Sales Tax Registrations
Krista Sleeper is the Director of Special Projects and Registrations at Sales Tax and More. She is a graduate of Texas A&M University and has been married for the last 28 years. She is a mother to two sons.
Krista is affectionately known as the firm mom because she takes care of everyone in the company. Her hobbies and passions are sports and cooking.
Michael J. Fleming is the founder and president of Sales Tax and More. He is one of the country's leading authorities on sales tax issues such as consulting and research, registrations, returns, nexus, drop-shipping, eCommerce, and service providers. Michael is also a writer and speaker, regularly presents on webinars, and is the host of the Sales Tax and More Podcast where he shares his wisdom and learnings with his audience in order to help them navigate the tricky world of taxes.
In this episode…
Many people make the mistake of going on social media to look for advice about filing their taxes and they almost always end up with the wrong information. And when they decide to register on their state's website, they run the risk of checking the wrong boxes because they chose the wrong type of tax for their business.
This is why according to Krista Sleeper, it’s best practice to seek help from a professional when a person decides to register and file taxes. There is so much at stake and a single wrong move could lead to consequences because sales tax is different from other types of taxes. What you register for determines the type of returns to be filed and so you may end up giving yourself too much responsibility by signing up for the wrong thing.
In this episode, Michael Fleming talks with Krista Sleeper, Director of Special Projects and Registrations at Sales Tax and More, where they talk about the processes and nuances of registering for sales tax. They talk about common mistakes people make when signing up for taxation, the difference between manual and online registrations, the value and help that the sales tax tracker does for their clients, and more. Stay tuned.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
The biggest mistakes people make when trying to register themselves for sales tax
Registering for use tax and what remote sellers need to know
Krista Sleeper explains what an online setup refers to and what it requires
Why some states require a code to complete tax registrations and the process it involves
How the Sales Tax and More tracker helps address client problems with letter IDs, item tracking, data security, and tax types per state
The work Sales Tax and More does with software companies and what you need to know about filing returns
Krista discusses the big workaround for tax registration in the state of Kentucky and the benefits of having a contact person in your state
Why individuals need to do their due diligence before starting the sales tax registration process
Michael shares the case of a company that was collecting sales tax but not remitting it for years
Resources Mentioned in this episode
Connect with Michael
Sponsor for this episode
Sales Tax and More assists companies and their trusted advisors like CPAs with sales tax needs. They offer consulting and research, registrations, returns, and so much more. Over the years they have assisted thousands of sellers both foreign and domestic with their tax issues in the United States and in Canada.
To learn more about their services, visit https://www.salestaxandmore.com/.
Make sure to register and join the Sales Tax and More Webinar to get access to complex materials on tax in an easy-to-understand format.
Episode Transcript - Audio Version
[0:10] Intro: Welcome to Sales Tax and More. Your go-to resource for all things state tax-related. Now here is your host, Mike Fleming
[0:26] Mike: Hi, Mike Fleming here. Founder of Sales Tax More and today's host of the Sales Tax and More Podcast, where we talk about everyone's favorite subject, which is of course sales tax. Today we're going to be discussing sales tax registrations. It's actually more complicated than you would think and our guest is our very own Krista Sleeper. But before I introduce her, I wanted to introduce Sales Tax and More. We are a full-service consulting and solutions firm. We're comprised of CPAs, former DOR staff, and other individuals with years of specialized knowledge. We offer consulting and research, registrations, sales tax returns, we do audit defense, and as our name says a whole lot more. So, Krista, to give her a brief introduction is our Director of special projects, as well as registrations and is affectionately known as the firm mom. She takes care of all of us. She's a graduate of Texas A&M has been married to our husband Lance for 28 years. And she's got two sons, one of them is in the Coast Guard, and the other will be a senior this year. Lots of hobbies, but her two big passions are sports and cooking. And no Krista we're not going to be adding any cookies questions in today. Do you want to say a quick Hello?
[2:03] Krista: Yeah. Hey, out there and yeah, that kind of does sum me up pretty well. There's a lot of other hobbies too, but we don't have that kind of time today, so.
[2:12] Mike: Okay! Krista is also our go-to person. So if we have something new that we've not done before, we call that a special project and Krista gets it done. So, let's talk about registration stuff. A lot of people think that registrations are easy, and for some, they may be, but we hear these horror stories of people come to us and, you know, either software company told them to get registered a certain way or, you know, their CPA told them to register with all of the Secretary of State's out there. So we know there are all sorts of mistakes. What are some of the biggest mistakes you see when people are trying to read on their own?
[03:01] Krista: Oh, there's so many that people come to us in absolute panic all the time. Clients come to us because like you said they've gotten terrible advice. You know, I've seen people getting sales tax advice in Facebook groups, you know, you shouldn't be getting medical tax, any kind of advice in a Facebook group. And a lot of times you can see that the folks giving the advice or trying to gain the business, some of the advice just makes you cringe. And people don't know what they don't know. And so they're just guessing their way through a lot of these things and sales tax is not something you want to guess your way through. There's too much on the line, you have too much responsibility when you're signed up for the wrong thing. People don't know how to start so they don't know what tax types they need. A lot of times we see them with the wrong tax types entirely. So now like you said, Now, they're obligated because they registered for the wrong tax type, maybe they’re a remote seller and they're registered for sales tax. That isn't exactly what they need. They say oh, I need sales tax, I want to check this box because there could be 15 tax types on a registration. States use the same website to register everything from motor fuels taxes to aviation taxes, payroll taxes, every kind of tax under the sun, a lot of times pipe through the same sites.
[4:17] So people just look for the box that they think is them, they make the best guess which a lot of times is wrong, and they end up completely in the wrong area. So one, they don't have the right text type, but then that creates obligations like you said for the Secretary of State. So when you don't need that at all. So now you have extra costs and fees and filing concerns, you've got to get a Registered Agent. There's a whole lot of things when that could have all been, you know, nullified if you'd have just known what you needed to begin with. So they don't know that then the systems themselves. Some states like you said, quick and easy you could be done in a day, everything set up. Most are not that way. There's no money in government software. So there are things that can be super old, they don't update. And they can be these really old systems that run really slow they're not intuitive. They're sometimes the tiniest little type. They'll crowd a whole bunch of choices together. And the terminology is so strange to folks, so they don't know, what is this asking me? Well, okay, I'm going to guess there shouldn't be any guessing. If you don't know something. You should never guess on these registrations. Again, there's too much that could send you in a wrong direction. And when you get to the very end, you're like, Well, I didn't sign up for this. Well, you did, because you guessed your way through it. So we see that all the time. And then folks who go down this path will try and do it on their own and then they get stuck. Then they come to us now the FEIN is stuck in the system, which can be undone but it can be a process with a lot of these states. Some states are easier to work with than others and so that's what folks have to understand is every state is its own entire thing of several use similar technology, but a lot don't. And so what works in one state does not work another state, what they even call the taxes are different, what the certificates like when they come are called something different. Everything is completely different state to state.
[6:09] So if you do that first one and go, well, that was really easy. I don't know what these folks are talking about two or three more down the road, you're going to soon understand what we're talking about. Because if you don't have everything set up perfectly from the get go and have all your information at the ready, I mean, down to, you know, your need to know, there's a state in the Midwest that if you're a corporation, they want to know all your stockholders, home addresses, social security numbers, birth dates, and percentage of shares down to the decimal points. And so if you don't have that to start with, and you're like, well, how am I going to get all this? You've got to know to have everything ready before you even start. You've got to be hyper organized. That's another thing too. People don't get organized. Or like you said, someone else did the work, didn't give them the information. Now it's a scavenger hunt to piece together what happened. So I mean, that's some of the things we see all a lot like all the time or folks come to us, and they don't know the full functionality of the site, they think they're set up and they're not. We see that a lot in Florida and in California especially. So that's one of the first things we look for immediately when a new client comes in that had registration done before us, we almost always have to go in and finish out that registration.
[7:21] Mike: I've got a follow-up question for you there. But before we jump on let's, you and I were talking about an example the other day so for some reason, there are some of the software companies that just can't do certain types of returns. So Tax Jar is telling people to go out and register for sales tax in Oklahoma because they can't file a use tax return now, is it the sellers use tax or the vendors use tax?
[7:52] Krista: I believe it's vendors’ use tax.
[7:54] Mike: Okay, so the vendor’s use tax is what remote sellers should be signing up for. As you were telling me when you sign up for the vendor’s use tax, it's a pretty easy process. Yeah, number one, there's not any registration with the Secretary of State, which comes with a $350 fee. There's not any Registered Agent that's needed. There's not any income tax that has to be filed a year down the road and there's not even any fee to get registered for the sales tax. A vendors’ use tax doesn't have a fee. What is that a $25 fee? It’s either $20 or $25 in sales tax where there's no fee for the use tax. So what you register for is going to determine what types of returns are filed. Now you've got a company like Tax Jar who for whatever reason is chosen not to file the correct returns, and are telling people just go out, it's not a big deal, just change the registration. But from what you told me it is a big deal. Look at all these differences here,
[9:11] Krista: There's a lot of differences. Yeah. And again, it's, you know, especially as if you're a remote seller again, you know, it can make a difference in how you register. In Louisiana, you can either, you know, do their remote seller, which is direct marketer, and you know, you have a nice one rate and you file but if you don't do that registration correctly, you're going to be to the old you know, system or if you're based in Louisiana, you know, you'll have to deal with anyway, but now you're dealing with all the parishes in filings. And a lot of times, it's not a tax, you're calling the sheriff's office, like that's who handles it and some of those papers, so, you know, and it's just, it's not always that simple. So it same as Texas has the one right now, you know, you got to know if you make the criteria to file but that can make a huge difference in how easy it is to file if you can have that one right in Texas. So you know, there's a lot you have to know about. The other thing we see is people don't know how to determine the date to even make their effective date. And so, you know, there's a lot of study and things that go into determining that ahead of time. It's not just you know, throwing a dart at the wall, you've got to know what the state's laws on when you hit their thresholds, what your data looks like, in certain states like South Dakota, they want you to register when their law took effect in 11/1/18 and if not, they're going to contact you and you can explain why you're not registering them.
[10:38] Mike: And that's a trick question to on the returns because most of the states say when did you start selling in our state? But you don't want to put them the date thing on when your actual sale was. The states are looking for what's your first date of nexus and those are two entirely different things. So you know, the plain line Which says one thing but what the states want is an entirely different thing. And if you put down you know when your first sale isn't to the state maybe it was a year ago maybe it was five years ago well the state's gonna say thank you very much now please give me all the back tax plus penalty and interest and you may not have had a responsibility from that date r you know, staking only require you to collect the tax from the date that your Nexus actually began so
[11:29] Krista: Well and like that, in a lot of various websites are so badly worded, and you think, oh, it's just repeating. They don't differentiate very easily on some sites. The days they're looking when you started your business in your home state, versus when you started business in that state, and you can easily put the date could have been 5-10 years ago that you started your business in the wrong slot, thinking you're answering it correctly, and you're not. And now all of a sudden, like you said they're wanting 10 years of back returns. And now you've got to contact them and explain, you know, I didn't know what I was doing and you know it, it's not as easy. And in certain states, they're not very easy to work with. Some are, but some aren't. You know, you can really get you off to a bad start quite easily and have a crazy date. But then again, it's having all your ducks in a row before you start. So you need to know your dates, have all your information ready, have a system set up to where these are going to be my username and passwords. This is going to be where I'm going to save all my pins because you're going to have a ton of pins, you're going to have codes, you're going to have a whole lot of weird one-off numbers. Sometimes they'll need them down the road. Sometimes they're just to get started, but you're gonna need them all.
[12:45] Mike: What's an online setup?
[12:47] Krista: So registrations, again, most of the time, depending on the state are broken down into two sections. So you have your initial registration where you go in and you tell them all your information and this and that. There's processing time and right now, a lot of those are delayed because of COVID. Some states are shut down entirely. But there's a processing time, some is 24 hours, some 48 hours, some take a lot longer, then you've got to go back and create basically your online account. This is where a lot of folks get into trouble. They don't realize they need to do that. And in some states, again, going back to California, Florida, you have a limited functionality you can file without doing that most folks don't know there's another step entirely. Because the states don't explain it. You know, they don't know, oh, this is why they request this code, and then I wait a day and I put it in over here. But nowhere is that really lined out very well for folks. So, you know, you've got to be able to set up though to go in and to be able to file to be able to get a lot of your letters state send stuff to you all the time. But a lot of it gets messed up. They're sending stuff out in bulk mail is getting sent wherever who knows what they're pulling from their database. So and we've had clients get stuff sent to home, to work, to you know, wherever because they just happen to pull some random address out of the registration somewhere and there's a lot that goes in there. And then you know, you have to, there's just so many ways that this all can go crazy.
[14:10] And then you've got to go in and have that online. So you can file check your things you can message, the state, it's actually a handy tool, most do respond fairly quickly because they know it's you. You've clearly logged in, you can message them, you can check a lot of things, your frequency can change, you may not get that letter, but if you're checking the letters in your account, you can see that and that's one of the things you've got to do when you're registering. That's one of the things you've got to keep straight that when the state gives you your frequency, you've got to record that if you have something marked as a quarterly return and it's monthly, and you've just started now you're three months, you've got all kinds of penalties and interest. You're already starting behind because you made one little error and that's just one state, one error could be thousands of dollars.
[14:57] Mike: Absolutely. And, you know, some states give you options, other states don't like I remember we were talking about Indiana. And, you know, you would think that you know, at this point, if a state's not gonna allow you to file any way but online, they would combine this online setup and the registration process together. But, you know, you've got to create a username and password to do the registration and that's it. That's all you use it for is the registration. Then when you get all your documents back from the state, you get to go out and create a brand new accounts go out and create an username and a password.
[15:39] Krista: and they’re one that sends you a letter with, I can’t remember if it is 18 or 20 digit code and it's in a letter you can't copy and paste everything you have to write down all these numbers and symbols and you know, three times and it locks
[15:52] Mike: It’s the supercalifragilistic code.
[15:54] Krista: It is that that is exactly what that code is so and again. So even you know, once you get set up some stuff will you can do online for online setup, but a lot of it, you're waiting on letters, Idaho, you're looking at six weeks to get that code, every time. There's no other way to get it, they will not give it to you over the phone. They will not give it to you by email, it only comes in the mail. If it gets lost. They'll resend it. But you know, then you're you've restarted the clock. So you've got to give yourself enough time when you register to know Okay, this is what I'm planning on filing. I know it's gonna take me six weeks.
[16:29] Mike: Alright, now, you mentioned this before you said you, you know people have to track everything that they're getting back from the states and sometimes states very efficient. They put everything in one piece of correspondence. Sometimes you get three or four pieces of correspondence.
[16:47] Krista: Oh, More than that. Yeah.
[16:49] Mike: You know, you've shared the frustration with the different letter IDs. Each of correspondence has a different letter ID on it. So which letter ID are you supposed to enter into the system poster into the system in order to complete the online setups?
[17:05] Krista: Yeah, generally any of those first few, they'll take. But again, it's important that you have a system to permanently hang on to every one of those letters. We've seen time and time again, when a client comes to us, and they're in a mess, like whoever did the registrations were as an employee or whatever left, we're trying to get ahold of the state on their behalf, we're working with the state, they're like, Okay, well, we just need a letter ID off of anything, they don't have any of their original correspondence. They don't have anything like that. If they'd at least have that paper trail, we can cut the discovery time tremendously. And to help them get back on track, get their filling faster. We see you know, oh, I don't know what we did with that. Let me see if I can find that. And that's just the letters. That's one thing. And we're even talking certificates, which you've got to hang on to, and some of these certificates look like a letter. Sometimes it's just a little end of the page at the end of the letter, sometimes it's all nice bright yellow paper, and they're all over the map. So you've got to really have a very organized system of how you're going to track what you've done, and then retain what you've done once it comes to you, and then to know what hasn't shown up, because sometimes that will tell you Oh, I didn't do something, right, something still hung up somewhere. I haven't heard from this state in a very long time. And so you've got to, you know, have a, you know, a very good system to track exactly where you are all the way along.
[18:29] Mike: Alright, so you said a word in their track. And we actually, when we're doing registrations, we created a cheat sheet for all of our clients, and we call it a tracker. So why don't you share some of the things that we track and these are actually recommendations that you know, whoever's doing the registrations needs to track these items.
[18:54] Krista: Yeah, so the ones you know, we will track on our side, everything, if it's a digit, if it's a code, if it's a confirmation number, an email, anything, we have a record of that we've got a specialized spreadsheet, and each client has their own. And then once we get that done, and we're ready to start, you know, updating the clients on where we are, they get what we call a shared tracker. And it really is, it really is a great tool. So they get a list of all their states, all the state websites because those do change links go bad. And so they will get the newest updated website. So you're not hunting, like googling, you know, whatever state.
[19:36] Mike: And that’s if you want to do your own return?
[19:39] Krista: Yeah, exactly. But then also, you could then go, you know, always check what's going on. And then it has their username, password. It has the frequency. Again, I can't stress enough how important that frequency is. It has the…
[19:53] Mike: Let's back up one quick second. A lot of people ask us they say well, I want an annual filing frequency in the vast majority of states you don't get to choose your filing frequency.
[20:05] Krista: No you don’t. They have standardized thresholds in most states. Now, there's a few where you're registering, you know, you can pick and choose it, but down the road, they can always move it back and they often do. So, you know, usually, if you're under 500, or 499, you know, for a year in sales tax, you're one thing. And then, you know, if you've had hardly any sales at all, you're gonna be at least, you know, quarterly, and so. But every state's different. But to try and get annual, it's nothing that you can usually choose that's assigned to you. It's a number of value. And if you think oh, well, I'll just tell them this really low number when I go in, that'll work for a few months until they actually see your filings come in, and you'll get a letter in the mail that they have on their own adjusted you to a different month and we see that all the time.
[20:48] Mike: And you don't want it to be too different because that throws up a red flag. You don't want to be you know, too many red flags and next thing you know, you find yourself on an audit lists. Yeah, you want to limit the number of red flags that you're throwing up. So, in a lot of states, in order to be an annual filer, you have to have less than $80 worth of tax collected in a year. And now we start talking about materiality. My question is, why are you registering at all? If you're only collecting $80 worth of tax, the cost of compliance is actually greater than the cost of the registration. So I believe we always need to use common sense. And just because the state says that we should do something doesn't necessarily mean it makes good business sense. We get, we still have to apply common sense here. So what else do we have on the tracker you mentioned all of the usernames or the passwords, the account numbers.
[21:52] Krista: Security questions that is what messes people up tremendously. So they go to again come to us and they're in a world of hurt and open Hey, great, we're going to reset your password. What's your security question? I don't know. Like, can you guess? Like, what's your mother's maiden name? I don't know, somebody else did this. I don't know what it is. So we actually will have that all beautifully laid out for your question and answer. Question 1, 2, and 3. There's a couple of states even go to 4. And so you will have that there won't be any more guessing. If something changes over time, we will update that for you and because it's a Google Doc, it will update it on your end. So for our clients that are STRS clients, there's Arizona, Michigan, for example, throughout the year, various times of the year make you update your password. And so we will do that, we'll put it on there so you'll have the updated password. If you don't update your password in Arizona, they'll block your account. And for those aren't used to dealing with Arizona. Any account changes of any kind have to be submitted by mail. They don't have a fax on a form. So now you're at you know however quickly they can get things done, you're tied to that. So it can be we've seen clients come to us that have you know, been trying for a month to get that untangled six weeks sometimes. So, um, you know, you just have to wait till they can go. So that's something that we stay on top of. We're always looking to do and so that you'll have the updated thing in real time, always in a project, you can monitor how it where we are on the project, you know, everything's marked complete as things are completed, if we're doing the registrations. You can see like oh, great, like, they're almost done. There's one more state to go. That's fantastic. It's probably Idaho. And so, you know, you really have peace of mind that all your data is right there. It's all everything that you're going to possibly need to down to the pin. In certain states like Iowa, you need an EIN number on top of your other stuff. You know, that will be on there. If there's these weird one-off numbers in certain states you're going to need and it'll be all there.
[23:56] Mike: And some things that you know, we talked about earlier, the tax type That's something that is going down that list. And also what the tax is also known as what's the aka. So, you know, sometimes it's TPT, like the Transaction Privilege Tax in Arizona. So, you know, you're talking to Arizona about the sales tax and all of a sudden they're talking about a transaction privilege tax. And it gets pretty confusing. So in Hawaii, it's the general excise tax, or the GET. So we put the what these taxes are also known by, so that, you know, if you do need to call a state, you're not confused by the lingo that the states using. So pretty much anything you need to know about your taxes and how to file them is going to be on this tracker. We encourage everybody to create their own trackers if you're not using someone like us. To create the dis tracker for you. Now, one big thing you mentioned this, we work with a lot of software companies and people transfer to us, because you know, software company, you just a number, they can’t file the right returns or anything else and they come to us and no one's bothered to set up the online accounts. So, or vice versa, you know, they're calling us and saying, Hey, I'm doing business with Avalara and they tell me I need these online accounts set up and whoever did my registrations knew nothing about online accounts. Can you help us with this, so it works both ways. But it's really important, no matter who's doing your returns, you need to do that extra step you need to do those online setups. And make sure whoever you're contracting with if you're not doing this yourself, is able to do that for you.
[25:57] Krista: Yeah, you've got to have that because again, we see time and time again, that the mail just doesn't get from the state to the person. And if you can't go in and see that you have a message from the state, they don't care that you didn't get it. You know, it'll just say, Sorry, we changed your frequency. And then you couldn't tell whoever's doing your returns to change your frequency because they're not going to know.
[26:21] Mike: But even more basic than that, Krista, you just can't file returns. Yeah, that's the bigger issue. You're already you've collected the tax, you're ready to file your returns. And now you can't do it. Whether we're doing the returns or Avalara’s doing the return,
[26:36] Krista: you've got to have that setup. It's that last step. And it's usually, you know, it's a tricky thing, because some of these states, you've got to know somehow to go in and request a pin, 24 hours every submitted and then the pin will come to your email or they'll send it in the mail sometimes. And like I said, Every one of these systems is different and some of them are pretty old, and maybe not the most, you know, intuitive to what you would think would be you know how you go about setting this up? So, yeah, again, it's very confusing. Like you said, if you're going on to the Hawaii site, well, I'm just looking for sales tax. What is this general excise? That can't be I know, I need sales tax. So again, it goes back to not knowing even what to look for or ask for or sign up for, you're just trying to get through the checkboxes that you think look familiar and get your way through. And that gets a lot of folks into a lot of trouble.
[27:30] Mike: Krista, I know we've talked a lot about workarounds. This is one of the things that you're absolutely. You know, for all of you out there. Krista has never, never met her best friend. So she gets things done that I can’t, I can't even believe she talks to people and gets done. But other workarounds are, you know, give us an example of a big workaround that you know people are gonna need to know about
[28:03] Krista: One that comes to mind off the top of my head is Kentucky. If you sign up through their normal, come sign up with sales tax for us here you will automatically be shuffled as part of the process into a secretary of state registration. So with Kentucky, you've got to register on paper. Paper registration to avoid that, like that's a big workaround. And there are other states that are similar. That you know, you're really having you're trying to do your best you've done your homework, I know I need to register here. I legitimately have Nexus and I need to do my thing. And why do I first for Secretary of State and you'll call them and like yeah, if you do if you register on the website, you have to register for Secretary of State. So Kentucky's always the one that jumps out at my mind the most. And again, that goes back to there you have a CBI code, you're gonna need that down the road. So you know, there's just a lot going on, but that's one of the ones that is a workaround that you're going to have to go find the paper form, fill that out, I believe that can be faxed. Fax it in and to avoid that, and but people aren't going to know to do that, you know, they're just not going to know.
[29:10] Mike: And when it comes to the Secretary of State, it's not just Kentucky most states make it look like yeah, you have to register with the Secretary of State. I'll tell you right now, definitively. If you are getting registered because of economic Nexus, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to get registered with the Secretary of State in any state. So sometimes, you got to figure out what the workaround is because the states, the online systems, make it look like you have to do it, but there's a workaround in every state. Sometimes you got to call the state to figure out what that workaround is and sometimes you just gotta, you know, read very carefully and follow those directions there. What about, you know, we talked about calling the states is there, you know, a benefit in developing a contact at the state.
[30:10] Krista: Oh, hugely. Especially it goes back to our folks that call us. And all of a sudden the state has found them. They've gotten this very scary letter with usually a large number on it. And they realized, Oh, my gosh, somebody that company registers for sales tax six years ago, we didn't even know we had this. So they come to us. We've got to start doing due diligence to figure out what is going on.
[30:34] Mike: How often does that happen? Where somebody gets some registered, years ago?
[30:39] Krista: It happens! So Oh, being where we were dealing with one right now. And that happened. And so we had to go figure out where they were and weren't registered. And so to be able to have that contact in that state and say, Hey, can you look this account? Here's the FEIN. What do they have? What do they… we’re trying to get them right? We're gonna get them filling again with you guys. Because we're not trying to take advantage of the states, we're actually trying to get them what they're owed, that hasn't been able to be filed. And you know, they have to, you know, work. It's a, we're kind of an intermediary at that point. And so it's good to be able to call them and say that and they can get you that information. You know, they might need a power of attorney, no problem, we'll get your power of attorney, we're going to figure that out in and they can say, Yep, this is what's going on. But you can almost jump the line at times, and get things done a whole whole lot faster than having to start at the very bottom with somebody has no idea what you are, they just happen to answer the phone. And you know, that's luck of the draw. In some days, you can get some great people on the phone randomly in some states and a lot of times, no.
[31:48] Mike: So, if you're an individual, you're probably not going to be talking to the registration department or a whole lot, but if you're a CPA or other accounting professional, and you're going to be doing registrations, it's Paramount that you develop some of these relationships for yourself. Now, there's a whole lot of difference. What you don't want to do is be calling a state for whether something is taxable or not, that you can't take verbal answers on something like that. But how to get a registration done is an entirely different scenario. And that is something you want to develop contacts at the state. So and Krista, you know, kudos to you and your team. I know you have a whole network of people out there. Like I said, Krista has never met a stranger. Krista, is there anything that surprises you at this point, any anything that you know you want to share with us as we wrap up here,
[32:50] Krista: I think that, how folks go headlong into this unprepared. They just again, they've gotten just enough information about sales tax to be dangerous. There's a lot of misinformation out there. So they say, okay, I'm going to take this little piece of misinformation. And I'm going to carry it across all my registrations. The states, you know, the states are, you know, by the book by the numbers, they don't care what your take on it is. The law is what it is, and the statutes are what they are. So you've got to make sure you have done your due diligence, have done your homework, know what you're doing, know where you even need to be registered. We see folks that are registered that don't even need to be registered times. And then we see that you should have been registered here years ago and you're not. So I think that people take it so lightly, they don't understand that sales tax is its own animal. It has a whole different sense of consequences that come along with it that's different from any other tax type out there. And that it doesn't go away. We see people go to jail over sales tax. There are articles in the paper constantly. So it's not something to take lightly when you're registering It is something you need to be absolutely sure about. And what you said is true. That's the ultimate, but we do see it. We just see I mean, it's not like the status shows up out of the blue. I mean, there's been a process in years before that sort of thing happens.
[34:21] Mike: What you are usually going to jail for is tax collected and not remitted, which states look at is stealing. I mean, you know, or fraud. I mean, it's never your money it's either your customers money or the state's money so that's what people are going to write to jail for if you make mistakes on registrations, you know, you’re not going to jail.
[34:41] Krista: But by being registered, you're now on the radar. Like you know, your the state knows who you are, they know where you are, and now they're watching you.
[34:51] Mike: Yeah, I'll give you an example there. You talk about people getting registered, years ago and you know, we have this one example, company got registered and for 10 years, they were collecting tax. And they had a bookkeeper who kept journalling it back to the general ledger. So they never ever remitted the tax. And this was California, so this woman got fired. And that's when they realized what was going on. So we had to go to California and do a voluntary disclosure agreement. Voluntary Disclosure agreements generally waive not only civil penalty, but any type of additional penalty. So I guess we could tie this in a registration yeah, could end up in jail, especially if you start collecting the tax and not remitting it, but no one went to jail on that. And while you can, I don't want to make that thing. Yeah. Well Krista, thank you for sharing your knowledge today has been a wealth of information and you know, if anyone needs additional general information about registrations or if you need some help with registrations, Krista is the person to reach out to. We'll supply her email as well as her contact information when we post this. So thank you very much Krista. And as always, if anyone needs any help with sales tax whatsoever, please go to our website at sales tax and more.com. We've got lots of free web resources out there. And we're here to assist you in any way that we can. Thanks, everyone. Bye Bye.