Sales & Use Tax
We empower clients with multistate operations to unlock the full potential of their business with customized solutions to mitigate risk, recover overpayments and minimize exposure.
Sales & Use Tax
Amidst increasing complexity in an ever-evolving tax landscape, complying with intricate sales and use tax laws can be difficult for businesses operating in a multistate environment. Baker Tilly provides clients with well-designed options and customized solutions to manage their sales and use tax costs, simplify complexities and minimize exposure.
Our dedicated sales and use tax specialists have the experience, resources and relationships with taxing authorities to minimize your exposure, avoid or recover overpayments and control compliance costs. As your trusted tax partner, we review your unique situation and apply our collective knowledge of tax authority and planning techniques to address all your sales and use tax needs. Our team leverages technology and forward-thinking collaboration to conduct thorough, line-by-line reviews to ensure you remain compliant, maximizing potential and mitigating risk.
Our range of services includes:
- Nexus reviews and analysis
- Historical exposure remediation and penalty abatement through voluntary disclosure or amnesty programs
- Developing sales and purchases taxability matrices for various industries
- Policy and procedure reviews, including developing and implementing, consulting on automated compliance solutions and exemption certificate management
- Identifying and maximizing application of various exemptions
- Dispute resolution, such as audit defense, appeals and private letter rulings
- Reverse audits to obtain refunds of overpayments of sales tax to vendors or over-accrual of use tax on purchases
- Managed audit services to effectively navigate state audit guidelines
- Utility studies
- Negotiating percentage use tax reporting agreements
- Buy- and sell-side sales and use tax due diligence
- Customized training
- Special purpose entity restructuring and tax planning
Unlock the secrets to a smooth sales tax audit process
Go thereSales tax audits are inconvenient and overwhelming, but with the right preparation and knowledge, you can successfully navigate them, or even turn them to your advantage. Our comprehensive whitepaper, “The do’s and don’ts of successfully navigating a sales and use tax audit,” provides valuable insights and practical tips to help you effectively manage the process.
In this resource guide, Baker Tilly specialists provide actionable advice on managing audits, reducing potential liabilities and identifying tax refunds. Backed by decades of sales tax audit defense experience, our team provides a holistic approach to help you understand how to tailor audit defense strategies to your specific needs and local tax authority requirements.
Sales and use tax audit defense and consulting services
At Baker Tilly, we specialize in guiding companies of all sizes through the intricate sales and use tax landscape. Our experience in sales and use tax audit defense and consulting ensures that your business remains compliant and minimizes the risk of significant tax assessments and penalties. These audits often stem from taxing authorities' complex interpretations of state and local tax codes, making our audit defense services essential for accurate application to your operations.
No matter the size of your company, state and local taxing authorities will inevitably conduct audits on both private and public entities. An uncontrolled sales tax audit can severely impact your company's financial health and disrupt daily operations due to capacity constraints and audit management challenges. Discover how Baker Tilly’s array of successful sales tax audit services can help you navigate the complexities of sales and use tax audits, safeguarding your business and optimizing your tax strategies.
Baker Tilly’s nexus reviews and analysis will determine if you are registered and collecting sales tax in all the required states. A physical presence or “economic connection” creates a sales tax nexus, and companies of all sizes are being impacted. Companies who fail to properly register and collect sales tax risk substantial assessments, including back taxes, penalties and interest.
We ensure that you remain compliant with state-specific tax laws and help minimize exposure.
Our overpayment review proactively identifies and recovers sales tax paid on exempt transactions. The potential to recover money is high, as vendors can charge sales tax on many transactions. We developed sophisticated software that allows our team to identify and review all transactions with sales tax paid on the invoice to maximize potential refunds.
Combined with years of experience and a refined approach to sales and use tax overpayment review, our custom software enables our reviews to require minimal client involvement and yield significant savings. Additionally, we recommend process changes to correct identified issues and minimize future tax exposure.
If your company is being audited by the state or local jurisdiction, you can enlist our sales and use tax specialists for audit defense services. Our team can be engaged at any point during the audit process to represent and defend your company. We can manage the entire process on your behalf and work closely with the state auditor to actively defend findings in your favor.
If you prefer a more hands-on approach, our managed audit service is a great solution in states that allow you to conduct a self-audit. You will be in control of the process while we partner with you to navigate the states’ audit guidelines, evaluate and implement the best audit procedures, identify overpayments, develop defensible positions where appropriate, reduce interest and get penalties waived.
Many states offer utility sales tax incentives to encourage facility operations in their state, and our utility study will uncover opportunities that can lead to significant annual tax benefits. Sales tax exemptions on utilities can include electricity, natural gas, and water used to power your equipment and facilities.
Our comprehensive study includes a preliminary economic analysis, facility survey, predominant use study, state filing, exemption filing and refund filing. Qualifying companies receive a sales tax exemption on utilities consumed to operate equipment and facilities.
Baker Tilly specialists partner with you to identify best practices and offer careful review and training to ensure your company stays on top of all sales and use tax opportunities and compliance changes. We proactively teach you how to establish best practices through ongoing training of tax policy and procedure updates.
At Baker Tilly, we understand that every client's needs are unique. That's why we craft a personalized sales tax audit defense strategy for each business we serve. Our seasoned professionals collaborate closely with you and the auditing authority to secure the most favorable sample for the audit. We then work with you and your vendors to ensure that only truly taxable items are assessed. This meticulous process involves a comprehensive review of every transaction to determine taxability within the audit population, as well as requesting waivers for penalties and interest.
With extensive experience navigating even the most complex sales tax audits across the United States, Baker Tilly specialists have developed a holistic audit defense approach to deliver maximum tax benefits. This approach allows us to enhance internal best practices, address identifiable exposure issues and continue to serve as your trusted tax partner for the long term.
If you've been notified of a sales tax audit, it's crucial to act swiftly.
Dedicated support for multistate sales tax compliance
At Baker Tilly, we leverage decades of experience to recover overpaid sales taxes, reduce liabilities and ensure compliance for businesses across the United States. Our ongoing sales tax compliance services simplify the complex process for multistate organizations.
As your fractional sales tax department, we act as an off-site extension of your operations, providing guidance, advice and support to manage your sales and use tax obligations seamlessly. We offer a customized suite of sales tax solutions to optimize operational needs and savings for businesses nationwide. Our fully outsourced compliance services are tailored to fit your ongoing requirements.
Our dedicated team of sales tax consultants is committed to providing the support and experience necessary to ensure your sales tax obligations are managed accurately. We alleviate your sales tax burdens through the following compliance services:
- Managing ongoing sales tax filings and payments
- Monitoring and responding to jurisdictional notices and other correspondences
- Managing tax calendars
- Completing state registrations and renewals
- Providing customized reporting
- Offering dedicated support and guidance
Contact Baker Tilly today to discover how our seasoned professionals can streamline your compliance process, save you time and money and ensure your business remains compliant across multiple states.
Better together
Baker Tilly Expands Specialty Tax Services with Invoke Tax Partners
Baker Tilly acquires Invoke Tax Partners, a nationally recognized state and local tax specialty firm based in Dallas. This acquisition enhances Baker Tilly’s capabilities in real estate and business personal property tax, sales and use tax and severance tax.
Why Baker Tilly?
Baker Tilly sales and use tax specialists have a long history of recovering overpaid taxes, reducing tax liabilities and minimizing future state tax exposure by implementing best practices and technology. Sales and use tax exemptions and procedures differ from state to state, and our national network of specialists have in-depth knowledge of each jurisdiction’s intricacies and nuances. We foster positive, collaborative relationships with local tax authorities, and our team consists of tenured and loyal professionals with Big Four accounting firm, industry and governmental service backgrounds with a wide range of industry experience.
Building a meaningful partnership based on trust is our top priority, and our professionals serve as an agile extension of your company that is determined to achieve your goals and provide valuable training for continued success.
Our professionals
