they want to wash their hands cleaner. And so there’s no magic thing, I think it’s if you want to spend the money, get a solution that really can automate it for you. Otherwise, you’re going to spend the time and really you’re gonna have to weigh the time versus the risk and also the time versus the reward of just having something that automates that for you.

James Thomson 10:43

So just to give our audience a little sense of cost here, we used a service to actually process the paperwork. But most of the fees we were paying, were actually fees to the different states, just to make sure that papers actually got submitted, when it was all said and done. We literally spent 12, or $13,000, just to file $0 papers, which is insane. And when you think of the small amazon seller that saying, Let’s see if I can make a go of this, you know, maybe it’s a hobby, maybe it’s a side deal. Eventually, I might turn it into a real job. But Boom, $10,000 a filing fees, Holy smokes, you need to be pretty serious about doing the right thing. If you think that selling on Amazon is really going to be an experiment. Again, I know you say where do we sit in the class? How much risk are you willing to handle? When you think about some of the minimum volumes that you have to do into various states before the states get interested in you? How do you advise clients around spend $10,000 right away in your first year when you’re selling $500 a product or handle absorbs certain levels of risk knowing that you may get paperwork from someone saying, we think you sold $25. In our state, you owe us some money plus penalties, fees, and so on so forth, it’s hard to see how this works for a really small seller who’s getting started.

Kelly Stojka 12:10

I would say from what I’ve seen anyway, the small sellers, they normally don’t want to take on the cost right off the bat. So they will take care of the bare minimum. What is it? Okay, I’m located in California, I ignorant to certain file there, but they might step sewn into it. And I also have had ones that have reached out and they just want to get compliant from day one. I think more and more, especially with this pandemic, just folks are moving towards Amazon sellers. There was almost like a network, as you know of people that now will connect and kind of get friends in on it and tell them that they’re making extra money on the side. But I think you really need to know what you’re getting yourself into from the get go. If this is something you’re serious about, just know that you’re going to have this exposure and risk and are you comfortable taking that on? And way you know it, at least at the bare minimum, if you’re located in a state, that’s probably the bare minimum of what you should be doing as far as tax compliance. But

James Thomson 13:03

finally, for your own home states. Sure, sure.

Kelly Stojka 13:06

Yeah. If but, you know, if you want to be completely compliant, and you want that peace of mind, it’s it’s just we don’t have a crystal ball. We want to know how much those fines are. And it’s almost like kicking the can down the road, the money up front, or do you want to pay it later? And it’s a question mark with the later cost is

James Thomson 13:24

what we used to run a conference called Prosper Show for Amazon sellers. And we had someone come from the Multistate Tax Commission, and he presented and talked about some of these sales tax issues and some of the opportunities the state’s put in place for the wave a wave of wave periods where you can come forward and declare, okay, I’ve been non compliant. What do I do? How do I how do I complain? I remember looking around the room and there was what 1500 people there were there were grown adults crying, because they realized they’re damned if they do, and they’re damned if they don’t, if they don’t take advantage of some of these programs, then as you say, they’re kicking the can down the road a little bit further. If they do take advantage of these programs, these amnesty programs, they’re all of a sudden stuck with 10s of 1000s of dollars of bills on stuff that they never, they never collected those dollars to begin with. So it’s it’s purely taken out of pocket out of past profits to become compliant. This concept of if you’ve done wrong in the past, even if it’s unknowingly, how do you get to the point where you come clean when it’s going to cost you so much that quite frankly, you may no longer be in business just by becoming compliant.

Kelly Stojka 14:41

Sure, and I think that you’re talking kind of about those voluntary disclosure. Yes, board, let them know, I know, I’ve done wrong, I’ve been bad. I haven’t followed the rules. Let me try to get this right. Those. Obviously the state likes to position it as a win win. They’re becoming aware of a taxpayer that wasn’t paying taxes in their state. Hey, you’re getting compliant. But ultimately, like you said that that comes with a big cost. Because, especially if it is where they were not the ones collecting the sales tax, so they never had it in their pocket to pay it out in the first place. So that’s just completely coming out of the profit of their company about them. So I mean, those, it’s still just kicking the can down, if you don’t do that, if the state comes after you first, though, it can be a lot worse, they just need to know that. So you know, we all don’t want to go to the dentist if you’ve got a toothache, but you know, if you just keep letting it hurt, that’s true, it’s gonna get worse that is going to be there’s going to be 20 other problems that are gonna pop up. So I think if you know you’ve done it wrong, it’s preferred that you get on the right track. But you do I mean, make sure you know that there is a cost involved with that. And that, you know, they’re not just going to say, Okay, great, thanks for letting us know, and then shake hands and say, just pay moving forward or just file moving forward, they’re going to definitely incur fees and interest on that.

James Thomson 16:00

So let’s shift our discussion to compliance sellers. I have a lot of interactions with sellers who did do the hard work of getting filed in all the right places. And even when they are compliant, they still have states coming after them left, right and center, you know, sending them paperwork saying we believe you owe us a ton of money. And what I’m seeing over and over again, is some of these really aggressive states, quite frankly, they’ve never bothered to cross reference. They’re just sending paperwork, scaring the living daylights out of sellers. When there’s no there’s no debt that’s owed. But no, let’s just see what happens. I’d love your thoughts on are there specific states that you’re particularly aware of being more aggressive than others that seller should be on the lookout for? And again, we’re talking compliant sellers, you’re doing the right thing, but you’re still getting bombarded?

Kelly Stojka 16:50

Yeah, I mean, I think Pennsylvania has always been a forerunner in that Washington and California typically are pretty on top of it. You know, Massachusetts is up there, too, as far as coming after those sellers. I mean, I see it in you know, the Amazon FBA kind of Seller Central, there’s always folks posting in there, but like, I don’t understand, I’ve been paying all along. And then there’s just a bunch of comments that you can read in threads about the sellers, just saying, just ignore it or don’t, don’t answer back. You know, so there’s, it’s not great that the states are pretty much just blanketing, but from what I’ve heard, the seats are pretty much getting information from Amazon, as far as whose goods were held in that warehouse there, like you said, not cross referencing, see who already paid, they’re just really blanketing out there and seeing what they can get. So they’re casting a wide net. You know, honestly, like I said, That’s why that’s important to keep that paperwork, keep those returns, keep everything recorded. Because if you have your defense ready to go, you know, if you bring that to a tax advisor, they can look through it and let you know that you don’t have to pay that or give you some advice there on how to deal with the states. But you know, I know it’s scary to get something like that from estate, because we all know, there’s taxes out there we’ve never heard of, or there’s overdue property tax you’d ever got a note on or something like that. But with this, it’s just make sure you have supporting documentation, because that’s the best that you can do to really prepare yourself for a situation like this.

James Thomson 18:20

Is there anything beyond paying your sales tax properly, that a seller can do to limit the likelihood that they’re actually going to get audited in the first place?

Kelly Stojka 18:29

You know, it’s pretty mixed bag out there on where the audits come from. I think, especially with these marketplaces, and the $0 returns, they’re really creating that are for like exempt customers. They’re really cracking down on why are you exempt and they’re coming after these sellers across the board. I know we’ve seen it here, where if we’re just giving others an exemption reason, that’s like not good enough for a lot of the states. Now they need details and they need a healer. So I think make sure you know your stuff, be ahead of this. track everything you can. And I don’t really know if there’s a right or wrong reason on how you can or cannot get audited, I think you’re pretty mixed bag out there. So the best you can do is be prepared for the audit and just have that information on hand.

James Thomson 19:16

So let’s say I’m an Amazon only seller, Amazon is is collecting and paying that sales taxes and all the states where my products are actually stored, sold, what have you. At the end of the day, if I’m not filing the necessary paperwork with the states myself, can you talk me through a little bit about the kinds of fines and penalties that sellers can expect for not filing that, essentially administrative paperwork?

Kelly Stojka 19:44

Yeah, I mean, that can vary very widely. We’re not tax advisors here. So we don’t go too deep into those files. Like you would typically reference a client over to tax advisor for a situation like that. But you know, they can vary widely and it can really depend on I also like the look back window that they’re looking at how long did this go on for? If they were pre Wayfair sellers, that’s a whole other ballgame because there were sales tax that they should have been collecting and remitting, so that can be really hefty there. I’ve seen ones where they’re, you know, 50,000 plus dollars back tax, that they did not collect. The files themselves should not be as aggressive as that for just the not filing, but it will still cost you money in the long run, it’s just going to depend on that state. And as we know, what the next is tracking for these states, no state is the same. And it seems like they don’t even have necessarily a rhyme or reason behind some of the taxes and kind of fines.

James Thomson 20:39

So you talked a moment ago about some of the more aggressive states? Mm hmm. Can you give us a sense of the time and effort that an artist can, an audit can cost the seller, even one who’s compliant, doing all the right things paying his or her taxes? You know, I keep hearing horror stories from sellers, she said, You wouldn’t believe what I spent the last three weekends doing. It’s just filling out paperwork to demonstrate they don’t owe anything.

Kelly Stojka 21:04

Yeah, that can be pretty hefty time limits. I mean, we’re talking about seven years of transaction data like that every month, that transaction data you need that you need those recordings for. And just like you said, there’s probably paperwork or it’s very manual, you’re going to be filling in, this was the information for this year, for this year, for this month. So it’s going to take hours to do this stuff. This isn’t like a light audit, I don’t think. And audits are so specific. They really, if you’re not answering it exactly as they need it. Like they’ll just keep kicking it back over to you until it’s in the format they need. Any government entity, we’ve all dealt with, like their forms, there is no wiggle room with them, they want it exactly as they want. And like nobody went into business to deal with sales tax, I don’t think that’s why any seller sells what they do. And it’s just it can get very granular with all of these changing rates, there’s district taxes, there’s county taxes, and it’s just impossible in this, quite frankly, in the past, the software wasn’t really up to snuff with all of these taxability codes and with the jurisdiction taxes, and they weren’t always calculating correctly. So you know, these are things that it’s just even if you think you’re doing everything, right, sometimes the software wasn’t reliable, or what you needed it to. So you can do the best you can. And that’s honestly what we can all hope for and just answer as best you can.

James Thomson 22:29

So Amazon uses tax tables to figure out what taxes should be collected by state, city, county and so on so forth. What if Amazon makes a mistake on that? Where Where can the Amazon seller? contest? The wrong the wrong tax was collected by Amazon?

Kelly Stojka 22:48

Yeah, so I’m actually not positive on that. As far as the Amazon seller account, we don’t get too deep into their account specifics. I’m sure that somewhere in Seller Central, but I wouldn’t really be the one to advise

James Thomson 22:59

that sure. With so much of retail now shifting into e-commerce, where do you see states moving their efforts around auditing and pursuing e-commerce sellers? How do you think things are gonna evolve over the next couple years? Let’s assume there isn’t yet another huge Supreme Court ruling that fundamentally changes things, just with the run rate of what we’re doing what we’re seeing right now. Where do you see states moving their actions?

Kelly Stojka 23:27

Yeah, I mean, I think warehouses are popping more and more up, especially I’m in the middle of the country. in Memphis, we’re kind of a logistics hub for the country. You know, FedEx is location here. So the amount of trade that’s coming through this area is insane. And I think those warehouses are honestly going to be a key. And that has been the target for these Amazon sellers has really been, where, where your goods being held in warehouses. So I think that’s pretty neat. The last couple states that didn’t have marketplace facilitator laws, it looks like they’re moving towards those, I think they’re all kind of getting on board because they know they’re missing out on those taxes and their pocket. And then from there, I mean, I see it as a ticking time bomb with that seven year audit window, prepare for Wayfair versus post Wayfair. So if they can go back and actually pull taxes from people that were paying them, were remitting them to the state and weren’t collecting them either but should have been I think that’s also probably a time ball and just waiting to happen because they need to get with that in the next couple years. We’ve because you can then have a look back window past it. So that happened in 2018. Most of those laws took effect in 2019. You know, they I think a lot of the seats and I think you’ve seen it as well have started and it coming after some of these sellers that weren’t remitting the sales tax pre-Wayfair

James Thomson 24:45

the return on investment for a state to hire another 100 auditors and go after e-commerce sellers. It’s it’s a pretty good return on investment. So it’s just a matter of time before even even smaller states say wait a minute. We got a good opportunity You’re here to collect more dollars. let’s shift gears, I want to talk more about TaxJar and talk to me about when you look at the full value proposition of what you do for e-commerce sellers. Where do you see yourself positioned? And for folks who know TaxJar is a software company? Give me perspective on are you exclusively at a software company?

Kelly Stojka 25:21

Yeah, those are great questions. So I think where we really shine, we can obviously work with Amazon sellers. That’s kind of where we started when we were, you know, eight years ago, when this company was formed, we were referring those Amazon sellers that really didn’t have an answer to the question, How do I get the sales tax filed? You know, you could just pull your report through Amazon, but what we’ve really pivoted towards is multi channel sellers. And that’s where the world of e-commerce is now, you might be selling on Shopify, you might be selling on Amazon, you might sell some goods on Etsy. And so we bring that all together, what we do really well is connect to those platforms. So we can report and file, you know, we have rates guarantees around the accuracy of pretty much a pinpoint on a map the rates. So as I referenced earlier, the rates weren’t always 100%. And a lot of the e-commerce platforms out there just use zip codes, which are so so they get most of the taxes in there, but they miss them these jurisdiction taxes. So I think that that’s where we really shine is bringing this all together, making something that would otherwise be very complicated, because you might have four systems that don’t talk, we aggregate that data and file. And so I think that’s where we really shine. We obviously are a platform. But beyond that, like we have the greatest service team I’ve ever seen, we have amazing reviews, we really care about our customers. And we’re there to like help with even like first line of defense audit support and things like that we really get in there. We’ve a tax research team that’s constantly keeping up to date on all of these tax laws that were great changes and really make sure that our product is doing what it needs to do. So there’s a phenomenal team that keeps this machine running. And I think you’re not only purchasing a software, but you’re really purchasing like the entire whole of this. Like, if you’re trying to do this on your own. We have hundreds of people backing us to get this done behind the scenes. It does everything so beautifully. And simply that sometimes people think Hmm, I can do this on my own as I you don’t see behind the curtain here, there is so much and I’m always blown away by what they do on the back end here. So yeah, we really bring a lot to it other than that, but I just love the team here. And they’re great to work with

James Thomson 27:31

you were recently in a acquisition with with Stripe, tell us a little bit more about what that’s likely to mean in terms of the services or the capabilities you’ll have to offer.

Kelly Stojka 27:42

Yeah, so I’m not sure if you heard but Stripe also announced their Stripe tax, which will be bringing more tax to the global scale. that’s currently and I can’t speak to the future of that. But currently, it’s for Stripe customers. So we’re still staying multi channel, we’re still very us base doing the filings. You know, I think they saw a need as far as the US sales tax as well. It’s something that customers it’s so nuanced here versus international that taxes are a lot simpler than us sales tax. So for them, they’re handling that piece. I mean, hopefully one day, I think our goal is obviously to be a global solution as well for sellers that are only in the US. And that’s my personal hope as well. But that’s hopefully we’re this I mean, we now have, obviously a phenomenal team and a very well respected name in the industry. And I’m looking forward to seeing what that growth potential can mean for everybody. But I think we’re definitely better together. That’s one of our internal slogans and I think it’s only going to get better from here. I think we already do what we do great. They obviously are so well respected in the industry. Anything together will just be stronger for just a even wider net of customers.

James Thomson 28:54

Kelly, I want to thank you for joining us today on the Buy Box Experts Podcast. For those of you interested in learning more about TaxJar, please visit taxjar.com. Join us again next time on the Buy Box Experts Podcast. Today’s episode is brought to you by GETIDA. GETIDA is a global leader in Amazon FBA auditing and reimbursements. GETIDA analyzes your Amazon data, reconciles your FBA inventory and files claims for reimbursements on your behalf. No obligations, no hidden fees, just GETIDA recovering your money. GETIDA helps you get your money back into your pocket so you can focus on investing in more inventory and growing your business. To learn more, check out getida.com. That’s getida.com.

Outro 29:40

Thanks for listening to the Buy Box Experts Podcast. Be sure to click subscribe, check us out on the web and we’ll see you next time.