GET REAL About Life and Sales Tax

Sales tax compliance isn't just a box to check — it's the biggest margin killer most businesses don't see coming. In this episode, Danny Wright and Jason Parr get real about life, perspective, gratitude, and why understanding your sales tax responsibility after the 2018 Wayfair decision is absolutely critical for every business selling in the US and Canada.

We break down the three foundational questions every company needs to answer: where you sell (nexus), what you sell (taxability), and how you sell — and why ignoring notices, liability, or your compliance obligations can wipe out years of profit overnight.

But this episode goes deeper than tax. We talk about the power of the stories we tell ourselves, reframing adversity with gratitude, and why real human connection — not bots, not AI agents — is what drives meaningful business relationships and company culture.

🔑 Key Takeaways:

📌 Sales tax compliance after Wayfair: Tax is now based on where your customer is located, not where your business operates
📌 The three questions: Where you sell, what you sell, and how you sell determine your responsibility
📌 Ignoring sales tax = margin destruction: Penalty, interest, and lost profitability add up fast
📌 Peace of mind is the ultimate win: Whether you need action or just confirmation, a conversation changes everything
📌 Company culture matters: How you treat your people internally flows directly to how clients are served
📌 Be your first second opinion: No issue is too big or too small to bring to a trusted sales tax advisor

💬 Quotes from This Episode:

"Anytime he runs into a mishap like that, he says, yes, and thank you. It flips a switch in his brain to just remember, yeah, you got an hour delay, but you're going to get where you're going." — [04:24]

"Where you sell, what you sell, and how you sell essentially helps you understand what your responsibility is… Nobody wants to show up in an audit and have underpayments or exposure or an assessment." — [16:42]

"Has anyone ever benefited from ignoring sales tax notices? No, they haven't… That liability will accrue in a hurry and you will regret ignoring it. That peace of mind is always gonna be the win." — [25:25]

🔗 Connect With Us

Ready for your first second opinion on sales tax compliance? Reach out to The Sales Tax People — real people helping real businesses find peace of mind with sales tax.

#SalesTaxCompliance #SalesTax #WayfairDecision #Nexus #SalesTaxPeople #BusinessCompliance #SmallBusinessTax #Taxability #SalesTaxAudit #PeaceOfMind #BusinessGrowth #Entrepreneurship #CompanyCulture #Gratitude #Perspective

Transcript

— Danny's wild week: deer strikes, car accidents & perspective

SPEAKER_01 0:00

You're listening to the Sales Tax People Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 0:07

This week's episode of the Sales Tax People Podcast, Danny and Jason sit down and talk about life, what they've experienced, what they learned from those experiences, and the power of a good perspective. They also tie it all back into sales tax, so I promise you it's worth the listen. Enjoy.

SPEAKER_02 0:35

Paul and I actually went to Vegas to meet with some partners, had some awesome meetings, and uh I took advantage of just being in Vegas and um I had found a vehicle to buy. It was on the hunt, it's a vehicle that they don't actually make anymore. And uh so it's a little harder to find one with like that's cleaner and less mileage and you know lower mileage. So, anyways, I found one in Arizona, so I'm like, I'll just jump on a quick, easy flight from Vegas to Phoenix and went and uh grabbed the vehicle and everything checked out, looks good. And I hit the road for home, and of course, just you know, after a a day and you know, getting over there, and then it's like a six-hour drive back home. So I'm driving in at night, and there's just a spot in uh northern Arizona, just you know, in the mountains, trees, windy roads, and so there's deer. And I'd already seen a couple, and yeah, you can imagine where this is going. But like I was just cruising, like wasn't driving crazy because it's windy and you know dark, and I'd already seen deer, but yeah, I come around to bend and already saw one deer that had crossed, so but then all of a sudden this one just jumps right out, and he didn't jump right out like in the front of me. It was more like he jumped in the actual side, like the front side. So my whole front side fender got beat up a little bit. It hit my headlight, but not didn't hit it hard enough to actually like completely break it. It just broke the you know, the headlamp uh cover, the casing. And then but then the deer flipped around and smashed into the passenger door, so that thing's all bent up and but it like just perspective, right? Like I was I I just was still like kind of creeping along and like nothing sounded bad. Like I was just you know, still just driving and I'm like, okay, I'm good to drive home, which was the biggest thing, right? Like, I'm good, poor deer, but we know all deer go to heaven, so that's okay. Um so anyways, yeah, I just cruised the rest of the way home. I was just under like two hours from my house at that point. Well uh yeah, just um yesterday I finally get to a body shop in the morning after I took the kids to school. They're like, yeah, we can get this fixed, and yeah, I'm gonna run through my insurance and all that. And I'm like, okay, and then I just go through my day of meetings and and everything, and then yesterday evening I'm headed to get a haircut and just cruising down this main road here in St. George and uh cute little old couple, the guy pulls right out in front of me. And like I slam I'm pull I'm I'm I'm starting into the intersection and just headed straight in the right-hand lane, and he turns out right to go the same direction as me. So he pulled out right in front of me. I slam on my brakes, like literally locked him up, like slid right into the guy, and still had enough speed to just smash the like left kind of back corner of his car, and it hit in literally the same spot as the deer. So like it, but now it's completely smashed in, right? Because I hit his car, like the headlights gone, the my bumper's now like actually like mash completely in, and just just crazy, man. Everyone's okay, which again, like that that's always the first thing, you know, especially that old couple. I mean, they they're 80, probably at least, and uh they seem to be completely fine. Well, yeah, it was

— The "yes, and thank you" mindset for reframing adversity

SPEAKER_02 4:24

like it's one of those two. You're just like, thank you. Everyone's good. And also, you know, what am I doing to invite this chaos in my life? Sounds like you have a cursed car, man. That's yeah, it's the the cursor vehicle.

SPEAKER_04 4:40

Yeah, that is rough. I was uh as we all do, catching some reels, and there was uh reel that this one guy was saying he he he does this thing to trick his mind. You know, you show up at the airport, uh, you're ready to go. What we all experience from time to time there's a delay. He says, anytime he runs into a mishap like that, he does exactly what you just did. He says, Yes, and thank you. And it's like it it flips a switch in his brain to just remember, yeah, you got an hour delay, but you're gonna get where you're going in three hours. And it took people a hundred years ago, you know, ten days to get there, or by train it's even slower. So just helps him put things into perspective. I love your approach, your perspective. I mean, that's those are significant mishaps that can derail someone emotionally, mentally. And when anytime you can not ruminate on yourself and just move your thoughts outward to um, yes, all deers go to heaven, uh, the vehicle still drives. I'm in a safe spot, I can get home. The 80-year-old couple that I ran into are okay physically, emotionally. Things can be fixed, things can be repaired. Um it's just a different perspective when you can recognize when when you when you b really believe that everything I have is all I need, then you actually have everything you need. And your your brain can function differently. And uh I you always bring that to the table. Every experience that I've heard you walk through, every story that I've heard you share, your perspective has a tendency,

— Jason's sister's courageous battle & lessons in gratitude

SPEAKER_04 6:30

not even a tendency, I think it's intentional, but you've you've built this into your character where you look outwardly instead of inwardly. How is this affecting me? Man, my day is ruined. And someone can ruminate on that and it can ruin the rest of their day, their week, their month. If you're not careful, if you don't have some point where you turn off of that lane, it can ruin a decade. But I just love how you turn outward to uh gratitude, uh, offer people some grace and uh some space, and it it allows you to manage your own emotions, even though those are significant things that have happened. Um I I'll share this in context with um in the last two weeks, you know, I lost my sister to uh a significant and courageous three-year battle with uh stage four esophagic cancer. And, you know, you can really get down in the dumps when it comes to cancer and its effect on um yourself, a family, society, your community. Um, but my sister really taught me something special over the last three years. She really lived with a great perspective of gratitude and grace as she fought this battle. She did it publicly so people could see what it looks like, which helped untold thousands of people who have had similar experiences just not feel alone in the experience. And so I just I'm so appreciative of her perspective and her attitude. It's taught me so much, and your attitude is very similar. Um, it's a blessing to know you and to uh gain insight from that type of perspective. Your story you just told could be just a down in the dumps complaint, and everybody would give you the grace to complain because it's that's worth complaining about. But you didn't share the story from a complaint perspective. You

— The human element at The Sales Tax People

SPEAKER_04 8:33

you you you changed the story from woe is me to just think about how special this life is and how grateful we can be for where we are and what we have and what we get to do and can do.

SPEAKER_02 8:48

I love that. Yeah, I appreciate that, brother. Uh and it it I mean a big part of my perspective and my approach to life is very much a part of the last 10 years of life I've had as a part of this company. Right? Like this is like what a what a time for us to reflect on the people, right, that really make up the sales tax people. And it's something that I talk about a lot with our group, and you know, the we have the expertise and this experience with sales tax and you know, our approach, and there's there's no disconnect between the people that are a part of this company and our approach to all things, and then you know, the the way that we treat our clients and take care of them and and approach, you know, just sales tax compliance as a whole, right? Of yeah, just just all of these attributes, right, that the company has, that the people have. And you know, in fact, if if you talk about your or as we talk about your sister, and and naturally we've had many conversations from the time that you know you found out that she was getting sick and and then you know the diagnosis and and all that, and it's that right there is an incredible story that really resonates with me of you know talking about her and like how she lived, right? Like lived so much in these last three years, and it's it's something that's actually been on my mind a lot lately of when we when someone passes away, we so often use the language of like I lost them, right? Like I I I lost my sister, I lost my mom, I I lost whoever it is, my best friend. And yes, like absolutely and there's there's so much in that, and and one with the grief and you know the process, and one of the things like to the point here, one of the things that really sticks out to me lately is is the perspective that people can have of like even if they don't say like I lost that person, they actually go the other direction and and focus more on like what they have because of that person in their life. Right. And it's like it's really actually the focus that you even just brought with your sister in like these last three years. And it's a it's it's a focus of gratitude and appreciation and really remembering like the good times, right? And and and not necessarily even just the good times, because you know, just the experiences, period, right, that you have from that person, what you've learned, what you've shared together, um, all the emotions, right, all the love that that person showed to you or helped you learn. Um it's just it's it's another big one that just is a focus on the perspective and actually makes me think of the LinkedIn posts from you that I just saw this morning.

SPEAKER_00 12:03

Really quickly, I'm pausing this episode to tell you what Jason's post actually said. Jason posted this quick reminder if you can overthink the worst case, you can overthink the best. Don't forget to overthink the best case scenario too. Okay, that should be all the context you need.

SPEAKER_02 12:20

It actually touches very much on this subject of if you think about it, we all live in this world, but we actually all live in our own world. And our world is completely shaped, like completely shaped by the stories.

SPEAKER_04 12:36

Our domes can get pretty crazy.

SPEAKER_02 12:38

Yeah, and it's the and it's the world we do tell ourselves, right? It's funny, like when you see someone that seems wacky or whatever, and you're like, dude, they're living in their own world. We actually say with our kid, you know, Wilson.

— Why real human connection matters more than ever in the age of AI

SPEAKER_02 12:50

He's eight years old, just wild man Wilson is a nickname he has, and oftentimes people are like, he's living in his own world, um, and it's fun, like he's just pure energy and excitement. But and really we're all living in our own world, right? In the in this sense, because we do constantly tell ourselves these stories, and I loved your perspective and your post because it's we can decide what stories we're gonna tell ourselves.

SPEAKER_03 13:19

Yep. Yep.

SPEAKER_04 13:21

It's true, it's so true. And it and it falls right into what you're saying across the board. Re relationships are everything, right? Especially in the world of social media, um, AI, uh agents, bots. Um, you know, you you can if if you've got a a Claude agent, maybe that you've built, or you've got some other AI agent that you're working with on some research or building something or designing something, whatever the case may be, a lot of times to enhance interaction with the real person, the agent or the bot will talk to you in a in a personal way. Like, you know, you're you're asking it to help you create uh some sort of a a message that you're putting together or a presentation, and then at the end of it it says, Hey, you're great and you're gonna do great. Now go get some sleep. You know? Like it's got this interpersonal effect, but it's not real. And uh so I think this type of relationship, one-on-one and one to many, is is so important. And it's reflected to your point in our culture that we want our employees to be successful, uh, we want them to be happy, we want them to be engaged, and we want them to author and own, right? There's this this concept that authorship equals ownership. And to your point, what you author in your mind, uh, you you own in reality. Um, and so you have to be careful what you're authoring, what stories you're telling yourself for sure. Um, but we want them to author things and have ownership of of things uh to help us grow. And and in turn, it really is important what a client's expectations of us are and how we engage with them and how we fulfill our services. It's not just uh an employee and client experience is not just uh a motto on the wall, right? Um

— Sales tax compliance after Wayfair: what every business needs to know

SPEAKER_04 15:30

we really do believe when you collaborate with people that everybody gains confidence in the path forward and how people uh experience things matters to us because we really do want people to have peace of mind when it comes to a complicated issue that's been thrust on the marketplace in 2018. The fact that companies truly, any company anywhere in the world doing business in the US and Canada truly has to understand that sales tax is now about where your customer is located, not where your businesses are conducted. Um that's been the case for decades up until 2018. Understanding that and understanding that you have a responsibility and complying with that responsibility is a complicated measure, more complex than it should be, really. Um we like to joke that uh anytime the government gets involved in trying to make things more simple and more efficient, it it quadruples its complexity. And that's what happened with Wayfair. Um it dramatically complicated things across the environment

— Nexus, taxability & the three foundational questions

SPEAKER_04 16:43

and across the marketplace. And so we try to simplify all of that by simply answering the questions for anybody anywhere in the world doing business in the US, a state by state, it's important to know uh where you sell, right? That's nexus. What you sell, that uh has taxability implications and how you sell. Uh that has implications to whether you have a responsibility, right? We joke that um knowing your nexus is the first step, and that's important. But if you don't know your taxability, you don't actually know what your responsibility is. So where you sell, what you sell, and how you sell essentially helps you understand what your responsibility is, and then understanding the best approach, the most practical approach, and remedies that are available to get compliant are really important. And then just having someone in your corner who's um keeping an eye on the system that you set and you wanted to forget uh those processes and now you regret it, right? Um so the people aspect of the sales tax people is critical because it is real people helping real people with a complex issue, gaining some uh simplicity so that you can have that peace of mind when it comes to your systems and processes. Nobody wants to show up in an audit. Nobody wants to show up in an audit and have underpayments or exposure or an assessment. They also don't want to show up in an audit and have huge underpayments or uh overpayments or money that they spent. Accountants really just want to be within a 1% variance of whatever the the budget is. So there's a way to find peace of mind when it comes to sales tax.

SPEAKER_02 18:32

Yeah, I mean I mean we w we got very much into just real life, right, today and like the emotions and experiences, and it's very much relevant, right? It like you said, it's we are all people, right? We're working on whatever we're working on and doing whatever you know it is we're doing, and and when it comes down to our businesses, and you know, whether I'm an advisor and I'm advising businesses and sales tax comes up, or I'm an owner of a company, I'm a C level person at a company, like a key decision maker, or I'm the person at my company that you know is in a role where I have some responsibility over the sales tax. Like what whatever the role is, there's a certain human element to everything that we're doing. And when it comes to sales tax, like peace of mind really is such an important thing. And we we've all found times in our lives when you've felt somewhat siloed um in what you're doing, and you can even get in these ruts, right? In some way, shape, or form. And I would imagine anyone that's gonna listen to this, and just anyone in general, has had an experience where once they actually connect with another person and there's any level of collaboration on what they're dealing with, which again can be work, it can be you know anything else that you're dealing with, but but specifically within work, right, and and what you're doing and what you're working on. I found it here that with within my role here at the sales tax people, when you get in these spots where you're like, hold on, I feel a little bit siloed and like I haven't met with Par and I haven't met with Paul lately, and and you know, and that

— Why you need a "first second opinion" on sales tax

SPEAKER_02 20:31

could be like as short of a period of time as like a week. And you like you come back together and actually discuss some of these things and collaborate on even a particular subject or item, and it really is both beneficial, right, and and super helpful to you know move things along and and get get that collaboration, but it's it's also an emotional release, like it is important to connect and collaborate, and I think that very much ties into what you just described of the peace of mind that comes from both understanding, right, especially the foundational principles of sales tax, and then the thing that you know we constantly say every week on these episodes, it seems that we want to be your first second opinion because it is so incredibly valuable, it's invaluable even to like have that collaboration on whatever you're dealing with. And you know, one of the things that was on the top of my mind today and coming into this episode to discuss was when people get notices and how often they they either just like file it away in the the you know Michael Scott filing cabinet. Um, if people get this reference where you know, throw it in the trash can. And it's like that it's just it's it's so important to have some you know collaborative discussions on whatever it is you're dealing with with sales tax, no matter how big or small it seems. Um, I just said this on a call yesterday with a new client that. We were onboarding, like, I really don't want you to think there's something too big or too small around sales and use tax that you can't bring to us. Like, that is our focus with our people and and with our clients. And yeah, I say our people because it very much relates to us internally, right? And and as everyone knows more than ever, like the the approach and the culture and the environment, um, the standards that you create internally are absolutely going to you know seep out into the market and and certainly with clients and partners and whatnot. And you know, we're we're always making improvements and always have area for room for improvement. And it's just again part of the beauty of even just a discussion like this is, and this is very much a a look into the lives of the sales tax people on a daily like this. Is you know, you get on calls and we have, of course, specific subject matter or sp specific items to discuss, and it turns into, you know, just a great discussion of just real people having real discussions.

SPEAKER_04 23:08

Yeah. It's uh it's it it reflects the LinkedIn complex that people sometimes have. Like, um, people have determined what the LinkedIn platform is for. So there's things you can talk about and things you can't talk about. Uh we have found in our environment, well, we talk about whatever we need to talk about. And

— Sales tax as the biggest margin killer in business

SPEAKER_04 23:30

uh, you know, and if you don't love it, you can skip it. That's the beauty of technology. You just hit the fast forward button or uh skip it. Or may maybe you have some uh similar experiences and it resonates with you, right? But uh I think it's it's valuable to be able to speak things out loud and work through them, right? The key, the I'll switch. I'm not really switching. I mean, this is just who we are. We're real people who love sales tax and love to help people find peace of mind when it comes to sales tax. So I'm not switching back to sales tax, but all I would say is the key to your point is you just can't ignore it, right? Whether it's Nexus, whether it's the taxability of your products and services, whether it's uh how you sell your items, what platforms you sell them on, what systems you're using to calculate tax, to report tax, um, if it's a notice that you're getting uh from a state or another jurisdiction, the the key to sales tax is you just can't ignore it. It it doesn't go away, you can't set it aside, and it's the biggest margin killer out there uh when it comes to tax because it's applied to the transaction. And if you didn't collect it when you had an opportunity to collect it from a willing party who's used to paying tax on transactions like this, then it ends up coming out of your own pocket with penalty and interest. So if you're running a 10 to 20 percent margin and you've missed collecting tax for three years and you have to pay that out of your own pocket, then you've lost 10 to 20 percent of your margin uh over those three years, just wiped out in uh in a responsibility to pay to the state. So just don't ignore it. Come get your first, second opinion uh on whatever your situation is. We just would love to have a conversation about your situation. And uh some of the best reviews we get are people who say, man, it was so great

— The danger of ignoring sales tax notices and liability

SPEAKER_04 25:25

chatting with you guys. We chatted for 30 minutes, and uh, you just helped me gain confidence that we're right where we need to be, right? It wasn't a hard sales approach. It was just um, let's take a look at what your system is, let's answer the questions, where, what, and how, and how you're managing that now. And there are multiple times where there's nothing you need to do, and there's nothing we need to do for you other than to have had this conversation. And they walk away saying, Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02 25:55

Has anyone ever benefited from ignoring sales tax notices information like no?

SPEAKER_04 26:06

If you don't have liabilities or exposure, then you have anxiety. And if you don't have anxiety about ignoring it, you should.

SPEAKER_02 26:16

Yeah.

— Peace of mind: the biggest win in sales tax compliance

SPEAKER_02 26:17

And then once you have the conversation and understand if it is even coming to that point that you just described with a lot of our the phone calls we have like, okay, yeah, I'm good. Or you know, I'm I'm I'm a young enough company, I'm early enough, like I don't need to worry about it right now. But now you always have more of a foundation and understanding that, okay, yeah, as I grow and you know establish nexus in new states, like now I know what to do. And and I absolutely know not to ignore it, because that liability will accrue in a hurry, and you will regret ignoring it. Because even if someone gets you know in a position where there's some kind of exit, and you know, for them or you know, the company or whatever it is, and they never hear from an auditor and never have to pay a a penny out of pocket, there's there's still just you come to that point and it's like, okay, well, you escaped it, but are you better off than if you would have actually addressed it earlier on now?

SPEAKER_03 27:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:18

Like that that peace of mind's always gonna be the win, the biggest win, I'd say.

SPEAKER_04 27:23

100%. 100%.

SPEAKER_01 27:30

Thanks for hanging out with us on the Sales Tax People podcast. If you want to talk about sales tax, or maybe you have an experience that goes along with something we talked about today, or maybe you just want to hear about how Paul's day is going, make sure you send us an email to podcast at sales dot tax or you can text us at nine four nine three five five five zero nine eight. See y'all again soon.