Alliance Focuses on Helping Accounting Firms with State and Local Taxes

State and local taxes are a complex web of thousands of jurisdictional rules, and it isn't Charlotte waiting at the end of the web. Instead, there are revenue hungry state and local taxing authorities who are looking for back taxes, penalties and interest.

Keeping up with these issues is a nightmare for small and mid-sized businesses, but tax and accounting professionals can help, especially now that Avalara has teamed with accounting professionals to help other firms become more adept at state and local taxation issues.

Peisner Johnson, one of the largest professional firms specializing in only state and local taxes, and Avalara, which offers an array of cloud-based tax systems, have formed an alliance that is focused on showing accountants and their clients how they can benefit from Avalara’s end-to-end sales and use tax compliance solutions by helping them to more effectively manage their sales tax reporting and compliance burden. In addition, Peisner Johnson will also be working closely with other tax and accounting firms nationwide to assist clients by offering deep sales tax knowledge, experience and support, including compliance services.

“We have traditionally resisted forming partnerships like this one, but because Avalara is 100% focused on sales tax solutions, we knew this one was going to benefit our firm, our clients and other practice firms that engage us to help their clients,” said Jerry Peisner, CPA, one of the firm's partners.

“Accountants face incredible pressures in meeting the needs of their clients,” said Andy Johnson, CPA, also a partner. “State and local tax (SALT) is an area where they can be of tremendous benefit. Figuring out where their clients have filing obligations, or nexus, is usually the first step. The next thing they need is a way to automate the tax calculation function for their clients. We really like what Avalara has to offer.”

“Jerry Peisner and Andy Johnson’s vision for their firm truly mirrors our goal of working with CPAs who have a vested interest in helping their clients solve state and local sales tax issues,” said Ray Bigley, VP of Business Development for Avalara’s accountants program. “In many instances, we spend a great deal of time educating CPAs on sales tax issues. Because Peisner Johnson already has many years of experience in this area, we are also looking forward to their broad network of affiliations in our effort to reach further into the CPA community.”