Sales Tax Outsourcing- Address The Mess

My blog today is inspired by a sermon series from our Church.  The series is called “Address the Mess”.  The series addresses, in part, our unwillingness to recognize and fix the messes in our lives – most of which are self-created.  This reminded me of many of the companies we talk with and in some cases actually serve. 

For many companies, there is a resistance to recognizing sales tax compliance responsibilities and/or an unhappy acceptance of the dysfunctional way in which the compliance is managed.

Our first obstacle in helping our prospective clients is getting them to recognize the reality of sales tax compliance. 

They tend to have many misconceptions and misinformation about their sales tax responsibilities, including their nexus the taxability of their products and services and their risk.   We have to convince them that nexus does not mean just a ‘brick and mortar’ physical presence and that many forms of digitally transmitted products and services are taxable.  Unfortunately, many of these companies are more comfortable believing their version of reality instead of the facts.

Our second obstacle in helping our prospective clients is getting them to consider a change in their existing sales tax compliance processes and solutions. 

We talk to many prospective clients that will admit they are unhappy with their current sales tax outsource solution, but they are hesitant to make any changes.  They get so comfortable with the predictability of the problems and pain that they are familiar with from their current solution that they can’t even believe a better option is available.  Even if they believe a better option is possible, they fear a change of service providers will be worse.  

The only thing that helps them overcome this fear is increased unpredictability from their current provider.   In other words, greater fear!  Does this sound dysfunctional to you?

Taking these concepts of denial and pain back to the sermon series…does any of this have any parallels to your personal life or the personal lives of people you know?  We all are at risk for denying the truth and failing to address our mess.