Scott Peterson is the Director of Government Affairs for Avalara, Inc. In his role, Scott leads Avalara’s effort to be the first name in sales tax automation. Prior to joining Avalara Scott was the first Executive Director of the Streamlined Sales Tax Governing Board. For seven years Scott acted as the chief operating officer of an organization devoted to making sales tax simpler and more uniform for the benefit of business. Before joining Streamline Scott spent ten years as the Director of the South Dakota Sales Tax Division where he was responsible for the state sales and use tax, the state’s contractor’s excise tax, the sales and use tax for over two hundred cities, and the sales and use tax for four tribal governments.
August 8, 2018
The recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in June 2018, South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc. turned sales tax on its head. Now, businesses selling online and/or remotely will no longer enjoy the same sales tax relief they did in the past.
July 31, 2018
Joni Johnson-Powe, principal of Taxnologi Solutions, LLC, was recently interviewed by Scott Peterson, Vice President of U.S. Tax Policy and Government Relations at Avalara. Taxnologi Solutions is a company made up of tax consultants who are skilled in ...
July 31, 2018
By Scott Peterson, Avalara’s Vice President of U.S. Tax Policy and Government Relations In the case of South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc. (decided on June 21, 2018), the Supreme Court of the United States overturned the rule that a state cannot tax a business unless it has a physical presence in the state. The...…
July 19, 2018
In the immediate term, the case has been remanded to the South Dakota Supreme Court for further review. In other words, assuming the final review isn’t a big surprise, South Dakota will be free to enforce its existing law as presented to SCOTUS in the ...
November 21, 2017
Recently, Scott Peterson, Vice President of U.S. Tax Policy and Government Relations for Avalara, conducted a Facebook Live Chat to discuss use tax laws and shipping. This is a topic CPAs and accountants should know more about - not only to educate ...
December 14, 2016
The sad truth is that for the majority of state sales tax sites, it isn’t easy to get the essential information that you need. Many of them are riddled with outdated design, perplexing navigation and unclear wording that can turn finding simple ...
November 17, 2016
The rules and procedures for filing sales taxes are completely individual to each state. So it’s imperative to find out what the rules and processes are for each state where you are collecting sales taxes. For those specifics, you can turn to our ...
November 17, 2016
Here’s a rundown of which states let you remit sales taxes via credit card and how much using that option will cost you. “Fee unspecified” means there is no information on the amount of the fee until you actually initiate a credit card payment.
October 21, 2016
If your small business clients are trying to figure out how to deal with sales tax, there is a lot of alphabet soup to learn. Here’s one more: SST, which stands for Streamlined Sales Tax. This program can offer valuable sales-tax collection resources ...
October 6, 2016
Collecting sales tax can be complicated, no doubt about it. For small businesses, sales tax can be even more of a challenge because they probably have limited time and resources to devote to it, but they also can’t afford to make mistakes.
September 19, 2016
As a seller, it is important to know whether you are located in an origin-sourced state or a destination-sourced state. Most states and Washington, D.C., are destination-based. The 11 origin-based states are:
