Episode Four: The First One

[00:00:09] Speaker A: Hi. This is Taxing poetic. And with Tim and Jenny. [00:00:12] Speaker B: Yes. This is episode one. Episode four. The first one. Yes. I'm Jenny Carter. [00:00:19] Speaker A: So I'm Tim Howe, the CEO and founder of Synexus, going with Jenny Carter. [00:00:24] Speaker B: I'm going with Jenny Carter. [00:00:26] Speaker A: Okay. Making a commitment. [00:00:26] Speaker B: Last name Roulette. [00:00:27] Speaker A: That I love it. [00:00:29] Speaker B: More on that later. [00:00:31] Speaker A: Absolutely love it. So, Jenny, how'd you get started in tax? [00:00:34] Speaker B: Well, Tim, sales tax. Let's just get this straight. First of all, a lot of people think I do like income tax. Like, hey, help me find my 1040. And I'm like, no, I don't do any of that. [00:00:45] Speaker A: You won't do my personal income tax? [00:00:46] Speaker B: No, I will not, because sales tax is a totally different animal. I got started in sales tax when I was a young mom and just was looking for something in the accounting field to work from home. And you'd be surprised to know, or not surprised, because, you know, sales tax, they don't really teach it anywhere in school, in accounting schools, so you kind of learn on the fly. So I got started about ten years ago working in sales tax, doing it part time, and learning on the job, and here I am ten years later. [00:01:17] Speaker A: That's awesome. [00:01:17] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:01:18] Speaker A: Honestly, that's basically how I started, too. When I was graduating from Georgia State, I ended up getting an internship at KPMG and started never heard of it. Yeah. What is that, the four letter network? But yeah, no, I got an internship with them and worked in their advisory services group and decided that doing that kind of stuff was not really my cup of tea. And they said, hey, we've got a small group that actually does technology and sales tax. And believe it or not, I'm also a tech nerd, which makes me, I do believe that, the most interesting person in the world. [00:01:55] Speaker B: Yes. [00:01:55] Speaker A: Being both a coder and a developer and also knowing sales tax. But yeah. So I started working with their team for about eight years, doing implementations of tax engines with big Aurop systems, and then went to work for a large company that's famous for being closed on Sundays and selling chicken sandwiches. And was there Burger King? [00:02:17] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. [00:02:18] Speaker A: It's amazing. [00:02:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:02:19] Speaker A: Hey, you rule. [00:02:20] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. [00:02:22] Speaker A: But anyways, so worked with them for a few years and then obviously came to my new and permanent home, being Smith and Howard and yeah, absolutely. [00:02:32] Speaker B: I know. It's been a lot of fun these last two years. We've grown a lot. Just started out, a couple of us, and now we're exponentially, exponentially growing. [00:02:41] Speaker A: It's huge. [00:02:42] Speaker B: Yeah, it is huge. [00:02:43] Speaker A: Who's this? And now we're making a podcast with. [00:02:47] Speaker C: This guy over here. [00:02:47] Speaker A: JB, introduce our producer. Hi, nice to see you. Yeah, awesome. [00:02:52] Speaker B: Nice to meet you, JB. [00:02:53] Speaker C: Oh, yes. First time. [00:02:54] Speaker A: First time getting thrown to the fire. [00:02:57] Speaker B: JB. We cannot wait to teach you all about sales tax. It's going to be very exciting. You're going to be just a wealth of knowledge after this. [00:03:04] Speaker A: So speaking of that, what are we going to be doing here for the next however many episodes that we're going to tax poetic about sales tax? [00:03:12] Speaker B: We're going to tax Poetic about sales tax. I wrote some haikus earlier, so we can get into those later. [00:03:19] Speaker A: When I'm ready to go to sleep. [00:03:20] Speaker B: Yes, when you're ready to go to sleep. Like you, you're also a coder. I also have other talents, which include writing poetry, apparently. Poetry? Yes. I love it. [00:03:33] Speaker A: No, I think we're going to try to take an interesting spin on sales tax topics. And I think we had both said that a lot of the podcasts that are out there today that are actually providing information to people and trying to educate people on legislative updates we're going to take a little bit. More of a fun spin on it, right? And add a little bit of a personal touch to it and not hit everybody with the hardcore Synexis stuff, but at least teach and educate the folks, the listening audience, basically. On the importance of some of these emerging topics in sales tax and kind of goes to what is Synexus and how did we come about? Right? [00:04:14] Speaker B: Right. [00:04:15] Speaker A: And how did we start? I mean, because Jenny was actually here right, prior to formation of Synexus and was originally part of the Smith and Howard family, which we all still are part of the Smith and Howard family. But at the end of the day, sales tax compliance was a really small portion of our business for a long time. Right. We focused heavily on the consulting piece and we did a lot of audit, defense work and research and things of that nature for our clients. But a lot of our clients, because of Wayfair and the advent of the Wayfair decision from the Supreme Court, started asking us about compliance services because frankly, they liked the service that we were providing on the consulting side and decided to say, hey, will you also help me file my returns? Right. [00:04:58] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:04:59] Speaker A: And it ultimately just kind of spun into us creating this entity, which is Synexus Tax Solutions, which assists in compliance. And that's primarily what we do. We are compliance nerds. [00:05:10] Speaker B: Right. And that's what's so fun, I think about a podcast like this is I know, as you and I know and our whole Synexis team knows, we love to have fun with our job and we embrace the geekingness of it and geeking out about it and having our brainstorms and just, like, commiserating about the joys and the pain of sales tax. And then we notice when we go around to other conferences and talk to other sales tax people, we all have kind of the same, again, aches and pains. [00:05:41] Speaker A: So you're embracing your nerd. [00:05:42] Speaker B: I always embrace my inner nerd. I love it. Yes. To do it. Yes. Which hence, I was just looking at this. Our episode title is what? Like, Episode One, Part Four? Did I say that right? [00:05:56] Speaker A: No. Well, yes. Episode One episode Four Episode One, episode. [00:06:01] Speaker B: Four, which for all of you proper nerds should know what that is. And I pulled some people around my house and said, hey, if I told you my podcast name was Episode One, Episode Four, do you know what that means? [00:06:13] Speaker A: And what was the answer? Did they know it? [00:06:16] Speaker B: Yes. Well, half of my family knew it. But you know why? Because some are Star Wars. Nerds and some are Star Trek nerds. [00:06:22] Speaker A: Oh, God. [00:06:22] Speaker B: But I am. [00:06:23] Speaker A: Both no trekkies allowed. [00:06:25] Speaker B: No Trek. I just don't understand why you have to be one or the other. You can nerd out about both of them, please. Yeah, so we had a big discussion about that. So that was definitely a Star Wars reference. [00:06:35] Speaker A: Love it. [00:06:36] Speaker B: If you're cool like us but also want to nerd out about sales tax, this is the place to be. [00:06:42] Speaker C: I'm going to keep a running tally of people that whole groups of people that we've offended, and I'm so I'm adding Trekkies to that. [00:06:47] Speaker B: Yeah, seriously, I'm offended. I know. [00:06:51] Speaker A: Well, my brother in law, who will probably be listening to this, will probably stop listening at this point because he's a massive Trekkie. [00:06:56] Speaker B: Yeah, it's okay. I'll stop best. Okay. We'll forgive you. Yes. But you can just, like both it's fine. I think we're going to have a great time just talking the various issues of stuff we talk about, just not on a podcast. Stuff we talk about in our offices, on a phone, on a conference call at a conference, and the stuff we learn from others, just not in a formal setting. And again, just being able to have fun with it and geek out about it and not feel like we're that big. Again. [00:07:25] Speaker A: It's so funny that you say that, because, like, the other day I was sitting there and I was hanging out with a couple of my buddies and they were golf friends, and we had gone out to play, like a quick nine. And they sat there and they're like, I just don't understand how your entire job revolves around sales tax and how, basically you have to go out and consult people on the fact that tax needs to apply to the certain sale of products. And I was like, well, it also applies to services. And they're like, you're crazy. There's no states to tax services. And it's like, oh, my gosh, podcast. [00:07:59] Speaker B: People, you need to listen to this. [00:08:03] Speaker A: You need to completely listen to this podcast, because we're going to actually cover that at some point, the states that do tax services and the nature of those services and how it impacts different businesses, like contractors and software companies and all that other stuff. And we get all excited and love to talk about it, but yeah, we'll. [00:08:21] Speaker B: Take a light hearted approach and yeah, just be able to everyone's affected by sales tax, like almost all of us, except in five states, pay it. [00:08:32] Speaker A: But even in those five states yeah. [00:08:34] Speaker B: They're still exactly. Which we'll talk about, too. [00:08:36] Speaker A: I know. Get excited. [00:08:37] Speaker B: I know. Get excited. So that's why it's funny when people are like, what what about sales tax? How can it be that hard? [00:08:43] Speaker A: Jenny, do you know the five states that don't charge sales tax? [00:08:45] Speaker B: I do. [00:08:46] Speaker A: What are they? [00:08:46] Speaker B: Yes. Well, there's that fancy acronym that we all know, the nomad states. [00:08:51] Speaker A: There you go. [00:08:52] Speaker B: New Hampshire, Oregon, Montana, Alaska and Delaware. Look at that. I know. So 45 states and I guess Puerto Rico, right? Yeah. [00:09:03] Speaker A: Puerto Rico and District Columbia. [00:09:04] Speaker B: And District Columbia. Correct. So we'll be talking about all that, just some basics about sales tax, some sales tax 101 for folks. Because I don't know, people that like to geek out, like me, enjoy hearing kind of a 101 about sales tax, about what it is and why we pay it and are surprised of the percentage of a state's income from sales tax. [00:09:29] Speaker A: Absolutely. [00:09:29] Speaker B: People are actually really surprised. They assume it's mostly income tax or property tax or payroll tax. [00:09:35] Speaker A: The other important thing is, too, is being able to talk to folks and saying, what does it mean to go in and do business in a state? Right. And what does it mean to actually once you cross that economic nexus threshold in our next episode, when we're going to be talking about wayfair and getting in depth in it, what does that actually mean to your business? And is it like an immediate trigger? Right. Is it something that you instantly step over when you reach 100,000 or $500,000, whatever it may be? What does that mean to your company? What's the decisioning process that you need to go through before you actually register in that state? [00:10:09] Speaker B: Right. [00:10:10] Speaker A: And then once you get done with that, well, how are you going to calculate and collect the tax? How are your products going to be taxed? What are you doing in that state? Is it truly taxable or not? So being able to cover all those things in a very straightforward manner, I guess that's easily consumable, as opposed to listening to folks just kind of read knowledge from a book or read. [00:10:34] Speaker B: Yeah. And that's, I think, what we're don't. [00:10:38] Speaker A: Offend the attorneys out. Yeah. Go ahead and keep the running tab, JB. Thanks. [00:10:44] Speaker B: Perfect. Yes. Okay. The list will be long by the. [00:10:50] Speaker A: Long and distinguished. [00:10:51] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. [00:10:53] Speaker C: Hey, let's play a game. [00:10:55] Speaker A: Want to play a game? [00:10:56] Speaker B: Yay. Okay. So I think the game we decided we're going to play is the two truths and a Lie. Right? [00:11:01] Speaker C: Love it. [00:11:02] Speaker B: Okay, so are you guessing, JB, or are you both taking a guess? Like, if I give you my two. [00:11:07] Speaker A: Truths and a lie, I could do the guessing and we can even have JB be the yeah, okay. If I can't figure out any of. [00:11:15] Speaker B: Okay, so you go first. I will go first. So here's my first truth or lie. I worked for a NASCAR team in college, and my second one is I've run the New York City Marathon twice. And my third one is I was there when the Challenger exploded. [00:11:42] Speaker A: I'm going to go with you've. Run the New York City Marathon twice is your lie. [00:11:48] Speaker C: What do you mean? [00:11:49] Speaker A: There like what are we talking of the challenger exploding? [00:11:57] Speaker B: Oh, I wasn't in the was at. [00:12:00] Speaker A: She'S living the conspiracy theory, JV. [00:12:03] Speaker B: Well, now you basically know what my lie is because it's like, oh, I'm. [00:12:07] Speaker A: Like, I was there. [00:12:10] Speaker B: That's obviously a truth. [00:12:11] Speaker C: I have to go with you not being in the to I love learning. [00:12:20] Speaker A: You did not run the New York City. [00:12:21] Speaker B: No. Yeah. So you knew that because running is the yeah, but then people are always like, if I use that as my lie, then they feel bad. So it's like, oh, now I'm going to say she's not a runner. [00:12:33] Speaker A: You're a big tennis person, though. You got to run around a lot. [00:12:35] Speaker B: Playing tennis, but not a marathon. Oh, kill me. [00:12:38] Speaker A: Come on. [00:12:38] Speaker B: Do that. Yeah, that's for Netflix. [00:12:41] Speaker A: There's only two things I do for running. I run from Bears and I run to get beer. That's about it. I'm not running for anything else. [00:12:48] Speaker B: Yeah. And again, marathons are for Netflix. [00:12:53] Speaker C: I'll add marathon runners to our list of people that we are offending. [00:12:56] Speaker B: Yes. I'm sorry, marathon runners. I have the utmost respect for you, but I need to get one of those stickers that says 0.0 on the back of my car. [00:13:05] Speaker A: All right. So you ready for my two truths? [00:13:07] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Okay. I'm ready. [00:13:08] Speaker A: Truth in a lie. [00:13:09] Speaker B: I'm very excited for this. [00:13:10] Speaker A: Okay, let's see. I once took part in the Rose Parade. I actually sat for the bar exam in Nebraska, and I was a music education major at one point in my career. [00:13:31] Speaker B: JB, what do you think? [00:13:34] Speaker C: Rose Parade? [00:13:37] Speaker B: I think I'm going with bar exam. [00:13:40] Speaker A: Give it to Jenny. [00:13:41] Speaker B: Yeah, I knew. [00:13:42] Speaker A: Actually, I marched in the Rose Parade when I was a music major at Arizona State University. So believe it or not, in prior life, I was a music education major and part when we played Ohio State when Arizona State played Ohio State against was Jake Plummer and David Boston and all those david Boston excuse me, was on and Joe Jermaine were on the Ohio State side. But yeah, I was actually on the COVID of the La times, believe it or not, with my drumsticks in the air when David Boston caught the touchdown. I was standing there. So that's my 1 minute of fame. Congratulations. [00:14:15] Speaker B: You have that frame somewhere. [00:14:16] Speaker A: No, you actually light it on fire. Yeah. Do you remember, like, a terrible football loss. [00:14:22] Speaker B: Pretty exciting to be in the La times. [00:14:24] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:14:25] Speaker B: Have your autograph. Yeah. [00:14:27] Speaker A: Pretty important. You've got my autograph like 4500 times a month with all the tax return. [00:14:32] Speaker B: True. It's all a tax return. Good point. I'll just cut it out. But that's a cool story. [00:14:38] Speaker A: A totally cool story. [00:14:39] Speaker B: Yeah. Roast Parade is a big deal. [00:14:41] Speaker C: That was a good game. We learned something. [00:14:43] Speaker B: JB, I mean, did you want to do the same for us? We don't know you as well. [00:14:47] Speaker C: No, I know, but I didn't prepare any you can't. [00:14:49] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah. All right. [00:14:50] Speaker C: It would just all be lies. [00:14:51] Speaker B: They would just all be. [00:14:57] Speaker A: It'S like weird. It's like we're going to be giving speeches about tax and nobody's going to be fact checking us except JB is going to be over there going, that's a lie. Wrong. [00:15:08] Speaker C: All right, so we did a good job on our run of show here. We're now to the Wrap up. [00:15:13] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. And I think there's going to be a lot of questions understanding about who this podcast is actually for. Right. We're really trying to gear this podcast to clients of ours who actually have questions and don't understand maybe some of the basic mechanics of sales tax, but also to people who are not clients and other folks who just generally have questions about sales tax and understanding the ins and outs of compliance and also wanting to understand maybe what's going on in the world with sales tax and what changes that we're seeing coming down so important. Absolutely. [00:15:48] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:15:48] Speaker A: Right. [00:15:49] Speaker B: Lots of state law changes, rate changes. There's a lot going on. [00:15:53] Speaker A: Just wrapped up a legislative session here in Georgia and we've got a lot of other states that wrapped up their legislative sessions. There's a lot of new legislative changes that are coming around around sales tax. Georgia was trying to make some big changes with regards to the treatment of digital goods and other fun stuff, and we know a number of different states that are trying to address those issues as well. So it's going to be great to be able to keep some people ahead of that and talk through what those impacts might be. Right. [00:16:18] Speaker B: I mean, as our world changes, as the economy changes, as there's more different products coming out there, the states are looking to stay current and also for additional sources of revenue. So there are always going to be changes and updates. I think they actually somewhat move pretty quickly because they want the money. That's right. [00:16:40] Speaker A: Well, it's always easier if you think about it from a tax perspective. What's easier for a voter base? Is it easier to increase taxes by a penny for every dollar? Or is it easier to take one more percent of your take home income? Which is why sales tax has always generated so much revenue for the states, because it's much easier to create a sales tax increase or a rate based increase for, let's say, an educational program, a bond program for schools, or changing the taxability of a certain product. People seem to be a lot more accepting of that. As opposed to with an income tax change. [00:17:15] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:17:16] Speaker A: You're taking their paycheck. [00:17:18] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:17:18] Speaker A: Right. [00:17:19] Speaker B: We see that a lot here in Georgia, as you know, sploss tax, special purpose taxes for education bonds. I always vote. It's like, oh, increase it a penny. Sure, that sounds great. What's a penny to me? But a penny over several million people. [00:17:33] Speaker A: As opposed to nerds like me who go to the ballot box and look at it and say, I'm not voting for that penny increase. Are you kidding me? [00:17:41] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:17:43] Speaker A: Let them go to school in their decrepit buildings. [00:17:47] Speaker B: They can go farm and cut crops. [00:17:49] Speaker A: And stuff, drive on highways full of potholes. Who cares? [00:17:52] Speaker B: Yeah, no. [00:17:53] Speaker A: Yeah, but no, we're going to also have guests. Right. So every now and then we're probably going to have some folks come in and join us, some experts. [00:18:00] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:18:00] Speaker A: We've already been talking about that. May have a I thought you were. [00:18:03] Speaker B: The expert on everything. [00:18:04] Speaker A: Come on. It's obvious given the expert on everything. [00:18:08] Speaker B: But we have to pretend like there's other experts. [00:18:10] Speaker A: I know. Right? [00:18:10] Speaker B: I know. [00:18:11] Speaker A: They have to hand the ties. [00:18:12] Speaker B: Not just the only guy I know. [00:18:13] Speaker A: Yeah. I may have marijuana expert coming. [00:18:16] Speaker B: Yes. Talk about that's. A booming industry. [00:18:18] Speaker A: Well, you're an alcohol expert. Talk about alcohol taxes. But no, at least have different industry experts. Technology, telecommunications, all sorts of stuff to just kind of give us highlights in their industry and some of the things that are changing. Right. [00:18:33] Speaker B: Yeah. In all seriousness, we have learned a lot about the liquor and beer industry absolutely. Over the last years and definitely the last couple of months. You say. Like we just said, cannabis is an up and coming industry as it's legalized in more states in our different segments. Just what we were talking about with states and locals. We're going to focus on just different groups of states by region, what's particular to those states, what you need to know. [00:18:59] Speaker A: Interesting stuff. Like in the Southwest and Northwest and the Northeast. It's going on hot down here in the south. So get into all the specific issues. Yeah, definitely. By region. I think it'd be really good. [00:19:10] Speaker B: We'll focus on regions, focus on industries, and then yeah. [00:19:15] Speaker A: Some tips and tricks. [00:19:16] Speaker B: Tips and tricks. Absolutely. [00:19:17] Speaker A: Our tic TACs. Nice things to know about compliance and technology and other kinds of stuff. [00:19:24] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, we've got a lot going on. There's a sales tax again, we'll geek out about this forever if you let us. [00:19:32] Speaker A: Absolutely. [00:19:32] Speaker B: Yes. So it's JB probably won't. [00:19:35] Speaker A: That was good. [00:19:36] Speaker C: I loved it. Then on our so just our tally of people that we have offended, if you want to apologize. Trekkies attorneys, marathon runners and parents. [00:19:47] Speaker B: Parents. What did we say about parents? [00:19:49] Speaker A: Hey, mom. Sorry. [00:19:50] Speaker C: My own parents we were talking about the 1% sales tax or the one penny sales. [00:19:55] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, that's him. [00:19:56] Speaker A: I'm not a potholes. [00:19:59] Speaker B: I'm the one yeah, he doesn't care. I already knew that. [00:20:02] Speaker C: Issue of blanket apology to all groups. [00:20:04] Speaker B: I care about the kids and the potholes. [00:20:06] Speaker A: Okay, so blanket apology. Blanket apology to Trekkies parents and attorneys and marathon runners. [00:20:14] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. And triathletes. [00:20:17] Speaker A: But marathon runners, that's kind of like they subject themselves to their own punishment. They willfully subject themselves to that. I don't feel like I should apologize. [00:20:25] Speaker B: I know. Three out of but yeah, three out of to three out of four of them. Yeah, I know. [00:20:32] Speaker C: Now you have to plug it. [00:20:33] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. CTA. CTA to follow and Call to action. Call to action. All right. You want to do the shameless plug? [00:20:43] Speaker B: We are going to have fun with each other, with JB, with our guests, with any callers that come in. [00:20:49] Speaker A: Yes. Just make sure you follow and subscribe. [00:20:50] Speaker B: Yes. [00:20:51] Speaker A: Right. [00:20:51] Speaker B: Yes. Follow and subscribe vibe. [00:20:54] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:20:54] Speaker B: Yes. Taxing Poetic. [00:20:56] Speaker A: Taxing poetic with Synexus. With Tim and Jenny. [00:20:58] Speaker B: With Tim and Jenny. [00:21:00] Speaker A: There you go. [00:21:00] Speaker B: Yes. [00:21:01] Speaker C: Really nice. So now what do you want to say goodbye? We just cut it. [00:21:04] Speaker A: Just cut it.