Imaging Science and Services, Inc.

Reports: Acquiring certificates in a timely fashion is crucial when proactively managing exemption certificate compliance. TEAMS Express and LineLink make it easy to monitor the flow of incoming new and updated exemptions within your exemption certificate processes and minimize risk and exposure. The “Certificate by Date ” Report provides the basis for measuring certificate flow so that you can take appropriate action before trouble occurs. The report documents when new or updated certificates were processed into TEAMS Express. As with all reports, you can specify a variety of criteria for selecting and organizing your data including date range, geographic coverage by state and more. With these metrics in hand, you can identify periods or regions where compliance is lacking. Furthermore, you can use LineLink to match up the reported data with your exempt sales reports for a specified time period and gauge the effectiveness of certificate acquisition at the time of sale. The possibilities are endless.
Using Barcodes: Adding barcodes to certificate requests for expiring exemptions is quick and easy within TEAMS Express. These barcodes automate the receipt of exemption certificates submitted by customers and allow them to be properly captured more quickly for review and indexing as it automatically matches up certificates received with your customer demographic information.
If you have additional questions about these productivity features, please contact Sales for additional information.

Philip C. Hodge, CEO and Founder of ISSI, will be speaking at Fusion 2010 on May 10-11, 2010 on the latest trends and best practices for sales and use tax exemption governance. Fusion 2010, the IAPP Annual Forum and Expo In Collaboration with TAWPI and IARP, is the premier event for A/P and A/R professionals being held in Grapevine, Texas from May 9-13, 2010. Effective corporate governance, risk management and compliance depend upon the continuous collection and proactive management of all required documents including sales and use tax exemptions. Phil will be speaking on “Automating the Use-Tax Exemption Process” and “Sales Tax Exemption Governance” in light of the rapidly changing technology landscape and increasingly aggressive state audit activity. John Schmarr, an expert in State and Local Tax and a lead consultant with ISSI joins Phil on both days. These practical sessions examine real world sales and use tax challenges that companies are facing under today’s trying economic conditions. A/R and A/P professionals will sharpen their knowledge and wits as they learn the latest technology strategies and best practices for protecting themselves from state audit risk and exposure.

State of Washington Replaces Resale Certificate
Effective January 1, 2010, the Washington resale certificate will be replaced with a reseller permit issued by the Washington State Department of Revenue. To remain sales tax exempt beginning next year, a reseller’s permit will need to be obtained as proof of exempt status. Our service team is taking appropriate action on behalf of our TEAMS Express customers to ensure that they stay within compliance.

NY State Repeals Upfront Exemption for QEZEs
The Qualified Empire Zone Enterprises (QEZEs) upfront sales tax exemption has been repealed September 1, 2009 pursuant to chapter 57. According to the New York Department of Taxation and Finance, Form ST-121.6, Qualified Empire Zone Enterprise (QEZE) Exempt Purchase Certificate, is declared invalid and will no longer serve as proof of exemption.

The powers that be in Tallahassee are considering the potential windfall from a Florida Internet Sales Tax. Couple that with increased state sales tax audits and you have a potentially perfect storm that could significantly increase what your company owes in sales tax. In addition, the state of Hawaii is looking to introduce a sales and use tax bill that could likely encompass Internet businesses by expanding the scope of what it means to engage in business. Certainly, now is the time to consider implementing a comprehensive and cost-effective sales and use tax exemption management system. If you would like to learn more about limiting your risk and exposure to sales tax audits, assessments and penalties, please request our white paper, Exemption Certificate Management Strategies today and protect yourself from the coming sales tax audit storm.

Depending upon where you are located, you might be smiling or you might need a better exemption certificate management solution.

Smilers first.

Georgia Manufacturers should be happy since the state legislature expanded the sales and use tax exemption for machinery and put a cap on sales and use tax for energy consumed during manufacturing.

…and now to the frowns.

California businesses in the 94608 (Emeryville), 95826 (Sacramento), 95110 (San Jose), 91406 (Van Nuys), 90505 (Torrance), 92701 (Santa Ana), and 92570 (Perris) areas will be subject to a new Statewide Compliance and Outreach Program where the state of California is going after uncollected sales and use tax. They plan to ratchet up scrutiny on businesses in these areas hoping to find the $2 billion dollar unreported sales and use tax gap.

Nonprofit groups in New York State will now need to collect sales tax on certain sales, products or services including some online sales. Failure to do so will result in the same sort of penalties that for profit businesses face. Many nonprofits aren’t even aware of this change.

If there ever was a need for a trusted partner for managing sales and use tax exemption certificates, it is now.

Massachusetts is promoting a new informative video explaining their energy sales tax exemption for qualifying small businesses with 5 or less employees and revenue under a cool million, dollars that is.

More states are now seeing the benefit between energy conservation, going green and sales tax exemption incentives.

Dennis Richardson is pushing the “Tax for a Tax” concept according to the Oregon Magazine. He aims to exempt most Oregon citizens from paying real property taxes by instituting a state sales tax. He figures that current tax technology would help the state implement a system that is fair and is easy to work.

It sounds neat, but implementation will need to be carefully thought out. The law of unintended consequences could have a profound impact on the citizenry and businesses. Electronic cards might come into play to validate certain low income citizens sales tax exempt status.

Can Oregon do it? Let’s wait and see.

Senator Bill Baroni introduced legislation that will make the sale of Energy Star appliances tax exempt in the state of New Jersey. “Buy Green, Save Green” eliminates sales tax on compliant devices for all uses. This action could make New Jersey the first state to enact a permanent sales tax exemption on green purchases.

Collecting sales tax exemption certificates and verifying exempt status can be a drudge for just about any department or business. This is certainly true for those businesses engaged in retail sales. Fewer staff, more products and increasing numbers of demanding customers can mean a nightmare at the point of sale. Verifying exempt status in-store must be a quick and painless endeavor with the highest levels of accuracy. Furthermore, if store personnel cannot verify that a certificate is on file, they must have the means to collect, update and/or renew a customer’s exemption certificate without slowing down the flow of retail traffic AND without annoying the customer.

It would be nice if the tax department was right there, in-store, but that department is too overworked. Online verification, online collection and submission are essential to the continued success of any in-store exemption certificate solution.

But how can you guarantee its success without overburdening your store personnel?

A system, built to exist independently of any hardware or software already in place at the store and at the point of purchase is essential. Most retailers can’t afford to replace existing systems just because you need validate exempt status on the fly, in real time. Furthermore, shouldn’t the system integrate transparently with all of the existing POS, back-office and corporate systems without great expense?

How much effort can you expect your store personnel, or worse, your customers to expend on filling out and submitting a new or updated certificate? If they could find the correct form automatically, prepopulated with their customer information already on file in your ERP or CRM system, what would that mean? No tedious date entry by the customer or the store personnel. A signature captured electronically through any commercial capture device and the process is complete.

Only one system is designed for all of this and more.

TEAMS Express is designed just for that purpose. TEAMS Express is built for transparent integration for real time access in any store environment using Web 2.0 technologies including Web Services and SOAP. This architecture ensures that your existing systems need not be replaced. In addition, ISSI has over 14 years servicing the retail industry with exemption certificate collection, management and audit support services that drive sales tax compliance while keeping customers smiling. So check it out.