Walking through non-US taxation with Brian Schwam
Hosts & Guests
Judy Vorndran
Meredith Smith
Brian Schwam, from WTP Advisors
Questions asked and answered in this Episode:
- How did Ed become aware of the SUTS issues and what is he following now on behalf of the businesses?
- Do businesses approach the Denver Business Journal as an outlet for their concerns?
- What is the Colorado Municipal League’s role in general?
- What does home rule mean?
- What has CLM heard or done to address the reluctants within the jurisdictions and municipalities they represent?
- What is Ed hearing from the business community on what they wished they knew more about?
- Did Laurel see the increase in online buying from the pandemic incentivized governments and jurisdictions to come on board?
- Is there a safe harbor with the SUTS that doesn’t go back on the business if a vendor messes your address up?
- What are the top two priorities for CML in 2021?
- What should we keep in mind or be aware of from a business perspective in relation to this sales tax shift?
What You Will Discover:
- [01:55] How Ed became aware of the issues & what he’s following now
- [07:33] Colorado Municipal League’s role
- [09:57] What does home rule mean
- [16:24] Concerns with the inability to integrate SUTS with own website
- [22:20] What CML has done to address those reluctant
- [30:46] The issues with business licenses
- [36:20] What the business community wished they knew more about
- [38:54] How the increase in online spending incentivized governments and jurisdictions
- [42:47] A safe harbor system
- [51:35] CML’s top two priorities in 2021
- [53:20] What to keep in mind with the sales tax shift from a business perspective
Quotables:
- “There’s a lot of concern that SUTS, while it’s wonderful for calculating and remitting taxes to the state, it’s not as useful unless you want to invest a decent amount of money hiring a contractor to interface SUTS with your website. It’s not as useful for interacting with your customers.” – Ed Sealover [17:17]
- “SUTS is not a one size fits all solution, nor is it really honestly a solution if you’re a multistate vendor selling outside of the state of Colorado.” – Judy Vorndran [18:00]
- “It is an issue that we have flagged and want to talk about again, because business licenses are something that I think are really problematic. Like there’s no way a business in Massachusetts cares about getting a business license in all the self-collecting home rules jurisdictions.” – Laurel Witt [31:57]
- “SUTS and the pandemic all kind of happened around the same time… in March of last year, which was a little bit chaotic for all of us. But as cities start seeing money coming in through that way, they just started jumping on SUTS a lot faster.” – Laurel Witt [39:32]
- “I think the question here is not completely how do we make sure that everyone complies. How do we make sure that compliance is not an overburdensome thing?” – Ed Sealover [54:19]
Relevant Links:
- Ed Sealover on Twitter: @ESealoverDenBiz
- Ed Sealover on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ed-sealover-71116416a/
- Denver Business Journal: bizjournals.com/denver
- Laurel Witt on Twitter: @COMuniLawyer
- Laurel Witt on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/laurelwitt
- Colorado Municipal League: cml.org