Sales Tax Nerd Award 2019

Kelly Brown

Kelly Brown, CPA, MST, is a Tax Manager at Yeo & Yeo CPAs & Business Consultants. She first dabbled in sales tax as an office manager at the church she attended while pursuing her accounting degree. When she entered public accounting, she tentatively raised her hand during a SALT group meeting to take on sales tax. The rest is history. Kelly has become the go-to sales tax pro and is helping to grow this area of compliance at her firm. She loves the continuous learning aspect of sales tax and that she can provide value to her clients in a difficult area.

Kelly is a sales tax nerd because a day rarely goes by that she doesn’t work some piece of sales tax trivia into conversation outside the office. On vacation, she constantly analyzes sales tax rates and anxiously awaits the day a flea market vendor charges her sales tax.

Tonya Grayson

Tonya Grayson, MST, CMI, is a Senior Indirect tax Manager at Technicolor. Throughout her career in industry, Tonya has become a master systems implementer and an impressive ‘sales tax fixer’ who has turned around several serious compliance and audit messes. She loves that she can work towards being an expert in a niche area that a lot of people shy away from. Tonya is skilled in helping non-tax people understand and care about sales tax implications and continues to learn all she can about sales tax to ensure the best outcomes for her company.

Never one to shy away from a complex field full of constant change, Tonya is a sales tax nerd because she loves developing systems, processes, and controls to manage it all. She even greatly enjoys audit defense as an opportunity to prove tax positions, make corrections, and exercise negotiation skills.

Jordan Perri

Jordan Perri is a Tax Manager at Allyn International. Jordan started in sales tax as a tax intern at Allyn and was instantly hooked by the dynamic challenges and opportunity to help people that sales tax offers. He took to sales tax like a fish to water, rising through the management levels at Allyn due to his dedication to develop his expertise, train others, and grow the sales tax practice. Jordan loves that sales tax provides an outlet to work with data and research and provide incredible value to his clients. He strives to bring an increased focus and awareness among the business community for this important tax.

Jordan is a sales tax nerd because he is known to talk about sales tax at any opportunity – from family outings to holiday brunches to nights on the town. No one that’s close to him that hasn’t heard about Wayfair and the effects of sales tax.

Kenyatta Rogers

Kenyatta Rogers is Tax Accountant at Gordon Food Service. She was tasked with sales tax compliance work in her first job and unexpectedly found a fulfilling career path. Today, Kenyatta’s organizational skills and knack for sales tax research make her an indispensable resource in her company. Through her dedication and focus on sales tax, she has landed major projects and developed key sales and use tax resources used both internally and by customers. Kenyatta pushes to broaden the exposure of sales tax department accomplishments within her company and to get new hires intrigued by sales tax.

Once, after researching whether steam is taxable or not, she remembers thinking, “Wow! This [sales tax] is really different!” Kenyatta is a sales tax nerd because she loves thinking about things (like the taxability of steam) that no one else is thinking about that can make a big impact on business.

Cameron Stearns

Cameron Stearns is the CFO at Oregon-based Mountain Rose Herbs. After a foray in public accounting, Cameron found her true passion in sales tax, working in industry and tackling multi-state retailer sales tax issues head on. In reaction to the Wayfair decision, Cameron wrote a whitepaper about her company’s compliance burden, which led to an invitation to attend discussions with an Oregon senator’s finance committee and the Oregon governor. Oregon is a no-sales tax state and Cameron has the goal to educate legislators on the impact of tax policy (like Wayfair) on companies.

Known to enjoy reading SCOTUS decisions, Cameron is a sales tax nerd due to her love of the juxtaposition of sales tax and law. She finds the complexity of sales tax challenging but enjoys how it continuously borders on legal issues and that there is constantly new material to get a handle on.

The Sales Tax Nerd award is open to anyone in the sales tax industry that shows passion and drive for the work. There are no set years of experience or required title/accolades in order to apply.

Requirements:

• Must have taken at least one Sales Tax Institute course or be a member of the Sales Tax Nerd Community
• Currently works with sales tax in some professional capacity

Other Qualifications We’ll Look for in a Candidate:

• A demonstrated commitment to the continuous learning and study of indirect tax
• Passion for the sales tax industry as a whole 
• Interest in sales tax as a primary part of a career 
• Go-getter and advocate for sales tax in their professional life
• Have worked to make sales tax an asset to their company or themselves