The Digital Way to Wayfair Compliance

The Supreme Court’s June decision raises new data management challenges. Will your company be affected? Brian Wilchusky, global partner lead for SAP at Vertex, shares his insights on these challenges in a recent SAPinsider article.

The South Dakota v. Wayfair ruling, which allows states to collect sales taxes on certain out-of-state transactions, “will place new demands on how companies manage, calculate, and report tax data,” he points out. States have reacted quickly to the decision; more than half have already issued updates, and many more are expected to do so over the next six to twelve months.

If you’re not sure whether your company will be impacted by Wayfair, take Brian’s simple six-question quiz to find out!

The article also lists several actions that organizations affected by Wayfair should take now – such as gathering information on gross revenues and the number of transactions in states where they sell remotely; prioritizing states where they have the greatest economic presence; and evaluating the impact on the financial statement.

Wayfair is not the only new data management challenge on tax leaders’ plate, Brian notes, pointing to the movement toward real-time tax reporting in the European Union (EU) and the growing interest of U.S. states in this accelerated compliance model. What are companies looking for in tax technologies to help them address these rapidly changing compliance requirements? The key benefits include:

• Reduced time and effort to perform sales and use tax calculations
• Greater accuracy of calculations and compliance data
• Faster user adoption with anytime, anywhere accessibility
• Scalability to meet businesses’ changing sales and use tax requirements
• Extended functionality for all types of businesses across the globe

Tax solutions that integrate with ERP systems and other business applications can address these needs, and more. “Given the high number of new sales tax requirements expected to materialize in dozens of states,” Brian concludes, “there has never been a greater need for automated tax technology.”