The Politics of State and Local Tax with Diane Yetter

Hosts & Guests

Judy Vorndran

Meredith Smith

Diane Yetter, Founder of Sales Tax Institute

Transcript

Questions asked and answered in this Episode:

  • Why is Diane good at what she does?
  • Why has she decided after 35 years to stay in state and local tax?
  • How do you think people come to see the value and the importance of sales tax piece?
  • To what do you attribute that continuous ability to serve the community in adding new students?
  • Are there any concepts that you see class after class your attendees struggle with?

What You Will Discover:

  • [1:25] Diane shares her 35-year long career in sales and use tax where she was employed before starting her own consulting practice
  • [2:46] How Diane learned to understand the business processes of sales tax
  • [7:27] The opportunity that exists in sales tax for young people and the challenges that it possesses
  • [11:43] How Diane takes her clients through the process of sales tax in their businesses
  • [14:50] Why you’re more likely to be caught with tax offense if you’re a B2B company than a B2C company
  • [18:41] Diane explains how they used to catch companies that were evading tax back in the 1980s
  • [25:49] The importance of making learning a lifelong process when working in the sales tax field
  • [28:34] Diane explains the difficulty of nexus, drop shipping, and taxation of digital goods topics with her students

Quotables:

  • “If what you sell is taxable, every mistake, every order that goes out that doesn’t have tax on it correctly, you’ve just lost 9-10% of your gross sales price.” – Diane Yetter [12:30]
  • “Businesses really want to do what’s right but there’s always going to be some bad apples out there that are going to be evaders of tax and do things illegally.” – Diane Yetter [26:15]
  • “If you’re going to work in this field, it is a lifelong learning opportunity.” – Diane Yetter [28:10]
  • “Sales tax should not control the business but business decisions should take into account all costs associated with that.” – Diane Yetter [32:58]