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A Quarter Century of Sales Tax

A 25th Anniversary reflection by Diane Yetter.

Twenty-Five (25) Years. A quarter of a century. A Generation. A milestone. A time to reflect and a time to celebrate.

August 6, 1996 to August 6, 2021. Some of the things we’ve seen in the world and in sales tax…

1996

Diane’s first business card!

  • August 6, 1996 – Yetter Consulting Services starts as a sole proprietorship working from Diane’s condo in Chicago. Our first client was Vertex, Diane was a contract trainer for them.

1997

BJ Pritchett has taught at STI from the beginning!

  • June 20, 1997 – We were incorporated.
  • October 1997 – The Sales Tax Institute holds first classes: Sales Tax Concepts and Basics of Sales Tax, followed by the first Advanced Workshop in November.
  • Vertex Returns product launches.

1998
  • Yetter Consulting hires our first employee, John Duckworth, an intern in May, and our first full time employee, Mike Lawler.
  • Birth of Google (Yes, I started the business before you could Google an answer!)

1999
  • Sabrix is founded. The craziness of preparing for Y2K resulted in so many companies converting custom mainframes to packaged ERP solutions, which was a boon to the sales tax automation industry.

2000

The first Yetter Consulting Service office.

  • Yetter Consulting moves into its first office in downtown Chicago.
  • Streamlined Sales Tax Project begins in March 2000.
  • Diane speaks at first IOMA.

2001
  • Diane presents for the first time at the COST Sales Tax Conference.
  • The world changed on 9/11, but also got more supportive and we pulled together.

2002
  • Vertex launches O Series.

2003

Staff at new office warming.

  • Yetter Consulting moves to new larger office space!

2004

Diane at COST 2004.

  • Avalara launches.
  • COST Basics School launches with Diane leading the Sales Tax Administration sessions.
  • CCH Drop Shipment Guide written by Diane is published for the first time.
  • Facebook is founded!

2005
  • Streamlined Sales Tax Governing Board becomes operational October 1, 2005 with 17 full or associate member states representing 25.3% of the population of sales tax states.

2006

Staff outing 2006.

  • CCH Guide to Manufacturing written by Diane is published.
  • Yetter Consulting Services celebrates 10th Anniversary.

2007
  • Diane is interviewed on Public Radio on the 848 show which is broadcasted nationally!
  • Apple introduces the iPhone and communication changes forever.

2008

Staff outing 2008.

  • Yetter Consulting is at its largest staff of 12 people demonstrating that the Great Recession wasn’t bad for everyone.

2009
  • Sales Tax Institute launches online self-study class.
  • Sales Tax Advisor, our first newsletter launches.
  • Sabrix is sold to Thomson Reuters.

2010

Diane says goodbye to the office life.

  • The company is restructured and enters into cooperative agreements with a number of firms with a focus on growing Sales Tax Institute. The office lease ends and we start working remotely.

2011

2011 business card rebrand.

  • Diane is named to Accounting Today’s 100 Most Influential People in Accounting for the first time and is the only sales tax professional in the list.
  • Yetter Consulting is rebranded to YETTER – tax meets technology.

2012

Tax Leader Summit event in Napa.

  • Sales Tax Institute launches live webinars!
  • Diane presents at the COST Annual meeting for the first time.
  • IBFD engages Yetter Tax to author their U.S. Sales Tax Chapter.
  • Sales Tax Institute Tax Leader Summit held in Napa.

2013

  • Tax Forward Alliance goes to market bringing 9 independent firms under a single brand.

2014

2015
  • Diane presents at Sleetercon, which later becomes Accountex, for the first time.

2016

20th Anniversary celebration in 2016.

  • Sales Tax Institute launches on-demand webinars.
  • Yetter Tax celebrates 20th Anniversary.

2017
  • Multistate Tax Commission offers Amazon FBA Sellers Amnesty programs with historic waiver of full liability for qualifying applicants.

2018

Diane at Supreme Court for Wayfair decision.

  • The U.S. Supreme Court issues the South Dakota v. Wayfair decision, which turns the sales tax world upside down. An article authored by Diane is quoted in the decision.
  • Sales Tax Institute launched Sales Tax Jumpstart to help educate people about sales tax.

2019

Telling Cherie she won the Sales Tax Nerd Award.

2020

  • Sales Tax Nerd Community is launched!
  • Diane is awarded NAWBO Chicago Woman Business Owner of the Year Award.
  • COVID-19 shuts the word down in a matter of weeks and everyone learns to Zoom. Business and education learns how to operate digitally.

2021

  • Final states pass economic nexus (Florida, Kansas, and Missouri).
  • August 6, 2021 – Yetter Tax and Sales Tax Institute celebrate 25th Anniversary!

 

That is quite a list, isn’t it? What a trip down memory lane. What else is significant about these 25 years?

63 employees. Some only for a short period of time but a current employee, John Londay, has been with us the longest. He will celebrate his 13th anniversary with the company on September 1! We currently have 9 members on our team and I’m grateful to each and every one of them.

The current Sales Tax Institute/YETTER Tax team!

 

30+ faculty members. Sales Tax Institute can’t happen without the sales tax village. I’m grateful to all the amazing sales tax nerds that have participated. A special shout out to BJ Pritchett and Chriss Cudney who have been teaching with us since the very first Basics of Sales Tax class in Tempe, Arizona.

 

Some of our fabulous faculty at a Basics of Sales and Use Tax course: Chuck Maniace, BJ Pritchett, Jordan Goodman, Diane Yetter, and Chriss Cudney.

 

65 partners and advisors that we collaborate with to provide our consulting services. Some have been with us for a long time and others are fairly new. Some provide very specific services and others have helped us with so many different things over the years.

 

Treasured clients, faculty, students, advisors, and staff at our 25th Anniversary celebration.

 

5,500+ students. That is a crazy number of professionals that we have taught either in live classes, live webinars, remote classes, or who’ve listened to one of our on-demand webinars.

 

Some of our amazing students (including eventual YCS employee, Thu!) at a Sales Tax Institute class embracing their inner sales tax nerd!

 

Over 500 clients. We wouldn’t be here without all of you. From the smallest pre-launch companies to some of the largest businesses in the world. We are honored that you have trusted us with your sales tax needs.

15,269 current subscribers to Sales Tax Institute. You keep us on our toes. You encourage us to continuing to learn and innovate.

What’s to come? Where are we going? So many of you have sent notes of congratulations and wishes for another 25 years! We’ll see… But I’m not going anywhere, and neither is our team.

We continue to provide consulting services and look for new and innovative ways to provide the services required. This varies across clients, but we’ve done everything from nexus studies, voluntary disclosures, sales tax registrations (oh so many of these recently), audit defense (more and more coming in!), taxability research, product mapping, selling systems tax configuration (Amazon, eBay, Shopify, Walmart are just a few we’ve been in recently), and tax systems implementations from fairly basic ones for marketplace sellers to global solutions covering sales and procurement. Diane has even served as an expert witness in a few sales tax cases and often provides industry insight to investors.

The foundation of every service and educational offering is our team’s passion for sales tax and for learning. Every single member of the team is a Sales Tax Nerd!

To continue to serve all of you, we commit to a culture that prioritizes our team’s physical and mental well-being and is passionate about equity and justice. This is essential to the productivity and sustainability of our company. Our core values support everything we do: Expertise. Curiosity & Growth. Integrity. Respect & Kindness. Devotion. Being in Service.

These last 25 years have flown by, and I wouldn’t change anything. Thank you for your support, your engagement, and your friendship. To my team, you mean the world to me. Here’s to the future!

 

 

Diane

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Posted on August 30, 2021