The Triage Program
Michael J. Fleming is the founder and president of Sales Tax and More, a full-service consulting and solutions firm with a passion for state tax. 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 a renowned writer and speaker, and he regularly presents on webinars. He is also 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…
Mike Fleming and Ellie Moffat sit down with Krista Sleeper, STM’s VP of Operations and Client Services, to discuss the triage program we offer.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
What is the triage program? What are we referring to that needs a triage?
What are some of the issues out there?
What the triage program entails.
Who’s a good candidate for the program?
Connect with Michael
Episode Transcript - Audio Version
[00:00:00] Welcome to Sales Tax and More, your go to resource for all things state tax related. Now, here is your host, Michael Fleming.
Mike Fleming: Hi, Mike Fleming here, founder of Sales Tax and More and today's co host of the Sales Tax and More Podcast, where we talk about everybody's favorite topic, which is of course, sales tax. And today we're going to do something a little bit different. I, anyone who's listened to me before knows that.
I don't think that software companies offering services do the best job out there. And we have had a number of clients come over and it has been a nightmare that we've uncovered here. So we actually [00:01:00] created a new service for those clients coming over and we call it our triage program. So today I've invited Krista Sleeper.
She's our Vice President Operations and Client Services. This program falls under her purview and we're going to to interview her, to tell us a little bit more about this and some of the problems our clients that we're dealing with are running into and what this solves. And before we get into that, though, let me introduce you to my co host Ellie Moffat.
Ellie Moffat: Hey, everyone. Thank you so much for being here. Please don't forget to like and subscribe to this podcast. It helps us out a lot. Krista, we're really excited to have you here today. Thank you for doing this. And before, before I turn it over to Mike here, I'll do my quick introduction. So we are Sales Tax and More.
We are a full service consulting and solutions firm. We have a really great team here, which of which Krista is a member of excellence. Let me just let me throw myself off my own [00:02:00] game by throwing Krista in there, but we have a really great team here of experienced tax professionals who are very dedicated to fulfilling state your state tax and related needs.
So we do a lot of sales tax returns, sales tax registrations, consultations, research, audit defense, exemption returns, exemption certificate management and like our name states more. So if you have questions about our services or would like to work with us, please reach out. We'd love to hear from you and we would love to work with you.
And now, Mike, why don't you take it away?
Mike Fleming: Okay, welcome, Krista. Thanks for joining us. In our intro, I mentioned this triage program. So what exactly is the program? What are we referring to that needs a triage? What are some of the issues out there?
Krista Sleeper: This was really born out of like you said, Mike clients that would come to us and they have been going along on cruise control on software and they get a very scary letter and it could be just a scary letter.
It could be an audit. It could be a whole host of things and they come to us and we would [00:03:00] get in and start just digging into what was going on. A lot of times in their software account or whatever and we would realize as we peeled back the layers of the onion That a lot was going on and we had to have some very hard truths with these clients like oh some bad things have happened and you're on the hook for it.
And so over time, this has just evolved into a kind of a standard product that we offer that a client can come to us and we can really take a dive in and take a look at some things. Like we talk about all the time sales tax is hard. It's not easy to do on your own and a lot of times with different marketing strategies and stuff when it's promised hey, just hand everything over to us.
It's going to be smooth sailing going forward. Nothing bad can happen. Everything's taken care of. It's on autopilot. And that's really great to feel like you can get off your plate. And then when that gets off your plate and you're busy running your company and life happens and you're running your business, all of [00:04:00] a sudden when that letter hits you.
It's like a, one of those autonomous cars hitting the wall. Oh, this wasn't supposed to happen. This wall wasn't supposed to be here. Sometimes there's walls there and that's what we get and see what happened. Why did this hit a wall? So that's what this was really born out of.
Mike Fleming: Yeah, and you're looking for or the problems that we've seen are tax collected, not remitted missing returns, missing payments. We've also seen one type of tax being collected, but another type of return being filed.
Krista Sleeper: Exactly, yeah.
Mike Fleming: So yeah.
Krista Sleeper: There can be a whole host of things. We got to look for sure.
Mike Fleming: Yeah, absolutely. And it's not just related to sales tax. I know that we've run into problems with some payroll tax accounts and some secretary of state registrations.
Krista Sleeper: Yeah, it really, like I said before, it's literally the layers of the onion. So when you're going to start looking at the overall picture, it might look like everything's great from overview, but when you get down [00:05:00] in and start digging in.
We take a look first at what the obvious things are that we know, and something I always like to say is when you hear hoof prints, you think horses and not zebras. So our team knows where the issues lie. So we first look for the horses, and then we start digging for the zebras.
And so we work down through all those various things, and then we compare it. What does your state account say? And versus what you think you've been filing? Because sometimes everything might have been filed correctly, but how it goes from A to B from however you've been filing to what the state sees, because the state's a whole imperfect creature in and unto itself.
And we see that all the time. And so we can take a look at that too and see what's going on there.
Mike Fleming: Give me some examples of what our triage program entails.
Krista Sleeper: Like I said we take a look and see what were the big pain points that we know to look for and we start turning over those rocks.
And so we start digging into the software accounts or whatever we match against the state accounts. And that's where we come [00:06:00] across. Like you said, a lot of most states. The same login happens or is used for both sales tax and payroll. And we're like, hey, you might need to now contact your payroll company because you didn't file payroll in three quarters four years ago.
And that's not uncommon to see. And you, who knows who did that registration? Who knows where those notices have been going? And folks aren't logging in. To see again, they're running their business. They're busy. And I'm going to put my operations hat on again for a second and say that making sure you have good logins really is key to all of this.
We it's something we, our team, my team works on constantly. Some states will just make your logins go away if you don't log in every few months. Some states will switch platforms. We see that all the time when folks come into us. We have that right now. We're bringing some folks into the firm. One of them still has the old logins for Pennsylvania that switched websites three years ago.
You couldn't go check on that if you wanted to because you don't even have the, you're not even going to the right website at this [00:07:00] point. And if you're setting up stuff or if you have someone setting it up, put it to an an email that like counting at like acme goods. com or something like somebody in the department can get to when Bob and accounting leaves, Bob does not taking all your logins with him. And that's something we see all the time. And a lot of this can be mitigated just by having good logins and you can just you know that we can use to get in, that you can use to get in.
You have some visibility. And that's where we have issues with SST. That's a whole other podcast because you have no visibility. But that's, something that we see a lot. There's, you simply can't even log in to check if you wanted to because your logins are bad. Ohio's getting ready to move to a new platform this month.
I know we're getting ready to move all our STARS clients over. That's something we do for our STARS clients. That we will just move. You don't even know what's happening. Move that over, Maryland changed back in February. Just have good logins. That's the good like start there and then we can we can take that and run.
Mike Fleming: And just to clarify STARS stands for sales [00:08:00] tax return services. So for those clients that were doing their returns. We do a lot of.
Krista Sleeper: Yeah, we do a lot of that on the backside They don't even realize it's happening. They just get scooched over. Yeah.
Mike Fleming: That's part of a normal service and these software companies just don't do it, which is why a lot of this falls through the cracks here.
On this triage program, we're not going out and fixing anything. We're just finding out what the problems are.
Krista Sleeper: Yeah. Yeah. We're looking for the monsters under the bed, and we can tell you what they are. Well, most of the time.
Mike Fleming: Yeah, and like you, you mentioned payroll problems. So after we alert you to what those are, we can very often go out and fix those problems if you choose to have us fix them or you could choose to have your payroll provider fix them.
Krista Sleeper: Yeah, and most of the time folks opt for their payroll provider because a lot of times either something was missed or it just needs to be amended or so on and so forth.
But for sure with sales [00:09:00] tax, that's what we do. We can definitely go in and get the sales tax corrected. Very easily, whether it just needs returns filed, amended, if something's big, open, closed, up, down, left whatever it is, we can definitely go in and do that. If all of a sudden we're like, ooh, you're going to need something bigger, a VDA, something like that, we, we can definitely consult you on that and let you know, okay, this is your best choice. This will get you, this will be the best option for you. And, and, again, it goes back to that, when folks come over from the software companies, all the time, they, the software is say, we did all this wrong, and you're going to need to do all this extra work.
And here's our, enormous bill to do all of this that we pretty much had a hand in and we're just like, what? So yeah, so we will definitely try and say, okay, this isn't your best bet. You can just historically register. We'll pay penalty interest. It's going to be less expensive for you this way. We'll, work you through your options and let you see where you stand on that.
Mike Fleming: Yeah. A lot of these companies that are coming to us. They know that there's some sort of problem, they just feel something's [00:10:00] not right. A lot of times they don't know the extent of the issues. So really what this service is designed to do is identify the problem so that they can take action in the states that haven't contacted them.
Krista Sleeper: Correct. Get out ahead of it.
Mike Fleming: Yeah, get out ahead of it. Be proactive and take advantage of the different mitigation programs that may be available. Alright, so who's a good candidate for this triage type program?
Krista Sleeper: There's actually quite a few good candidates. So I, and these are No particular weight or order, but I would think the one that comes to mind first is an entity that is getting ready to either buy or sell their entity.
Like we don't see near enough due diligence when we see the sale of businesses on either side. Now, this isn't all you would need to do, but it's definitely, it could be a part of what we do just to have a good sense of what's been going on. I think software, or really a lot of different things, really brings in a false sense of security.
Because again, it [00:11:00] goes back to their, you have this marketing machine that kind of paints that picture that, you can sit around and it's just hands off, but that doesn't we've seen way too many issues born of that. It's, I really think somebody that's in the process of changing that over.
I think if you're a new CFO coming in or someone in that, and you're having to take over that capacity, just to figure out what is all, where are the scary parts here? Let me take a look here and see what's been going on cause we've seen a couple of things, companies grow and they just for the first time have a CFO some random person in accounting has just been handling this the whole time.
They may or may not know what they've been doing. A lot of times it's no, and it's not any fault on theirs. It's just so highly complex. If you're selling in a multi state trying to do this on your own. And this isn't all you do, it's the cards are stacked against you in that. And if you're a growing company and you've just installed a CFO, if you're a new CFO, I think some of that.
And I think, if you are also a company [00:12:00] under audit, you've just come under audit. Okay, we're audit here is whatever this is it happening somewhere else? Let's just take a little look and see if we've not been filing here and they've come, hey, let's take a look at this.
Or we've been filing weird or some kind of thing. Let's just take a little temperature check here and see what's going on just for peace of mind here. And I think too, that folks that, you know, our folks that come to our webinars and stuff, and then you're like, start to realize how complex sales taxes and how much goes into it.
And they realize, I don't know what I don't know. Can you just take a look at what we've been doing and just make sure it looks okay? And I think that's another one there, too
Mike Fleming: Yeah, absolutely and you touched on one. I want to reiterate a point that you made When a company is getting ready to sell itself or when you're getting ready to purchase a company, too many people think that the too many people unfortunately believe that if they're doing an asset purchase that they're not [00:13:00] assuming the liabilities, but when it comes to sales tax, liability follows the assets. So yes, you can be taking on their sales tax liability. So you gotta do your due diligence, but we digress a little bit there.
Krista Sleeper: Yeah, and this wouldn't be the sole thing we would do, but it would be, part of a package for sure.
Mike Fleming: Identify the problem. That's what we want to do. Can't fix it if you don't know the extent of what it is or even know what it is. Alright, anything else?
Krista Sleeper: I think it's just, the biggest thing is to know that automated isn't the best in all things, think about there's some other things that need to go into that equation.
Can I talk to someone? What if I have a question? Can I get into my accounts? Can I see what's going on? There's a lot there. I think the biggest thing is don't just buy into the hype. That I can just turn all of this very serious matter over where the states have great power over me at any time on any whim to somewhere else just [00:14:00] to let them run it on autopilot, and I hope it all works out. I think that's the biggest thing, because we've seen it go wrong so many times.
Mike Fleming: Absolutely. And when you're dealing with certain software companies, they're going to put you through the streamlined sales tax program. And that even adds an extra level of complexity because we're talking about going into your accounts and checking when you're dealing with the streamlined sales tax, there is no visibility whatsoever.
There's no account to go into to check and see what the issues are.
Krista Sleeper: You have a login to Streamline Sales Tax, that pretty much only lets you turn them all on or turn them all off. Every state has the exact same S00 blah blah blah, account number. Some will show up on your state accounts, some don't.
It's here or there everywhere. It's loading up on the back end into the system. So how it registers is different than most everything else is reported to the states. And that's, I understand the states [00:15:00] love it because it, it's less work for them. Initially they don't have to touch it.
Their people aren't touching it. It's all automatic, which is great until it's not. And oftentimes we see the not.
Mike Fleming: Yeah, and the software companies will tell you free. Free is never really free. Yeah, the actual cost of compliance pales in comparison to these six and seven figure problems that we see coming over to us.
So as I've said many times, I should be sending these software companies referral fees because they don't do it on purpose, but the clients are running away from their customers. They don't have clients, they have customers, their customers are running away from them because of these huge problems that have been created.
And that's why we need this triage program.
Krista Sleeper: And to reiterate what you just said, Mike. They are six and seven figure problems that are coming out of the cuts or clients pocket because they are in these [00:16:00] very airtight contracts where it doesn't ever come. And we've seen crazy things that have happened from the part of software and they're, it doesn't, they're never culpable in it. It always falls on the client to remediate that.
Mike Fleming: Yeah, you didn't read the small print on page 69 of the agreement. There's always a way that these software companies get out of it. I have, I'm sure there's a couple of people they've taken care of, or maybe there's a couple of people they've taken care of.
But by and large, the stories that we hear.
Krista Sleeper: Yeah, we've not found that one yet, if there are other.
Mike Fleming: Yeah, we've not come across it. It's not our responsibility. You should have done this. And sometimes it's true. They should have. But when you tell someone. Oh, just leave it all up to us. People have a tendency to believe you.
And I, if there's any takeaways from today, it's, you cannot just set it and forget it. You gotta, you've gotta be checking up on this. You got to make sure that they are doing the [00:17:00] right thing. And you may think that, oh, that's what I paid them to do. Unfortunately they're just not doing it and they're not going to take responsibility and for the time that it would take you to try to check up on this and make things or make sure things are getting done.
Hey, if you make a thousand dollars an hour, which most of us don't, you got to pay a seven figure penalty and interest and back tax. That's a lot more than a thousand dollars an hour. So take the time, make the time to do some follow up and try to avoid this so that you don't have to take advantage of our triage program.
Krista Sleeper: Yeah, exactly. We'd rather have you, work with us in some other capacity. So we don't have to tell you bad things. And yeah, I think to go back to that, Mike, that is just remember that, like you said, set it, forget it. It's great for crockpots, not good for sales tax.
Mike Fleming: Absolutely. Krista, thank you very much for joining us today. And I'm sure we'll revisit this this program as it evolves over [00:18:00] time. It's a new program. It was a needed program.
Krista Sleeper: Yeah.
Mike Fleming: And we'll be adding new parts to this as there's a need. Ellie, you want to take us out?
Ellie Moffat: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much, Krista. Again, we love having you here. Maybe we'll have you back next week and the week after and the week after that. And you're just part of the team now, but if you have questions about our solutions and services, you can reach out to me directly at emoffat at sales tax and more. com. That's E M O F F A T at sales tax and more. com. You can also visit our website, sales tax and more. com. And in addition to the solutions and services we offer, we have a lot of resources on our website as well. That can be very helpful, a full webinar series. We have blogs, we have policy updates.
We have what's called the SALT Vault. So check it out, let us know if you have questions and thank you so much for listening.
Mike Fleming: Yeah. And if you have any specific needs or you want to find out more about this triage program, [00:19:00] reach out and we'll get you together with Krista or a member of her team as we go through this process.
And on a different note, as always, I hope to see you on the next installment of the Sales Tax and More Podcast. Thank you everyone. Bye bye.