{"id":14322,"date":"2025-01-17T19:38:13","date_gmt":"2025-01-17T19:38:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/taxops.com\/?p=14322"},"modified":"2025-09-09T16:05:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T16:05:07","slug":"simplifying-sales-tax-in-colorado-a-conversation-with-legislator-cathy-kipp-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/taxops.com\/simplifying-sales-tax-in-colorado-a-conversation-with-legislator-cathy-kipp-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Simplifying Sales Tax in Colorado: A Conversation with Legislator Cathy Kipp (Part 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[et_pb_section fb_built=&#8221;1&#8243; _builder_version=&#8221;4.17.4&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; background_color=&#8221;#003254&#8243; custom_padding=&#8221;7px||5px|||&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][et_pb_row column_structure=&#8221;3_5,2_5&#8243; make_equal=&#8221;on&#8221; custom_padding_last_edited=&#8221;on|desktop&#8221; padding_top_bottom_link_1=&#8221;false&#8221; padding_top_bottom_link_2=&#8221;false&#8221; 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hover_transition_speed_curve__hover=&#8221;ease&#8221; hover_transition_speed_curve__hover_enabled=&#8221;ease&#8221; background_color_gradient_stops__hover=&#8221;#2b87da 0%|#29c4a9 100%&#8221;][et_pb_column type=&#8221;4_4&#8243; _builder_version=&#8221;4.16&#8243; custom_padding=&#8221;|||&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221; custom_padding__hover=&#8221;|||&#8221;][et_pb_text _builder_version=&#8221;4.16&#8243; text_font=&#8221;||||||||&#8221; header_font=&#8221;||||||||&#8221; header_2_font=&#8221;Lato|700|||||||&#8221; header_2_text_color=&#8221;#003254&#8243; header_2_font_size=&#8221;52px&#8221; header_2_line_height=&#8221;1.2em&#8221; background_layout=&#8221;dark&#8221; header_2_font_size_tablet=&#8221;&#8221; header_2_font_size_phone=&#8221;36px&#8221; header_2_font_size_last_edited=&#8221;on|phone&#8221; locked=&#8221;off&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;]<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What You Will Discover:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=&#8221;#A0CD46&#8243; divider_weight=&#8221;5px&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;4.16&#8243; max_width=&#8221;120px&#8221; locked=&#8221;off&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][\/et_pb_divider][et_pb_text _builder_version=&#8221;4.27.4&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; ul_text_color=&#8221;#003254&#8243; ul_font_size=&#8221;16px&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;]<\/p>\n<p><span>n this episode of the SALTovation podcast, we continue our conversation with Legislator Cathy Kipp. Her recent election to the Colorado State Senate marks a significant development in Colorado&#8217;s tax landscape. 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header_2_text_color=&#8221;#003254&#8243; header_2_font_size=&#8221;52px&#8221; header_2_line_height=&#8221;1.2em&#8221; background_layout=&#8221;dark&#8221; header_2_font_size_tablet=&#8221;&#8221; header_2_font_size_phone=&#8221;36px&#8221; header_2_font_size_last_edited=&#8221;on|phone&#8221; locked=&#8221;off&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;]<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Topics Discussed in this Episode:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=&#8221;#A0CD46&#8243; divider_weight=&#8221;5px&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;4.16&#8243; max_width=&#8221;120px&#8221; locked=&#8221;off&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][\/et_pb_divider][et_pb_text _builder_version=&#8221;4.27.4&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; ul_text_color=&#8221;#003254&#8243; ul_font_size=&#8221;16px&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;]<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The complexities of Colorado&#8217;s sales tax system present ongoing challenges for small businesses statewide.<\/li>\n<li>Legislators must engage with stakeholders to simplify tax compliance and improve revenue collection.<\/li>\n<li>The importance of legislative task forces lies in facilitating discussions among diverse stakeholders.<\/li>\n<li>Home rule cities in Colorado retain significant authority, complicating uniform sales tax administration efforts.<\/li>\n<li>Listening to the real stories of small business owners can guide meaningful legislative changes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=&#8221;4.17.4&#8243; 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locked=&#8221;off&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;]<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Relevant Links:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=&#8221;#A0CD46&#8243; divider_weight=&#8221;5px&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;4.16&#8243; max_width=&#8221;120px&#8221; locked=&#8221;off&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][\/et_pb_divider][et_pb_text _builder_version=&#8221;4.17.4&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; ul_text_color=&#8221;#003254&#8243; ul_font_size=&#8221;16px&#8221; custom_padding=&#8221;||0px|||&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;]<span style=\"font-size: large;\">Subscribe on your favorite podcast app <a href=\"https:\/\/truthwork.slack.com\/archives\/D03426YPV5Z\/p1689255898860749\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: large;\">Follow us on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/201050\/admin\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">LinkedIn<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCMB1ZQNGXM_F777SIEl8Vjw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">YouTube<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: large;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/taxops.com\/contact\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Talk to a Tax Advocate Today!<\/a><\/span>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=&#8221;4.17.4&#8243; 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header_2_font_size_last_edited=&#8221;on|phone&#8221; locked=&#8221;off&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;]<\/p>\n<h2>Transcript<\/h2>\n<p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=&#8221;#A0CD46&#8243; divider_weight=&#8221;5px&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;4.16&#8243; max_width=&#8221;120px&#8221; locked=&#8221;off&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][\/et_pb_divider][et_pb_text _builder_version=&#8221;4.27.4&#8243; text_text_color=&#8221;#000000&#8243; text_font_size=&#8221;15px&#8221; text_line_height=&#8221;2em&#8221; link_font=&#8221;||||||||&#8221; link_text_color=&#8221;#fe4943&#8243; background_layout=&#8221;dark&#8221; max_width=&#8221;800px&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;]<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meredith Smith:<\/strong>\u00a0Cathy, thank you so much for joining us today on the SALTovation podcast. We are honored to have you here today.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Cathy Kipp:<\/strong>\u00a0Well, thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meredith Smith:<\/strong>\u00a0So, can you tell us a bit about your background and how your career path led you into politics? And really, what kind of motivated your move to become a representative for Fort Collins in that area of our state?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Cathy Kipp:<\/strong>\u00a0Well, sure. Um, so I, I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s all career, a lot of it\u2019s volunteer stuff, but I actually graduated from college many, many years ago with a degree in computer and information science. They called it that back in the day. I worked at the CSU Colorado State University Veterinary Teaching Hospital for 10 years doing IT. Then I did a little bit of contract work for a couple of years after that. Then I started having kids. I have twins who are now 26, so I\u2019ve been doing the volunteer mom thing for around 26 years. That eventually led me to running for the school board because I was the volunteer mom who was always in the classroom. When you have twins, it\u2019s easy because you don\u2019t have one kid at home and one at school. You can just go into the classroom and do all your volunteer stuff at the same time. It\u2019s very efficient.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Cathy Kipp:<\/strong>\u00a0So I did a lot of volunteering for many years. I was the PTO president and stuff like that. When my kids were in eighth grade, someone called and asked if I had ever thought about running for the school board. I said, well, maybe when my kids are older. But I looked at them in eighth grade and thought, if I don\u2019t do it now, I never will. So in 2011, I ran for the school board. After serving for seven years, I decided to run for the state house because we need to properly fund public education in Colorado. That\u2019s why I ran in the first place. I thought I would run in 2020, but one of our senators became a county commissioner, which freed up a senate seat, which freed up a house seat, so I went in a little sooner than expected. I\u2019ve been in this job for the last six years and now I\u2019m running for the state Senate.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Judy Vorndran:<\/strong>\u00a0And when you were on the school board, was that a paid position?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Cathy Kipp:<\/strong>\u00a0No, it was a volunteer position. We have changed the law to allow for school boards to give themselves some small amount of money now if they want. But basically, if you went to a training thing, you could get reimbursed for mileage. It was a lot of work for no pay, no benefits. The reward is in trying to do the work to make sure our kiddos get the best education we can give them.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Judy Vorndran:<\/strong>\u00a0And you\u2019re blessed to be able to afford to do that, to give your time and talent. That\u2019s not common for every American by any stretch.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Cathy Kipp:<\/strong>\u00a0Well, I know. That\u2019s one of the issues. Even if you look at people in the state house, we are paid and we can get health insurance, which is awesome. It\u2019s way better than when I was on the school board. But still, state representatives make around $40,000 a year, which is fine. It\u2019s a lot better than the school board, but for people who are younger, have a family, and are trying to raise kids, send them to college, it can be challenging.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Judy Vorndran:<\/strong>\u00a0Right, people can\u2019t give up their time and talent without money because they have to pay their livelihoods.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Cathy Kipp:<\/strong>\u00a0Right. It\u2019s a dichotomy in the system. You want the best and the brightest to help you, but there are constraints. During my time on the school board, we had an interim superintendent who said that in Florida, they pay their school board members $90,000 a year. I thought, do I really want someone motivated by that kind of salary, or do I want them to care more about kids? Somewhere in the middle, between $90,000 a year and nothing, is probably a good compromise. But it\u2019s hard to say what that is. I did have one woman I recruited to run for the school board, but when she learned we didn\u2019t make anything, she said she couldn\u2019t do it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Judy Vorndran:<\/strong>\u00a0Well, thank you.<\/p>\n<p>Cathy Kipp: It\u2019s an honor to do it. There are thousands of locally elected officials in the country, and hopefully, they\u2019re all there because they want to serve their community.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Judy Vorndran:<\/strong>\u00a0Yes, I agree.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meredith Smith: <\/strong>For our listeners, it might seem a little out of the ordinary that we have a politician on our podcast, as we are usually apolitical. But we are particularly interested in speaking with Cathy today because of her work on the Colorado Legislative Sales and Use Tax Simplification Task Force. Representative Tharp initially chaired that task force. How did you get up to speed on such a complex topic without a tax background, knowing that our Colorado sales tax system is not the easiest?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Cathy Kipp:<\/strong>\u00a0It\u2019s the Colorado Sales and Use Tax Simplification Task Force. We\u2019re trying to simplify a very complex system. I got pulled into this initially in my first year in the legislature. One of my constituents reached out to me. They have a small business here. I met them at a local coffee shop, bought some toffee from them, and they explained that if they sell to me here, they have to charge the sales tax for where they are because that\u2019s where they\u2019re delivering it to me.<\/p>\n<p><strong>[00:07:30]<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Cathy Kipp:<\/strong>\u00a0But if we were up in our store, we would be charging you the sales tax where our store is. But if we were to ship it to you, we would charge you a different rate. They explained to me what they were going through in trying to figure it out. They were particularly concerned because, as a candy business, they would get lots of orders for Christmas. So if you were a business and you wanted to send 300 of your customers throughout the state of Colorado a box of toffee, how do you figure that out? We have around 760 separate taxing jurisdictions with different rates within Colorado, and you\u2019re doing destination sourcing. It\u2019s a big problem. Oh my gosh, that\u2019s a big problem.\u00a0So I talked to Tracy Kraft-Tharp, and she said, well, we were doing this, we\u2019ve got this law. I think we passed a law that year that made some additional changes. I don\u2019t remember which year of the task force that was, but that was my first year in the legislature.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Judy Vorndran: <\/strong>There was a small seller exception initially for the destination source, but that kind of went away.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Cathy Kipp:<\/strong> This was a family business and they didn\u2019t fall under that exemption, so they had to look it up. At the time, there wasn\u2019t a good way to look that information up, so it was really challenging for them. We had a lot of conversations. I was talking to the Department of Revenue folks, talking to everybody I could. I think it was two years later that I joined the committee, after Tracy Kraft-Tharp left the legislature. There are four members of the legislature on that committee: a Democrat and a Republican from the House and a Democrat and a Republican from the Senate. When Tracy Kraft-Tharp left, they appointed me to be the Democrat from the House.<\/p>\n<p><strong>10:25 Meredith Smith:<\/strong>\u00a0What\u2019s great about that story is that a constituent reached out and said, hey, here\u2019s something we feel as small business owners in this jurisdiction. We don\u2019t know how to do something about it, but we\u2019re going to reach out to our representative. It indicates that government matters and can truly work for the people. I love that you took that opportunity to listen to a member of your constituency and took it beyond just a smile and a handshake at a coffee shop, taking it back to the halls of the Capitol to try to do something about it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Judy Vorndran:<\/strong>\u00a0We did because now we have the lookup tool online, the GIS, and there\u2019s a rate and some taxability answers on the Colorado website. So you could self-serve for this particular business. But I remember meeting them and thinking, I don\u2019t know how to tell you to do it. There was no good way to do it. If you\u2019re only in one state, it\u2019s expensive to buy rates for just one. It\u2019s not that accessible to buy a one-system solution. They\u2019re more built for all the states instead of just a bit and a piece. Now you\u2019re seeing a lot of vendors in the sales tax space who don\u2019t want to just sell rates. They want to sell tax calculations and sales tax returns, so they\u2019re not willing to do just a little bit. It\u2019s really hard for a small company that\u2019s not operating in multiple places to manage that compliance. They had to wing it for a while, as I recall. I remember thinking this is terrible.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Cathy Kipp:<\/strong>\u00a0Well, now there\u2019s a part of the statute that I read and said, well, I think you could probably interpret this to mean that you could continue doing it the way you\u2019re doing it. I don\u2019t remember what that was.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Judy Vorndran:<\/strong>\u00a0Probably sourcing into their own domicile, like it\u2019s sold here and then we just put it in the box and send it off. So I\u2019m going to charge tax at my location. That\u2019s probably what they did.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Cathy Kipp: <\/strong>I don\u2019t know how exactly they ended up doing it. That was my suggestion because I didn\u2019t know how else to recommend it. But if I can just say, in my part of the world, and I hope in your part of the world, you have your local government people. A lot of people don\u2019t get that there\u2019s anybody between City Council and Washington, D.C. But there are several layers of government. You have your City Council, your County Commissioners, school board members, people in local government, and local electives like me who serve at the state level. Local House and Senate members are accessible. We\u2019re not like the people in Washington who have a million constituents or more each. Most of us are willing to sit down in a coffee shop with you or at least make sure we respond to your issue if you have one. The number of people we helped navigate unemployment insurance during the pandemic was enormous.<\/p>\n<p><strong>[00:14:00]<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Cathy Kipp:<\/strong>\u00a0You know, we have listening sessions, we have town halls. Our job title is the description: representative. That\u2019s what we\u2019re supposed to be doing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meredith Smith:<\/strong>\u00a0You spoke earlier about your background in IT. How do you think that background in analytical and critical thinking helped you understand the complexities of managing the sales tax system at both the state and local levels?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Cathy Kipp:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, so, I mean, I think it\u2019s interesting because I was working in IT at the CSU Veterinary Teaching Hospital. When I saw my first spreadsheet, I fell in love. They didn\u2019t have spreadsheets before then. This was a long time ago. I was there at the beginning of the world of databases. I eventually wrote a book on database programming and management because it\u2019s a cool thing. The tools we have today are great. It boggles my mind. We had a bill that came out of the recent Sales and Use Tax Simplification Task Force. It was supposed to give you another way to look it up besides just by the number. We wanted to say, what if you wanted to look it up by name? That shouldn\u2019t be hard to do, yet it had close to a $10,000 fiscal note on it. I mean, what software are they using now? The last time I was professionally in this world was in the 1990s, but things should be easier now, not harder. I don\u2019t get why we have such enormous fiscal notes on these types of bills. Maybe when I get over to the Senate, if I get over to the Senate\u2026<\/p>\n<p><strong>16:37 Judy Vorndran:<\/strong>\u00a0Well, I sat through all the sessions to choose the products we\u2019re using for the GIS database and the taxability decisions and the backend so we could incorporate the home rule cities with the Colorado Revenue Online Filing. I sat through all of that. I had no idea how big the IT department is at the state of Colorado or how many buildings we have. I was like, wow, we\u2019re at this location in Lakewood, we\u2019re at this location in Golden. There are a lot of people that work for the state of Colorado that do tech and lots of buildings they work in. I was astounded at the amount of effort to make a decision on a vendor. It\u2019s onerous. It was quite an interesting discussion. People don\u2019t really know how to buy IT. That\u2019s the other problem. We use the GenTax system for our backend, and it\u2019s very customized. It\u2019s not an out-of-the-box solution, but it took months to make the decision, maybe even a year. Our executive director of the Department of Revenue at the time was a former IT person, so she helped guide us through. It was helpful because she had a different view of things. She said, you have to start with something and then build from it as exceptions arise. That was very helpful to have that technology education in making the decision on the GIS backend system.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Cathy Kipp:<\/strong>\u00a0That\u2019s so right. Sometimes it makes sense to make sure that, oh, yeah, I\u2019m just going to go and make this one little fix. I remember reading an article years ago that said 10 of the most expensive mistakes ever made in IT were things like changing one character in a line of code. They thought it was a simple fix and didn\u2019t go through all the testing to make sure it worked. If you\u2019re going to make software, change software, you should be doing that. Sometimes people will change something they think is simple, and it screws other stuff up. Unintended consequences. There is something to be said for it costing a little more than you think. But yeah, the hours of red tape in government, in terms of the selection process, you want to make sure you\u2019re being fair because you\u2019re a governmental entity. You want to make sure you\u2019re giving everybody an equal shot. But sometimes that red tape can really slow things down. Trying to achieve the balance, we probably aren\u2019t there yet. We probably need to work harder at that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>19:25 Meredith Smith:<\/strong>\u00a0Well, Judy, you brought up the GIS database, which I know was a huge lift.<\/p>\n<p><strong>19:35 Judy Vorndran<\/strong><strong>: <\/strong>The lift was politically getting the meets and bounds and cities and counties to believe the jurisdictions were incorporated, that they had the right information to source the tax to their city and county. It was more political than practical. It did exist because taxpayers need accurate rates. If the rates aren\u2019t accurate, then the vendor is in trouble. This vendor had invested in accurate rates, but the cities and counties didn\u2019t believe it. They were like, no way, it\u2019s not going to be accurate.<\/p>\n<p><strong>20:38 Meredith Smith: <\/strong>We talked about the SUT system and how there is this lack of trust with the home rules and the state. That\u2019s a similar issue, bringing the two together. You had to get the locals on board to say that, you know, zip code 80211 is in Denver and the rate should be this versus, you know, this zip code that\u2019s in Arvada and Wheat Ridge. Which side of the street are you on to get that right? So there is a lot of dependency and trust that you\u2019ve got to get over with the home rules to make sure that everyone\u2019s getting what they\u2019re supposed to.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meredith Smith: <\/strong>And so with that, Senate Bill 24-023, the hold harmless for errors in the GIS database legislation. Can you explain the significance of that bill and how it addresses some of the challenges businesses or municipalities face?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Cathy Kipp:<\/strong>\u00a0Well, and Judy can probably tell you more than I can, but frankly, it just seems like a duh, right? If you\u2019re getting information on where your taxing jurisdiction is from the state government and the state government gives you the wrong information, and you end up paying an incorrect amount of tax based on that or to the wrong entity, why should you be held liable for that? That\u2019s just wrong. I don\u2019t even understand why we necessarily had to run legislation to do that, but we did because it was an issue.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Judy:<\/strong>\u00a0Well, no, it was an issue before. There were all kinds of issues where rates were wrong, but we had the wrong jurisdictional allocation. That\u2019s very common. So when a city comes in, they\u2019re like, that\u2019s our money. You gave it to the wrong city. They\u2019re very particular. They know where they are. But a business doesn\u2019t always know that. They\u2019re like, I have a Commerce City address. Oh, but I\u2019m in unincorporated Nowhereville. It does exist, and businesses don\u2019t know that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Cathy Kipp:<\/strong>\u00a0Right. And it just didn\u2019t make any sense. Anybody who looked at it would say, why do we do this to people? That doesn\u2019t make any sense. That\u2019s one of the great things about the Sales and Use Tax Simplification Task Force. It\u2019s a bipartisan committee with one member from each chamber in each party. That means all the legislation we pass has to be bipartisan. Anything that gets past our committee has to have agreement. We\u2019re just sitting there saying, well, yeah, you think this? Yeah, I think that too. It\u2019s not rocket science. Most legislators are laypeople. We all come from different backgrounds, but hopefully, we\u2019re all just reasonable human beings who can look at a situation and say, well, that doesn\u2019t seem reasonable. We can\u2019t expect our constituents to do that. Let\u2019s make this better.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Judy Vorndran:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah. For me, though, I thought it was interesting that we passed it because it really helps small businesses. Most large businesses aren\u2019t using our GIS locator. It\u2019s a verification tool, but they have a system of record that pulls rates and rules for their locations based on address information they put in their billing system. So a lot of people aren\u2019t really using that specifically to validate after the fact. They use a holistic approach. Do the rates everywhere in America. A lot of people can\u2019t take the time and effort to look a rate up every single time they have a transaction. That\u2019s just not efficient if you have a larger business. We\u2019re supposed to solve some of that, but even they have issues with where the rates are. We definitely have issues on audits where rates are misapplied because of the way the sourcing happens within the billing system to the rate system.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Cathy Kipp:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, and you go back to the candy company, right? If somebody sent them a spreadsheet with 300 addresses and said, send a pound of toffee to each of these addresses, you weren\u2019t going to want to look up each one of those, even if you can. You want to submit the spreadsheet of addresses and get back the tax rate for each of those so that you can do your spreadsheet automatically. That\u2019s why we have technology, right? Can you imagine doing this before we had technology? It\u2019s not possible.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meredith Smith:<\/strong>\u00a0Not possible. One of my first days when I started in public accounting almost 20 years ago, our sales tax person had this giant stack of maps in his office. As a junior in college, I\u2019m an intern, and I was like, wow, why is he constantly looking at maps? He was like, well, because it depends on what side of the street is going to be your sales tax rate. He had everything highlighted, like, well, this boundary is here, this is Commerce City, this is here, and just had stacks and stacks of maps. This was almost 20 years ago. There weren\u2019t the rooftop rates, there wasn\u2019t the GIS system. Judy, maybe if you want to give us a little overview of Colorado\u2019s hold harmless provisions. It was a big deal.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Judy Vorndran:<\/strong>\u00a0No, it was a huge deal. It was very important legislation to protect the tax-collecting community. But yeah, it was very manual. A lot of these things are very manual, trying to figure it out and not really knowing for sure if you got it right. Taking extra time to call a jurisdiction to say, is this right? If they have the time and bandwidth to do that internally. I knew a lot of larger software and other tech businesses and multi-state businesses didn\u2019t really live in Colorado. They sold to Coloradans. They didn\u2019t care about the nuances of Colorado, but what they had was a gotcha because they were applying the state rules.<\/p>\n<p><strong>[00:27:00]<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Judy Vorndran:<\/strong>\u00a0To the city issues and not doing the cities at all. So we have this huge non-collection group of humans, and you wanted to get more collectors in the state of Colorado at the local level. But they were like, we\u2019re not doing it because it\u2019s too difficult to figure out the rates and make sure it\u2019s right in a mass way. I think we\u2019ve made a lot of progress with the whole registration, common registration, no registration fees. That\u2019s huge for taxpayers. You were there when they learned it was like $2,000 a year to get all these licenses, $20 here, $30 there, $5 here. Crazy. And then to auto-renew them every year, people are just not going to comply with that when they owe $5 in tax or $30. They\u2019re not going to do it where it\u2019s not material. They\u2019re like, come catch me. And the governments couldn\u2019t catch them. It was just a bit and a piece here and there. So we got rid of that. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Cathy Kipp:<\/strong>\u00a0It was a financial nightmare. It was a logistical nightmare. Nobody could keep track of all the pieces.Yeah. So I\u2019m glad something we\u2019ve done has been useful because sometimes I feel like a lot. I know, isn\u2019t it? It\u2019s like, so have we made your lives any easier? That\u2019s my question.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Judy Vorndran:<\/strong>\u00a0We\u2019re still having some issues with SUTS, I will tell you, but that\u2019s more of a connection issue on the backend. Aurora is a great example. They just can\u2019t get some of the information being fed through SUTS to jive with their system. They blame SUTS. SUTS blames Aurora. It\u2019s funny, but it\u2019s going somewhere. 28:17 It\u2019s funny who can and can\u2019t do it. We had a recent one. What city was it? It was a tiny little city. Call a city like, oh, yeah, I see it. All set up because we definitely have a transition between, I\u2019m licensed in Aurora. I want to convert it to SUTS, and there\u2019s not a matching somehow where there\u2019s a little bit of an extra step that\u2019s time-consuming and annoying to make SUTS work. But it\u2019s come so far from where it was, even when we started. So I feel like, you know, you got to say there\u2019s progress because if we didn\u2019t have that, we\u2019d still be talking today about these crazy cities that we can\u2019t apply in. Now, at least we can. There\u2019s hope.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meredith Smith:<\/strong>\u00a0And I think SUTS kind of takes the brunt of and is kind of the representative for all things that are happening with Colorado sales tax. If it is a difficult system to navigate, that\u2019s what NON-Colorado taxpayers see. When we talk to tax professionals who aren\u2019t in Colorado, they\u2019re around the country, they\u2019re like, SUTS isn\u2019t possible. We don\u2019t understand all of these things. So it is easy to have that perception that, well, what is this simplification task force doing? Because the larger thing that the nation sees doesn\u2019t totally work, but there are all these other smaller things happening internally that are huge wins. We need to get those out more so it\u2019s not just, well, no one likes SUTS and so Colorado\u2019s still all messed up. We are trying, things are happening.<\/p>\n<p>For our non-Colorado listeners, things are happening and we are trying.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Judy Vorndran: <\/strong>It takes a village to make it happen. People don\u2019t understand that it\u2019s just a system issue. I was in Michigan, they have a ton of jurisdictions, but they have a very different set of sales tax laws and they\u2019re not allowed to increase their rate. They have not increased their sales tax rate since 1996. That\u2019s crazy. The world has changed since then. So that\u2019s a problem with the way they\u2019ve set their system up. It\u2019s all relative to the state.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Cathy Kipp:<\/strong>\u00a0But you can say that here in Colorado, a lot of our problems stem from stuff we have in our state constitution that says home rule has these rights and they can do different stuff. Unless it\u2019s a matter of statewide concern, we aren\u2019t allowed to mandate that home rule system. So there\u2019s a lot more carrots and sticks involved in this space. But I think hopefully we all have the goal of trying to get to the point where we can make it easier for everybody.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Judy Vorndran:<\/strong>\u00a0I think it\u2019s interesting that things are in our constitution. Every time you get a vote, we got to vote something to the constitution. My husband\u2019s like, I just have a rule. I don\u2019t want our constitution to get bigger, but it\u2019s the only way to get things on there to make change. I\u2019m like, why can\u2019t we make statutes?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Cathy Kipp:<\/strong>\u00a0Well, and we can, except there\u2019s all this stuff in there already. The state of Colorado, the legislature, and anything that has a letter on it on your ballot, instead of a number this year, anything with letters on it, those are things that we, as the legislature, referred to the ballot. We aren\u2019t going to put stuff in the constitution, generally, unless we really think that it\u2019s important or there\u2019s no other way to do it. So, like, well, anyway, you don\u2019t need to go into this election, but there\u2019s a lot there. I think there were six different constitutional amendments.<\/p>\n<p>Yeah, so it\u2019s a lot. And then you\u2019re like, well, I like the law, but do I want it in my constitution? But some of them, at least, are taking stuff out of the constitution this year, so that\u2019s something.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meredith Smith: <\/strong>\u00a0Well, and so what do you see as the biggest unresolved challenge in the sales and use tax administration in Colorado? Are there any particular areas that you think future legislative efforts should focus on for remediation?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Cathy Kipp:<\/strong>\u00a0Those are great questions. So I guess, two things there. First, the committee, there were conversations this year about ending the committee because it\u2019s like, well, how\u2019s it going to end? Should we just put that elsewhere? To my mind, I\u2019m not convinced that we\u2019re done until we have achieved the goal where this is easier to use. I don\u2019t think we\u2019re there yet. For me, I can\u2019t tell you. I have to ask people like you guys. How are we doing? What is the next thing we should be looking at every year? Because you guys are the experts. I always tell everybody I\u2019m a legislator. I am like a mile wide and an inch deep and occasionally I get deeper here and there and I learn more. I\u2019ve learned a lot about taxes since I\u2019ve been here, but I don\u2019t do them. I\u2019m not on the ground like you guys are. To be able to say, well, yeah, you guys did this over here, but we need you to do this next thing over here. What we need you guys for is to say, hey, this still isn\u2019t working well. This is the next thing we think you need to do. Or, oh, everything\u2019s working fine now. We think you can dissolve the committee and go home. That would be great. But I don\u2019t think we\u2019re quite there yet. So I really think it\u2019s up to you guys to tell me, or any legislators on that committee, or any legislators in the legislature, what you think is the status of things and where you think we should go next.<\/p>\n<p><strong>[00:34:00]<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Judy Vorndran:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, because I felt pretty stressed that we were going to maybe stop it. What I thought was good about this is the conversation. Stakeholders are there. We\u2019re making sure it happens. There\u2019s a mandate, right? Because we have a task force. We all need to come together and talk about what we\u2019re learning and how we can continue to make it better. I know people feel a little pressure and stress. But that\u2019s the way it goes. We got to do it. I feel like it\u2019s a tool and a vehicle to have the conversation, to have a record, to bring the stakeholders together in a regular and concentrated way to advance the ball. 34:45 You got to do it. If you don\u2019t make a point to mandate and discuss, you don\u2019t get it done. Which is why we didn\u2019t even have this all these years I\u2019ve been practicing. People said this could never get done. I\u2019ve been practicing 30 years.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Cathy Kipp:<\/strong>\u00a0There is also a viewpoint that was expressed by one of the groups that the committee is just a roadblock, putting up roadblocks every time we get together every summer and do stuff. It\u2019s like, well, okay. How would you propose making progress? You could go and advocate for different bills through various legislators, but that\u2019s not a cohesive way of approaching it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Judy Vorndran:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah. You\u2019re siloing it instead of bringing the discourse to a common set of potential people who could resolve it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Cathy Kipp:<\/strong>\u00a0Well, and you guys are all experts. This is one of the committees where the task force means that we have more than just legislators. You don\u2019t want just legislators because, again, I don\u2019t do your job, and I couldn\u2019t tell you the next thing we should be doing without your input.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Judy Vorndran:<\/strong>\u00a0Even the experts we have in the cities and the counties, they have their own view of how things get done. They\u2019re like, well, this works for us and this doesn\u2019t work. I know there were a lot of people threatened by it in the very beginning, but I feel like there\u2019s been a ton of collegiality created through the process. There\u2019s momentum towards Denver, especially. We\u2019re good, we\u2019re going to do it. We\u2019re fine. We\u2019re going to set the standard. We\u2019re probably the biggest city in the state. We\u2019re good with this. We\u2019re going to make it work. We\u2019re going to dedicate resources to make this work for the state. Having that example just ripples across the state.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meredith Smith:<\/strong>\u00a0Well, and I wonder how many jurisdictions thought that the whole secret initiative of the task force was to remove the constitutional ability for home rule cities. We\u2019ve been granted this authority to do what we want. The easiest way to simplify Colorado sales tax is to get rid of home rules. Let\u2019s be honest. I would imagine there\u2019s a lot of potential fear that you\u2019re going to have this giant coalition of people that want to simplify this and get rid of those cities\u2019 authority to do what they want.<\/p>\n<p><strong>37:30 Cathy Kipp:<\/strong>\u00a0Right. Home rules are one of those things that\u2019s in the state constitution. You\u2019re not getting rid of home rules, you\u2019re not getting rid of their authority, but there are places where it is important for the state to be able to set a baseline and then everybody operates from that as the floor so that you have a little bit of consistency.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Judy Vorndran:<\/strong>\u00a0I think Paul Archer and Kathleen Conti actually worked on getting the simplified definitions at the cities. Define things the same way, please. Tax them differently, but tell us what they are so we can consistently know that\u2019s what you mean. That was a Herculean effort because everybody just made statutes over the years of ordinances to tax things or not and define it the way they defined it. One city didn\u2019t define things the same way as the state nor as the other city. They would take an example from one city and then modify it for themselves. That makes it very difficult to comply with and frankly, for me to advise people on. I don\u2019t even have a matrix out there that I can pull all the cities, how they handle things. I have a situation now with a car wash. Some cities tax car washes if it\u2019s manual versus automatic or automatic versus manual. Some cities don\u2019t even address it. So is it taxable or not? I just want to comply. Tell me what to do, but your laws aren\u2019t clear enough for me to comply with them.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Cathy Kipp:<\/strong>\u00a0Let\u2019s make it harder and let\u2019s just tax services too and make it really complicated. Oh, I\u2019m sorry. Maybe that wasn\u2019t the way you wanted to do it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>39:25 Meredith Smith:<\/strong>\u00a0Well, and so you\u2019re likely not going to be in this role forever, right? What advice would you give to the next person who takes over your seat on this committee, or even a new colleague that\u2019s coming in as a representative from each party, from each chamber, to ensure that this momentum continues and things continue to move forward?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Cathy Kipp:<\/strong>\u00a0I would say listen to people and listen to the stories. Making sure that you hear the stories that people are telling you so that you don\u2019t think that things are just all hunky-dory. Oh, well, that\u2019s just the way government works. It\u2019s always been like that. It\u2019s going to be that way forever. No, you have to think about things. If you\u2019re talking to people who aren\u2019t legislators, sometimes you get that kind of response. Oh, well, this is just the way it is. It\u2019s like, well, okay. But why is it that way? Is it that way because of statute? Is it that way because people just do it that way? Is it in the state constitution? Is it federal, which we can\u2019t do anything about? Where is the level of the problem so that we can address it? Once you start hearing how complicated our system has been and how time-consuming it has been for so many of our small business people.<\/p>\n<p><strong>[00:41:00]<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Cathy Kipp:<\/strong>\u00a0We want to support our small business people here in Colorado, right? People are like, Democrats don\u2019t support small business people. It\u2019s like, no, I think we do. We really are trying to do that. And I think this is one of those areas where Democrats, Republicans, whoever you are, come together and say, we want this to work for the people in our communities. I don\u2019t think you\u2019re going to have too hard of a time. I think the person who I believe is likely to win my seat in the House is a tax attorney. She might very well be interested in coming and serving on this kind of committee.<\/p>\n<p><strong>41:25 Judy Vorndran:<\/strong>\u00a0Really? Ooh, I don\u2019t know who this is. I don\u2019t pay attention to all these things.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Cathy Kipp:<\/strong>\u00a0Well, you wouldn\u2019t know at this point, but yeah. Okay. But yeah, we can talk.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Judy Vorndran:<\/strong>\u00a0I love that people speak tax.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Cathy Kipp:<\/strong>\u00a0Well, Bob Marshall\u2019s already a tax attorney. He\u2019s got a really tight seat. I don\u2019t know if he\u2019ll be back for sure. So he might be interested. But Yara is likely to win the seat that I am leaving to run for the Senate. We\u2019ll know by tomorrow.<\/p>\n<p><strong>41:57 Judy Vorndran:<\/strong>\u00a0What I usually find with the tax attorneys that I associate with, because I\u2019m on the Colorado Bar Tax Committee, they\u2019re like estate and gift attorneys. They do federal structure planning. They don\u2019t do state and local or they\u2019ll file a federal estate return, but they don\u2019t understand sales tax. There\u2019s a big dichotomy between the actual minutia of state and local tax filings and the federal tax system. That\u2019s the big kahuna, right? But what I found in my career is that this tiny little transaction-based tax is huge for business. If you have a million-dollar business and anything\u2019s taxable, that\u2019s $80,000 of risk you need to protect yourself against if you need to collect it from your customer and you don\u2019t. So $80,000 is a lot of money. It\u2019s probably more tax than they\u2019re paying per year that they need to collect and it\u2019s a problem for business.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Cathy Kipp:<\/strong>\u00a0If somebody like me, who\u2019s not a tax attorney, can figure this out, I imagine even if it\u2019s not their specialty, a regular tax attorney can figure it out. And Yara is involved in state and local taxes in the sense that she is currently our deputy assessor for property taxes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Judy Vorndran:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, that\u2019s an interesting area of tax too.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meredith Smith: <\/strong>Judy and I were at the open meeting when Colorado went to destination-based sourcing. I don\u2019t think we will ever forget the amount of people that were in that room from all over the state. They were just like, hey, from a small business perspective, it\u2019s not possible for me to do this. Especially if you have to significantly change from one jurisdiction, completely changing the Colorado tax return, which would be my vote to simplify the Colorado sales tax return. There\u2019s a lot of stuff in there and I have filed a lot of those returns and even I\u2019m like, it\u2019s not right, but I can\u2019t tell, and this is the best information I have. As a state and local tax practitioner for 20 years, sometimes I can\u2019t even fill out that return.<\/p>\n<p>But that\u2019s just like, there is power in hearing from those on the ground doing the work. Joe tax attorney isn\u2019t filing a Colorado sales tax return monthly to report all this stuff. They\u2019ve never filed a Colorado sales tax return in their life. They have no idea what they\u2019re doing. It is truly the people doing the work who are going to push forward change.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meredith Smith <\/strong>With all of those people in the room, the state responded and they pushed back the start date of the reporting.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Judy Vorndan: There were hundreds of people in this room. People were crying. The line was huge to talk to. I think Josh was there. It was surreal. It was heartbreaking, honestly, how sad and stressed these people were. You don\u2019t want to go into business and feel that way. The state heard them and tried. So that\u2019s a good thing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Cathy Kipp:<\/strong>\u00a0That\u2019s good. Obviously, you guys found Tracy Kraft Tharp, Kevin Van Winkle, and those people who wanted to take this cause on. I think those were both founding members of this group.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Cathy Kipp:<\/strong>\u00a0I think you\u2019re right. I think Kevin Van Winkle was. Tracy\u2019s the one I remember the most. Kevin is running for county commissioner, so he will likely not be in the legislature after the election for too much longer. That means you are going to get new people, but what I think is more important is to consider all of you guys in your tax community who want to see change. You all have people in your house who represent you and people in the Senate who represent you. Reach out to those people and tell them your stories and why it\u2019s important. You\u2019re going to get somebody like me who\u2019s going to say, wow, why is this so hard? This shouldn\u2019t be so hard. What can we do to make it better and easier? That\u2019s why we\u2019re there. For you guys, to be able to tell your stories to people like me, because you\u2019re not going to get people who are deep in the weeds and know everything that you do.<\/p>\n<p><strong>[00:47:00]<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Cathy Kipp:<\/strong>\u00a0So being able to tell that story to people, I think, is really important. It\u2019s something we do a lot in the legislature. We have these things called fact sheets. Usually, there\u2019s a fact sheet for a bill. If we want to talk to somebody, we make a little fact sheet and say, this is what it takes to do this in Colorado, this is what it would take to do it in another state, this is the amount of time, resources, and money it\u2019s taking your small businesses in Colorado to comply with the law. Don\u2019t you want the law complied with? Because that means you\u2019re going to have more revenue to work with, right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meredith Smith:<\/strong>\u00a0. Well, Cathy, I think that\u2019s the perfect spot to end with the perfect call to action. Thank you so much for joining us on the SALTovation podcast. For those listeners, this will come out after the day, but today is election day. There is a lot happening. Again, thank you for sharing your time with us. We really appreciate it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Judy Vorndran: <\/strong>It just shows that grassroots efforts make a difference and volunteerism is real and unpaid but highly valuable. You can make a huge difference in the world you live in. So thank you for that and your family for making that sacrifice so that you could do it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Cathy Kipp:<\/strong>\u00a0I want to thank you guys for all you do to try and put us into a better place too. What you\u2019re doing is really volunteering a lot of your time to try and make the whole system easier for all of those small businesses in Colorado. Everybody\u2019s got their sort of little niche in the world, and you being able to bring it and share it with people like me is what will create change.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meredith Smith:<\/strong>\u00a0Well, thank you again, and this has been SALTovation. Until next time.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=&#8221;1&#8243; admin_label=&#8221;Comments&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;4.16&#8243; background_color=&#8221;#FFFFFF&#8221; background_image=&#8221;https:\/\/taxops.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/podcast-01.png&#8221; parallax=&#8221;on&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221; background_size__hover=&#8221;cover&#8221; background_size__hover_enabled=&#8221;cover&#8221;][et_pb_row _builder_version=&#8221;4.16&#8243; locked=&#8221;off&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][et_pb_column type=&#8221;4_4&#8243; _builder_version=&#8221;4.16&#8243; custom_padding=&#8221;|||&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221; custom_padding__hover=&#8221;|||&#8221;][et_pb_text _builder_version=&#8221;4.16&#8243; text_font=&#8221;||||||||&#8221; header_font=&#8221;||||||||&#8221; header_2_font=&#8221;Lato|700|||||||&#8221; header_2_text_color=&#8221;#003254&#8243; header_2_font_size=&#8221;52px&#8221; header_2_line_height=&#8221;1.2em&#8221; background_layout=&#8221;dark&#8221; header_2_font_size_tablet=&#8221;&#8221; header_2_font_size_phone=&#8221;36px&#8221; header_2_font_size_last_edited=&#8221;on|phone&#8221; locked=&#8221;off&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;]<\/p>\n<h2>Related Episodes<\/h2>\n<p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=&#8221;#A0CD46&#8243; divider_weight=&#8221;5px&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;4.16&#8243; max_width=&#8221;120px&#8221; locked=&#8221;off&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][\/et_pb_divider][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=&#8221;1_2,1_2&#8243; _builder_version=&#8221;4.16&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][et_pb_column type=&#8221;1_2&#8243; _builder_version=&#8221;4.16&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][et_pb_button button_url=&#8221;https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/saltovation-making-sense-of-state-and-local-tax\/id1517450565&#8243; button_text=&#8221;Subscribe on Apple Podcasts&#8221; button_alignment=&#8221;left&#8221; button_alignment_tablet=&#8221;left&#8221; button_alignment_phone=&#8221;&#8221; button_alignment_last_edited=&#8221;on|tablet&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;4.16&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; custom_button=&#8221;on&#8221; button_text_size=&#8221;14px&#8221; button_text_color=&#8221;#003254&#8243; button_bg_color=&#8221;#A0CD46&#8243; button_border_width=&#8221;2px&#8221; button_border_color=&#8221;rgba(255,255,255,0.1)&#8221; button_border_radius=&#8221;0px&#8221; button_letter_spacing=&#8221;2px&#8221; button_font=&#8221;Lato|700||on|||||&#8221; button_icon=&#8221;&#xe09e;||divi||400&#8243; button_on_hover=&#8221;off&#8221; background_layout=&#8221;dark&#8221; custom_padding=&#8221;14px|30px|14px|30px|true|true&#8221; locked=&#8221;off&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221; custom_padding__hover_enabled=&#8221;on|hover&#8221; custom_padding__hover=&#8221;|40px|||true|false&#8221;][\/et_pb_button][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=&#8221;1_2&#8243; _builder_version=&#8221;4.16&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][et_pb_button button_url=&#8221;https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/7M0RZGgWG8A2Vd4okyR2yc?si=umxHEOq4SbCRp4nLy7LBgA&#8221; button_text=&#8221;Subscribe on Apple Podcasts&#8221; button_alignment=&#8221;left&#8221; button_alignment_tablet=&#8221;left&#8221; button_alignment_phone=&#8221;&#8221; button_alignment_last_edited=&#8221;on|tablet&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;4.16&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; custom_button=&#8221;on&#8221; button_text_size=&#8221;14px&#8221; button_text_color=&#8221;#003254&#8243; button_bg_color=&#8221;#A0CD46&#8243; button_border_width=&#8221;2px&#8221; button_border_color=&#8221;rgba(255,255,255,0.1)&#8221; button_border_radius=&#8221;0px&#8221; button_letter_spacing=&#8221;2px&#8221; button_font=&#8221;Lato|700||on|||||&#8221; button_icon=&#8221;&#xe0b5;||divi||400&#8243; button_on_hover=&#8221;off&#8221; background_layout=&#8221;dark&#8221; custom_padding=&#8221;14px|30px|14px|30px|true|true&#8221; locked=&#8221;off&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221; custom_padding__hover_enabled=&#8221;on|hover&#8221; custom_padding__hover=&#8221;|40px|||true|false&#8221;][\/et_pb_button][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In this week\u2019s episode of the SALTovation podcast, we continue our conversation with Legislator Cathy Kipp, who in 2025 moved to a Colorado Senate seat from the House. Cathy discusses the importance of stakeholder engagement, as tax professionals and legislators work together to make it simplify the state\u2019s onerous tax system. The conversation reveals the frustrations faced by taxpayers and the necessity for clear regulations amidst the state&#8217;s unique home rule provisions. Cathy sheds light on the collective effort to improve tax compliance and ease the burdens on businesses while navigating the intricate legal framework of Colorado&#8217;s tax laws.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":14320,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"2880","spt_transcript":"Meredith Smith: Let's make sure we're recording. That would be bad. All right. Kim, thank you so much for joining us today on the Saltivation Podcast. It's great to have you here. \r\nKim Blascoe: Well, I'm very excited to be joining you as well. So hopefully we have some really good conversation on different things that we're doing in the industry.\r\nMeredith Smith: Yes. And on that note, so can you give us, um, kind of what your professional background is? \r\nKim Blascoe: Sure. So I'm a CPA by trade. I still am licensed. I practiced for a little over 30 years before I joined CPA.com last year in June. Originally I had a tax and accounting practice, which basically at that point in time had SALT and payroll as part of the service offerings that we did.\r\nAnd then in December of 2010, I was actually merging with an Illinois regional firm when the Whipley opportunity came back around for them. So, I tailcoat merged into Whitley, and at that point, I actually took over the national accounting practice that Whitley had. Now, at that point in time, Whitley was a large regional Wisconsin regional firm. So, we were the first Illinois merger, and we had two offices in Minnesota and two offices in India. And when I actually left Whitley, we were a top 20 firm. So many, many, many mergers later. Uh, I got a lot of experience in adding other accounting practices to the one that I was working with. \r\n[00:03:12] Meredith Smith: Yeah. So then why choose to leave public accounting for CPA. com? What was that drive? \r\n[00:03:19] Kim Blascoe: I'd spent 30 years in practice, like I mentioned, and I loved mentoring younger associates or people that were early on in their careers.\r\nIt was one of the best things that I did. And also I loved working with clients, but I really felt like I wanted to do something more and I had all this experience with, you know, everything I had done. Like I said, you know, with Whipley was a regional firm. And when I joined, I had my own small firm. They were a medium sized firm.\r\nIf you want to look at that way. And when I left, they were a very, very large firm. So I had done the gamut of understanding the opportunities and the challenges of being in different size firms. And I just felt like I really had more to share. So, um, the cpa. com opportunity. Came up and I kind of thought that my background was perfect for the opportunity.\r\nAnd I just jumped at the chance to make a change, which was kind of scary because for 30 years, I'd been doing, you know, really predominantly the same thing, although in in different size environments. But I just kind of switched my mentoring, even though I'd still do mentoring on an individual basis. But I switched my mentoring over to firms.\r\nI look at it just as a different mentoring challenge and an opportunity that I've been given, you know, a little bit later on in my career. \r\n[00:04:32] Judy Vorndran: Interesting. That makes a lot of sense though, at a certain point in my, I'm at that. Getting close to retirement age and kids are almost launched and I'm like, what am I doing?\r\nI have a firm. So, you know, trying to support the younger generation on our team to have a future at our firm and wherever that lies. Yeah, super interesting. And obviously encourage the younger generation to pursue these careers because they're really great.\r\n[00:05:01] Kim Blascoe: Yeah, and I think, you know, when you say, you know, people wanting to become partners, I think 1 of the things that we really work with, um, when we talk to firms as having a career path, especially inside of the cast practice, but even inside of assault practice, you know, salt didn't exist when I came into the practice.\r\nRight? And we did most of those services inside of cast. It kind of more and same with our payroll group. They were all part of CAS originally. And then when I, by the time I left, those were all separate service lines and had matured and added advisory to all of them as well. So, it was no longer a compliance based business.\r\nIt was now a compliance and advisory based business. So, you know, we've seen a lot of changes happen over the years inside of practices. And I think the importance of that is, is all the service offerings that have been added really need to have career paths so that individuals feel like they can, if their desire is to become partner and not everybody's desire is, but if the desire is to become partner, that we give them those opportunities in these other areas of service.\r\n[00:06:03] Judy Vorndran: Right. It's a real great opportunity, I think, to be entrepreneurial, which is why I stayed in public accounting, despite multiple offers to go into industry. I thought, well, once I figure out the problem, because clearly you have 1 that I want, what am I going to do? It's become wrote and no, not the same, but just similar.\r\nAnd so I'm like, I really love the diversity of lots and lots of clients and lots of issues and trying to figure it all out. Yeah. And it's a giant puzzle. \r\n[00:06:26] Kim Blascoe: Yeah, I never did the private side either. And maybe that was part of it. I always thought I'd get bored working with just like 1 company versus the opportunity to work with many companies.  \r\n[00:06:35] Judy Vorndran: yeah. And you're always on the curve. You're always learning. There's always something new to learn in this and all of it. You know, new accounting practices, international, national, new rules, new laws, all the good things. So it's a constantly learning profession, which. \r\n[00:06:49] Kim Blascoe: I'm not going to lie to you, though. I always tell everybody if I had to practice in the salt space, you would probably have to stab my eyeballs. So I'm always so incredibly thankful that there are people that love that space. \r\nJudy Vorndran: I mean, like, why is it though, do you think people hate it so much? I mean, it's just such a negative. \r\n[00:07:09] Kim Blascoe: I think for me, it's like, it's so like standard driven.\r\nLike there's so many rules and regulations that you need to understand. I was always just incredibly happy. Like Jessica Macklin at Whipley is who I always worked with. We were kind of in the same region and actually I'm going to do a session with her at DCPA on the crossover between Salt and Kaz. I saw that on that schedule.\r\nOkay. Okay. So I'm excited about that because I think now it's, it's an opportunity out there that is still very, very, it's a very underutilized practice. Right. So, you know, it's just not experienced.\r\n[00:07:44] Judy Vorndran: I'm an attorney and a CPA, which is probably why I practice in the area because. I think it's incredibly creative to look at the rules and see how they apply, right?\r\nBecause it's not black and white, especially with software and information services and tech and biotech. And there's just so many nuances to business. It's not like everybody sells a thing, right? And that's taxable. So sales tax is very nuanced. Income tax dates are very nuanced. So the creativity aspect of like, what's your position?\r\nWho are you in this state allows for some reattribution of income and also some, you know, obviously some compliance services that you need to manage the expectations of each of those governments to manage your business risk. But, um, yeah, I think that's really interesting though, because so many people do really hate our area.\r\nAnd I really wish that we didn't have that negative spin because it creates like bad energy around it. I mean, all of us on the team, like we dig on it. Like we don't look at it as negative. We look at it like, oh, it's a really cool puzzle. We're going to have to go figure out how to do it. And then we have, you know, because business has one sort of rule.\r\nAnd so, we just have to apply those rules by state. It's not that hard if you know the business, but we get to dive into the business transactionally, which a lot of providers don't. They roll it up. They do what? What is the gross revenue? They don't look at the nuances. We look at the transactions. So, I think it's really interesting as you look how Business makes money.\r\n[00:09:05] Kim Blascoe: And I think a lot of people go, we need all sorts to make the world go around. That's always incredibly happy that people like to actually, even in the payroll space, the payroll space, the payroll tax return space in the sales tax space, but I also think are in salt all the way around, I think the other thing on the SALT side of the house is that, you know, a lot of businesses don't even realize that there's a lot more to salt than a lot of them.\r\nThink of it as sales tax. Right. And even then. They don't know the rules from state to state and the pandemic has so changed the dynamics of how businesses work that a lot of businesses have become national and they don't know what the rules are. Sometimes they think, well, I'm not selling a product.\r\nOkay, but you're sending somebody into that state for a product that you shipped, right? You know, so, like, what are all the rules on that? Where do you have to file? Where do I need to get registered as a business? You know, most people just skate right past all of that. And, you know, I always look at it as, is ignorance bliss, but is it really ignorance? I think it's more of like, they don't even know what they don't know. Right. Right. \r\n[00:10:03] Judy Vorndran: And it's fear. There's a lot of fear of like overwhelm and stress, which I find very interesting because they figured out, I mean, I have clients that have sold 46, 000 products. Right. I'm like, you know, how to like, A plumbing company knows how to tell you this is all the things you buy in order to replumb your kitchen.\r\nHow did you do that? You can absolutely do tax. Absolutely, because if you could figure that problem out, it's very similar. Logical, you know, add the things. But there is this thing out there of complexity, and I think tech has tried to solve some of it, but they lack the knowledge of the tax background.\r\nThey have the tech, but without the tax acumen. So, we've got this marriage happening in, In a software automation, that's not allowing both sides to be the way it needs to be to advocate on behalf of clients, which I know is why CPA dot com years ago chose Vertex as its chosen provider. I don't think that's so much the case anymore. I'm not sure. Cause they were like the preeminent. They've been around the longest and all that good stuff. So yeah, but there are a lot of providers out there now. \r\n[00:11:04] Kim Blascoe: There are. And there are a lot of choices. It's just like all the rest of the technology too. And it's like fairly overwhelming sometimes how many options you have out there, but the importance of those options, I think, especially in the salt spaces, it is an area that, that, that you have to have some expertise and you have to spend some time digging into it.\r\nAnd businesses don't do that on their own. Right. And I think the other thing, you know, the other thing that maybe has some bad connotations around it on the salt side is it's another tax, right? You're telling your clients that. Oh, now you might have to do sales tax, or you might have to do income tax in multiple states.\r\nAnd they're just like, taxed out, right? They're just tax, tax, tax. Everybody always wants money from me. And so it's not always even a pleasant conversation. It's not an area where you can work with client. I mean, you have to work through the value side of it. Right. And, and even like the compliance side of it and like ease of mind that you're doing the right thing, or at least you've been told like what, you know, that right thing is.\r\nI, prior to me leaving Whipley, I actually did a wealth and asset management build out and CAS was one of the service offerings that we did. And when you think about what that wealth and asset management industry does, they have clients everywhere all the way across the United States, right? And they're flying to all of these places.\r\nAnd I used to have, I used to bring Jessica into my conversations all the time and say, talk to them about nexus, talk to them about their, what their state filing requirements are. They may not have a sales tax, but they may also have a sales tax, some state stacks on service, right? You know? So it's like they need to understand. And then from there, they can make the decision about where they want to file and where they don't want to file. \r\n[00:12:37] Judy Vorndran: want to \r\n[00:12:37] Kim Blascoe: file. \r\n[00:12:37] Judy Vorndran: Well, it's funny being at the big four because I was national. So I really cared about the big states, Illinois, New York, California, Texas, Florida, 10, you know, 10 percent of the U. S. nation. I cared less about South Dakota, North Dakota, but then I worked for Eide Bailey and they were sited in North Dakota, South Dakota.\r\nSo, that was our biggest offices and the build out sprung for there. So I had, I had, Went to, you know, I went to hearings in those states. I flew into Pierre, South Dakota to do a hearing on behalf of a taxpayer. I mean, there are big taxpayers in South Dakota, North Dakota. You would have never known, you know, and also as you get to see America, you see there's a lot happening in our country that a lot of people that the CPA community doesn't understand, which is why I think SALT is so important for the CPA to build that tech stack or that competency so that the CPA firms can be successful.\r\nAnd then they're not. Blame for not telling them because there is this thing I feel like maybe mentioned that before my husband, you know, I'm a lawyer and a CPA and I, my specialty is state and local, but not income anymore from a federal perspective. Right? Even though I have a master's of tax, I've rolled away from being a federal tax practitioner.\r\nI'm state and local. So I can't even do my own personal income tax return. And I think a lot of people think, why, why not? Like, cause I don't know, keep up with the personal deductions and so forth. And my husband says to me, who is a securities lawyer and litigator, he says, I don't understand why CPA say they can do all these things when they can't, they can't do accounting services and compilations and audits and tax returns and, and, and financial accounting and income tax.\r\nAnd there's a lot of things in the CPA world that you could do for a living, and you could silo it and get that great, good competency. You don't have to be a generalist, even you running your own practice that was audit and tax. I can't even imagine. How hard that must have been. \r\n[00:14:18] Kim Blascoe: Well, you know, back then though, most practices were generalist practices. They were about the practices that we merged in at Whipley. Most of those practices were generalist practices. Now I would say, probably maybe 10 years ago, five at for sure at the minimum, that started to change inside of practices. And we started doing exactly what you were saying is like maybe moving towards a focus.\r\nSo a practice focus and an industry focus that became very relevant inside firms. And I think even in the smaller firms, they started thinking about what are we good at and what are we not good at, right? Let's focus on that. And now you see cast practices that are really what we call to as BPO business process outsourcing practices that only focus on CAS. They don't do anything else or they have cast and they have tax and they don't do anything beyond that. There's not a test type of services. So I, I think we're seeing that that transition happen within terms and I, but I will also tell you, there are a lot of firms that are still working on getting rid of the generalist concept.\r\nOh, yeah. It's a hard push to get people. \r\n[00:17:14] Kim Blascoe: I think we look at the CAS side of the practice as an opportunity for individuals that went through accounting curriculums or maybe economics or business majors or something like that, that really thought their only option was to go into private, to go to work for a company because they didn't want to do the commitment of the tax season hours or the audit season hours.\r\nAnd so cast gives them an opportunity and potentially Salt would as well, but it gives them an opportunity to stay into or enter into public practice or come back to public practice because there is now this, you know, these consulting opportunities that didn't exist originally. And they looked at it as all compliance based, and it was a drug of ours.\r\nAnd so we feel like we're transforming that whole. You know, space from the advisory aspect of it, so that there are opportunities for individuals that really aren't compliance based because a lot of practices that a lot of cast practices look at the financial statement as a byproduct of the service offerings that they're doing.\r\nSo, if we have that mentality, and we're thinking cast practices are. You know, focused on the advisory piece that do the transactional and accounting controller type of functions so that they have good data in order to do the CFO and the trusted advisor. You know, that's all really important for firms. And firms are still very much struggling to try to get there. \r\n[00:18:35] Judy Vorndran: Well, yeah, and the data thing, too, we actually hired someone who didn't get a CPA, but is a CPA kind of by training and decided to become a data wrangler, basically, which is not what is he's got some extra studying and understanding all data management.\r\nSo, we can assimilate data with lots of different repositories to get good filing information because people roll things up at the transaction level data is so important. And so that has been an interesting pivot for our team to think that way, because we're really good with Excel and, making spreadsheets and all that. But is there other things that we can do to ingest to create, what do you call it, some kind of a process that's not like us moving it into a spreadsheet and wrangling it.\r\n[00:19:14] Kim Blascoe: Yeah, and I think with all the technology changes that are happening now, one of the things that that we are very focused on in the whole discussion around and what does that mean to practices public accounting firm and cast practices is looking at the processes that you're doing manually, looking at the things that you're still doing in those Excel spreadsheets and saying, this is what kind of technology can help replace this so that I can move on to the advisory piece?\r\nRight? So we're trying to automate as much as we can on that back end. So that the value that we're bringing to clients is the conversations we're having with them and the knowledge that we can share with them. And the, uh. Um, the opportunity to help them grow their, their businesses and, you know, maybe potentially meet their goals, right?\r\nSo that's all, that's our goal is their goal, right? So figuring out how do we work with firms so that we can help or practice businesses so that we can help them, you know, meet their goals and their growth. So I'm not sure how much we got to raid. \r\n[00:20:08] Judy Vorndran: Meredith, \r\n[00:20:09] Kim Blascoe: but you take the rest of it. \r\n[00:20:12] Meredith Smith: So Kim, speaking with that, what is the mission of cpa.com? \r\n[00:20:18] Kim Blascoe: So CPA.com, um, actually started as the technical arm of the CPA. And so we really started with a whole concept of, um, helping firms and practices grow in the digit in a digital transformation space. So, very focused on technology, what has been added over probably the last. Few years is we now have a full professional services practice, which is the cast side of the house is what I lead.\r\nWe also have an audit side of the house, which is the technology that was built. So, you know, working with on the CAS side, working with firms to help transform their practices. Right? So working with them on potentially what's their, you know, what's their vision and mission? What service offerings are they going to have?\r\nWhat clients do they want to work with who's going to do the work? You know, what does that work look like? What processes are there? What technology are we throwing at it? How are we going to price it? You know, how are we going to assess clients coming in? So that we know that we're scoping that work appropriately.\r\nAnd ultimately, how are we going to market all of that? So that people know what we're selling right from a, from a firm perspective. So we're very focused on that side of it. We have a lot of, um, education and training that we focus on. We have coaching and consulting programs that we do. So we've changed a lot from just being the technology arm, but technology is still a very big focus for cpa.com and a huge part of our mission. \r\n[00:21:45] Judy Vorndran: Is that like a fee for service thing as well, though, that part of it? \r\n[00:21:49] Kim Blascoe: So, so we do a lot of different things. So we do have, offerings that there's a fee attached to them. But we do a lot of freemium type of stuff. So we do tons of webinars that are free and we do it on our topics that we help practices transform our coaching and consulting is a fee based practice. Uh, some of our education is free base. The webinar stuff is, uh, is free. And some of it is fee. Like, we do some workshops and stuff like that that are have fees attached to them. We do tons of white paper. Um, if you go out on the CPA dot com website, there's a ton of resources out there that are all free to firms.\r\nAnd we are getting ready to launch a toolkit in our professional practices for transformation, because we have a lot of firms that are DIY firms. They like to do things themselves, but they want. They want the tools that we use, and it's not all the tools that we use, but it's a lot of the tools that we use in our coaching and consulting program.\r\nSo if they want to transform their own practice, we're going to give them the essential tools that they can use to get there. Right. So, but we have a lot of firms that are going through the coaching program and we kind of took our workshop that we've always done the CAS roadmap workshop. That we've done for like 15 years.\r\nI went through it in 2017. Maybe it's only been 13 years. I went through it in 2017 and I was like, so invigorated on what I learned. And I'm like, oh, this is so cool. I'm going to go back to my practice and I'm going to start implementing. Well, then you go back to your practice. Cause this was back pre COVID.\r\nSo we were on site for a few days together. So we went back to our practices. Got busy with my day to day, you know, responsibilities, my leadership role and stuff like that. And then a year later I reached out to my cpa.com rep and I'm like, okay, what do you have for me? Like I'm, I'm ready to get started now.\r\nAnd she goes, well, the workshop is all we have. I mean, this is a long story that I'm going to bring around short. I'm like, oh, okay. So I took it upon myself. So I really took that DIY role and I, I worked through transforming. Now, what was a fairly major CAS practice? Because our accounting practice, because we had done all these mergers, right?\r\nSo I had 37 offices. Everybody was doing everything differently. And we're like. Where do we start? So when I came to cpa.com and one of the reasons I joined cpa.com is they asked me to build out our coaching program, our coaching and consulting program. So I took what I wanted, what I was looking for back in 2018, when I came back and said, I've now spent a year not doing anything, can you help me?\r\nAnd I built it. I you know, with a team of people inside of cpa.com, we literally built out. An accountable program, so we took some content of the roadmap workshop and dove deep into a lot of that content. And now it's an 18 month program. We do a variety of, um, group sessions, and then one on one coaching sessions and round table sessions.\r\nAnd we pick a new topic each quarter, and we work through those topics, building it out with the firms. We provide them with the tools they have homework. So there's accountability. So you don't go back to your practice and not do anything and then wonder why. You know, your practice isn't transforming. So, you know, that was, that was one of the big reasons why I did come to cpa.com so that I could help other firms work through what took me two years to do. It was a two-year project. We had a huge human capital piece of it. So anytime you're working with human capital and change management, there's a lot of warm, fuzzy stuff and, and. You know, our HR team was telling us, you know, you just can't do that.\r\nYou have to go about it this way, you know, so just the human capital part of it for me, because I had a team of like 180 people at that point in time that were between India and the U S you know, so we had a lot of changes that we did inside of our practice and you know, all of that kind of got rolled and rolled into our coaching and consulting.\r\nInteresting. So, freemium and stuff that you have to pay for. Because is it self report? Well, yeah, go ahead. I was just going to say a lot of our freemium stuff also comes with CPE, so if you join our webinars and stuff, you get free CPE hours, and you can get a lot of them. And I think it's like, a lot of CPAs that are looking for CPE don't realize that there's so much free CPE out there with really good topics and substance.\r\n[00:25:50] Judy Vorndran: Yeah, we've really got, we've taken advantage of it because we're a small firm. We teach and go to things just because we want to stay current with the legal changes and so forth. But we've done it, taken advantage of a lot of that because there's so much out there that's free content that'll give you the CPE hours you want and get some information.\r\nIt's very interesting the way how that shifted. You know, I know a lot of, and a lot of associations made their money off the CPE, right? Or the, I'm a lawyer to continually education, but now other providers are giving it and they're being paid sometimes by a vendor or something. So it's really transformed the way you and I get up to date as opposed to sitting in a conference room, you can get an hour and still move on with the rest of your day and not be completely bonked down, losing several days at work. Yeah. Super interesting. \r\n[00:26:34] Kim Blascoe: I will tell you though, when we went virtual with everything during the pandemic, I'm like, I missed people. I missed going to conferences. I missed my friends like Jenny Hattori that had the same pain points back then as I had, cause our practices were very similar that you can't shift that part of it but you definitely can look at other opportunities.\r\nAnd there's so many now, from a virtual perspective, there's just so many that you certainly can solve a lot of that with freebies. \r\n[00:27:42] Meredith Smith: So then with that coaching and mentoring, what do you see CPA firms struggle with a lot? Or is there a common denominator of just kind of reoccurring items that just continually come up when you work with various CPA firms and leadership and whatnot?\r\n[00:27:59] Kim Blascoe: Tom Hood just, um, put out a new slide that I thought was really, really interesting. I asked him if I could steal it and I told him every time I talked about it, I'd throw his name out there. Um, and it talked about, it looked at April, 2023 and April, 2024. And it was talking about exactly what you just asked me, like, what are firms struggling with?\r\nRight. And I thought it was interesting to see some of the movement of the topics and like, You know, one topic actually went away, but for 2024, it was literally like technology, keeping up with technology due to accelerated digital transformation in gen AI and how AI is like in every conversation that we have these days.\r\nRight. Almost like it had never existed before. And, and really, I talk about it all the time. It's like I do a lot of work with Sage Intact and Nicole Kasich is always like, we had AI. It's just people didn't know we had AI. Right. So now it's like, A buzzword, so that's our, that's our current buzzword.\r\nThe other 1 was upscaling existing talent, which is still a big struggle with firms, even though we are making some headway on resolving that, especially in the cast practice space and then finding and retaining talent is another 1. now, finding and retaining talent was at the top of the list in 2023 and it moved down to, I think, number 3 or 4 in 2024.\r\nSo. Maybe we've made a little headway on it, but it's not going away. And part of that is probably because we know that there aren't as many accounting candidates coming out of universities as much as we had, like, you know, when I came out of university. So that's a little bit different. And then the last 1 is, you know, still working through maintaining a firm culture and a hybrid environment.\r\nI think, you know, there's still our struggles with that. We, we hear firms are talking about pulling people back in a couple of days a week. So that there is some of that. Sense of community inside of the firms and, you know, kind of continuing to build culture because it is kind of hard to build culture when you spend all your time on virtual calls.\r\nRight? You know, so. We're seeing a lot of those changes, but, you know, the people side of it is still a big struggle and technology, you know, is changing faster than it ever has before. So people trying to keep up with all of that is, you know, also a big pain point for firms.  \r\n[00:30:13] Meredith Smith: So, when you talk about upscaling existing talent, what exactly does that mean?\r\n[00:30:19] Kim Blascoe: Yeah, so, so I'll speak from a CAS practice perspective, but it really is something across the, across the entire gamut of public accounting firms. So, we have people that come out of school, And have basically been taught compliance based stuff, right? It's all still technical training, not very much, even soft skill training.\r\nWhen you think about that. So, we have these kids coming out of school and, and we're looking at them and we're saying, okay, it took me 20 years to build my advisory level skill set that I have. You don't have 20 years. So how can we get you to an advisor level type of role? So, as quickly as possible and, and, and what do we, what can we do to do that?\r\nSo, first of all, you know, we're looking at our practices and we're saying, you know, let's take a skills gap assessment on what you have today, because if you want your services to include advisory services, you have to have the people that actually can deliver the advisory services. And so often in our practices right now, we don't have that, especially in our cast practices.\r\nWe have a lot of cast practices that are really, really good at transactional through. Um, consult or controller type of services and they can't figure out how to move beyond that. So, you know, that's one of the things we work with firms on in our coaching program is, you know, thinking about the whole build.\r\nSo we call it kind of building a factory. Like, you wouldn't open a door to a factory with only 1 piece of equipment. If you need 6 pieces of equipment to do the, to deliver the product that you want to deliver. We need our cast practices to think that way too. So if you look at your services. We look at who you're going to work for, like the clients, basically the industry niche that you're going to work in, like who's going to deliver that and how do we get those people upskilled to those, to those different skill sets that we have today.\r\nSome people will never be able to deliver. Consulting services and advisory services. It's just not in their DNA. They're technical people. We need technical people. That's all good. I think we just have to, embrace the fact that not everybody's going to be an advisor, but the people that you do see, like, a glimmer, like, early on in their, in their careers, it's like, those are the individuals you grab, you mentor, you put in upscaling programs.\r\nWe're actually working. I'm hoping by will have a launch on this for 2025, or at least, uh, um, uh, here's what's coming in 2025. We are building out kind of like, how to build a trusted advisor. How do you build an advisor type of role that will have, like, a boot camp basket aspect to it. So, like, they can come and spend 3 days on site somewhere, and it literally is like, you know, doing, like, um.\r\nWorking with other people and doing role play type of stuff, you know, so that individuals get more comfortable doing that. Because again, we don't have 20 years to build these advisors. We need it now. Clients are asking for these services that they weren't asking for 10 years ago. Certainly the pandemic has changed a lot of that too.\r\nThat scared a lot of people. There were a lot of businesses that ended up not making it because they didn't have the cash flow. That they needed to sustain a pandemic, right? So there was no cash flow planning. There was nobody. I mean, nobody realized a pandemic was going to happen. Right? I don't know.\r\nMaybe some doomsday people were saying it was going to happen. Most of us didn't believe it. Right? And I think even when we were still home, almost a year later, we still didn't believe we were like, in the situation that we were in. But, you know, you think about, like, how do we get the, how do we get individuals.\r\nTo a point where, where the skillsets that they have match the services that we're providing inside of practices. And, and firms are looking all the time for opportunities to upskill those individuals. There's just not a lot out there. That's still an area that's being widely built out from a training and education perspective.\r\n[00:34:04] Judy Vorndran: For sure. Because you learn rules and we should clarify that CAS means client advisory services, which is a very broad based word. I mean, right, acronym because honestly, client advisory, like. What does that mean? \r\n[00:35:14] Kim Blascoe: One of the things that we're really working with now advisory leaders.\r\nSo one step up from CAS leaders, because most of our cast leaders roll up through advisory inside of public practices, especially the large firms. Right? So one of the things we're working on at CPA.com is how do we take all those advisory services, right? There's a lot of them. Anything that doesn't fall into tax or audit or a test.\r\nFalls into advisory or consulting services, right? So how do we take all of those services and start focusing on the client centric model where what's the best for the client? So like not thinking about a lot of times in bar, which is the direct technology build for a client rather than going through like a client advisory services practices, where we build the technology for the client, right?\r\nThat we're going to use for that client. So a little bit different. Model like they're very focused on a get in and get out model. CAS is very focused on get in and stay model, right? You know? So it's a, it's a very, very different model, but you know, one of the things on the bar side of the house is they're very focused on selling this and moving on to my next sale.\r\nWe're not like that, right? So we're like, how do we get everybody thinking bigger? So, and also a lot of the larger firms have an outsource CFO practice. So if you take those, the bar, the outsource CFO, the cast practice. And you start getting them to work together on what's the best opportunity for the client?\r\nWhat's best for the client? And what's also then does that make it good for the firm? Right? So, you know, we want to say to the bar practice is just building out that technology for client the right move. Or should you be talking to the client about potentially client advisory services? Maybe they don't need a tech build.\r\nMaybe they just need outsourced accounting and CFO services. So, and that could solve their problem. And then the firm benefits from that too, because it's not a one time fee and it's recurring revenue. Yeah, it's recurring revenue and everybody loves recurring revenue. You think about all the, oh yeah.\r\nStuff that's happening now. They love the re recurring revenue, so they immediately go to the advisory. They love cast practices because it is based off of recurring revenue. \r\n[00:37:20] Judy Vorndran: Yep. No, it's a huge. And I found that myself, cause we've done a lot of automation where we'll set people up to click sales tax, get them licensed, all the things, and then they don't maintain it.\r\nOr the people that started it helped get it set up, leave. And you're thinking, oh, my gosh, nobody's watching it anymore. You were watching it. Who's going to watch it now? And I think there's a lot of that happening in the co sourcing outsourcing area and in software where people are thinking, set it, forget it is just not correct.\r\nIt's not set it, forget it. So there's a huge disparity between what software companies and tech, you know, all the things is just rolling up where people like, I don't know. They want to hand it off because they're CEOs that are visionaries, but they are like, I didn't pick the right pieces to get my business in order.\r\n[00:38:16] Meredith Smith: So then kind of in the, in the spirit of that kind of dynamic, Software recurring revenue kind of changes in what ways are you seeing CPA firms kind of pivoting and transforming their practices?\r\n[00:38:32] Kim Blascoe: Yeah, so I think 1 of the most important things that we need to think through is that. We are still a fairly compliance based industry, right? And there's so much competition other than a test, which we own, right? The audit space. Accounting firms own that space. Other than a test, though, we really public accounting firms don't own anything else.\r\nRight? So tax, CAS services, all these additional advisory services, technically, anybody with a skill set can do those. And we are seeing competition come into the space that is very compliance based, but also very client centric. Right? So they throw a bunch of technology at it. They're they have a very specific ideal client profile that they're going after and they have way more money.\r\nA lot of them are back, so they have a lot more money to throw at things. So I think the importance to the accounting industry is to take a step back and say, where are we only doing compliance? And can we add advisory to everything that we're doing from a compliance perspective? And then also looking at what advisory and outsourcing opportunities are we not, do we not have in our, in our toolkit today that we should potentially look at adding.\r\nAnd the importance of that is, is that CPA firms still have the relationship with the majority of clients, right? So if you look at we mentioned in the beginning, there's 46,000 CPA firms out there, right? And you think about that. So they're the ones that hold the majority of the relationships. If we don't keep up with the competition or stay ahead, really, I think I look at adding advisory to everything we do as staying ahead of the competition because the competition is still very compliance based.\r\nIf we don't do that, we're going to lose our leg in the industry and we don't want to do that. So it's very, very important to AICPA and CPA. com that we continue to advocate. For that, um, in, in the industry for adding advisory services to everything we do for compliance so that we maintain the relationships and stay ahead of the competition.\r\n[00:40:36] Meredith Smith: Well, and that's where we even see from, we work with, with sales tax software vendors to help our clients solve a problem that they have, right. They need to collect sales tax. They need to get on an invoice. What's the best way to do that? And so often we partner with various sales tax software platforms to But what we also are finding them doing, it's like, you know, that same kind of vein of, well, we can solve this problem by way of putting tax on an invoice.\r\nOh, but then we can help you register. Oh, and then we can help you research the tax rules. And then we can help you put all of that collected tax on a tax return. So they are. Expanding and kind of, I would say, kind of doing what you're suggesting CPA firms do, but at the same time, you've got to understand, like, really, what's your core competency and what are you really good at?\r\nBecause as a software vendor, you're not good at advisory services when you're also not an advisory firm, but also the advisory firms, it's like. We do, and kind of going back to some of our earlier conversation, we do want to be kind of like all things for our clients, because that is that relationship.\r\nAnd we value that connection and want to assist you with your problems. But at the same time, that's where we look at it. And it's like, well, we've got to also partner with other firms because we can't be all things to all people. So let's get to know really good people that we can refer you to. And us as state and local tax experts, we don't have to also be competent in.\r\nPermanent establishment for some of our non U. S. based businesses, but let's partner with some of those other firms that are really good at that. \r\n[00:42:16] Kim Blascoe: Yeah. And you know, I think we, a lot of times talk, even in our coaching program, we talk about, we work, cause we work a small, medium and large firms, right. When we do coaching and consulting and you know, I always tell everybody, I'm like, okay, think about, think about the difference in the service offerings that you have between small, medium and large firms.\r\nRight. So your large firms, they probably have a huge. Amount of service offerings that they do, including assault practice, including a payroll practice or an HR consulting practice. So they have, they have like, you know, really like honed in on different services that in a generalist practice, they're going to keep it high level.\r\nAnd the large firms have kind of scoped that much in more, much more detail. Then you think about the medium sized firms and they probably have a good number of services, but not as many. So, they have to go to find resources in other places, and they just build those relationships. And then you think of the small firms where they're really focused on maybe a small number of services that they have to offer, and they absolutely have to go out and find other resources to help them. I always said, you know, one of the, you think of one of the beauties of merging in like a smaller firm, merging into a larger firm, it's like heaven on earth. The first year, when it comes to the service offerings you have available to your clients, right?\r\nSo you have like all this growth in the very first year, because you're like, Oh my gosh, we can do cyber. We can do R&D credits, you know, like all these things that before you had to go find resources for, and, and you realize like how many more. Service opportunities your clients have inside of those large firms, but, you know, there's trades to everything you do, you know, you get into a large firm environment and it becomes a little more of like.\r\nI hate to use the word silo, but, you know, like, you've become more practice and industry focused and now that generalist concept is a little bit different and not all clients like that. So some clients like working with small firms because it's a more intimate relationship. But then you have to go and find some of those additional resources. \r\nI don't know if we talked about this, but, you know, this whole India thing, we had a huge facility in Hyderabad at Deloitte. And what I found that was challenging for our team was we had to do things, have them do things 3 times. So even though we got this huge cost differential and the salaries, we have this huge training cost to the people in the US and these 4 people had to work in the middle of the night.\r\nAnd I see this going on this, this dilution across the nation, where using different countries to take advantage of wage disparity. And I wonder how you feel about that, given the CPA community in America, because it's almost like we're lowering the costs by giving other work to other countries, instead of making American business recognize the true cost of doing business in America by paying US wages. And sometimes I don't, I struggle with that, even though there's a need for it. \r\n[00:46:25] Kim Blascoe: Yeah. So, I mean, I guess I have maybe a couple of thoughts on that one. I think the philosophy today is different than when we first started getting into the foreign countries from a workspace. I think now we have, we, we really have a problem filling seats in the accounting space and hiring offshore helps solve some of those problems.\r\nI think initially the, the stars in the eyes were all about, Oh my gosh, we can get these individuals. For a much smaller fee, but I agree with you, it wasn't a dollar for dollar trade. There definitely was a, a learning and education difference between the individuals. in the offshore teams in some of the offshore countries versus, you know, what we saw on the US side.\r\nSo it really did require additional training. The other thing is, is I think when we 1st went into the offshore world and with at least have their offshore world for a really long time. They had it when I came in in 2010, we already had a cast practice, like a bonafide cast practice offshore, which was kind of cool because they were way ahead of their time.\r\nI had nothing to do with it. It already existed. I inherited it, but it already existed. But I think back then, you know, it was like, you know, let's, let's look at the profitability aspect of it. Then we very quickly learned that it is really important. Yeah. To do a very defined job description and what you're looking for skill sets on the offshore piece so that you make sure that everybody's hired for success.\r\nOtherwise, you're going to constantly be disappointed in the quality of the work that that you're getting over on the U. S side. And I think we all learned from that, right? It was very much a struggle and we all learned from it. And I tell my firms that I'm coaching with that are looking at doing an offshore piece because that's the other thing that offshore piece used to be a very big firm.\r\nThing right now, everybody does offshore. \r\n[00:48:17] Judy Vorndran: I get pitched for it every day. Somebody's finding me and say, I have resources in India, Philippines. I'm like, holy moly. I don't even know who you are, but they're pitching me to use them. \r\n[00:48:25] Kim Blascoe: It's all over the place and, you know, and all different service offerings.\r\nIt's just the way people are solving. You know, some of their employment issues nowadays, but, you know, I think the importance of that, you know, goes back to make sure that, you know, what you're hiring, right. And make sure that the skill sets that you're hiring fit the service offerings that you expect them to do.\r\nBecause when I talk to firms that I'm like, what do you want your offshore piece to do? And I've been here, right? Like I have done the offshore piece. I get it. And they're like, I want them to do everything from transactional to controller. Everything that's not automated. And I'm like, okay, but you understand controller type of services is a higher-level service.\r\nThat's a manager level service on the U S side, right? So, think about who you're hiring over on the offshore side, because in order for them to do those services, they have to have the proper training to do them. You can't expect, you can't expect those individuals to be able to do it on their own and their education systems.\r\nAre different than the U. S. education system. So, you might need to send some people over to do some training and, you know, maybe the, I always said the beautiful thing would have been to have had somebody that was willing on the U. S. side, a couple of people that were willing to maybe go spend a year over.\r\nYeah. We did a ton of secondments at the light tons of people spend, we would send a lot of people over there. I went over there many times, you know, so we send a lot of people over there, but nobody was there for the long haul, right. You know, go spend a year, help us train up our people. So, I think that's all really important and something to take into consideration when you're looking at the officer.\r\nSo, I don't think it's necessarily about profitability anymore. I think it's about finding people to do the types of services that we need to do for our individual practices because we just don't have as many bodies on the US side\r\nI think younger generations just wants more time and not as much, you know, hands on and wants to utilize tech.\r\nBut there's, there's a dichotomy going on here where they think tech solves all and there's still talent and operations that need to be done. In fact, Just talking to some other firm leaders recently at this boomer conference, which I assume is kind of similar to the cpa. com is doing, which I didn't realize was doing something similar.\r\nThat's why we're talking to you, but I'm lucky to these other teams. And they're like, well, I did it all the way. Like I know how it needs to be filed. So now I know the automation is right. And there's something to be said about that. You count on automation. We don't, I was taught never to count on automation.\r\nThat was just my training. You can't trust it. But I think we've got a generation that's saying, well, trust it. Yeah. But verify, right? We don't know how to verify it, though. So we've got to kind of figure some of that out nationally, nationally. \r\nMeredith and I years ago, we wrote this article about Sweden because Sweden loves their taxing authority. They love the part of their government that's involved in their life from birth to death.\r\nAnd so there's something about it. They've done really well, maybe because they're a homogenous society. I don't know. But we have this very anti tax. Thanks. Culture in America. And I'm like, but you know, you have roads and schools and fire departments and police and, and, you know, people taking care of science and airports.\r\nI mean, that all took tax dollars. Like you didn't, it didn't get built out. People were going on their wagons and riding horses just a little while ago. So that all paid for people coming together. \r\n[00:53:27] Kim Blascoe: Yeah. You know, an interesting story about that. Back when I was doing tax work, I had a. Client a new client they came into the country.\r\nThey were Canadians. They came into the country And so they were living here full time and so they had to file a tax return So I did their tax return form and I told them and he was he was a contractor So he had to pay social security tax and income tax and they They had not been paying at all. Right.\r\nHe was a 10 99 subcontractor. And so I prepared the tax return for him. I'm like all stressed out because like they owed just a ton of money. Right. In my mind, they owed a ton of money in company. Cause there was no planning. There was no planning on the upfront. It was like, they walked in my office. They said, do this tax return for me.\r\nAnd I'm like, Oh, where are you from? They're like, Oh, we're Canadian. And I'm like, Oh, cool. Okay. So we did the tax return. I handed them the bill and they go, that's all we owe. And it was, it was a husband and wife. They were sitting in front of my desk and I'm like, Oh, Really? I thought that was horrible. And they're like, Oh my gosh, no, in Canada, we give minimum 50 percent of our income back to taxes.\r\nAnd he's like, we think nothing of it. And you all complain about, you know, how much it costs you in income tax. And even if you ask social security and Medicare tax to that, you're not giving 50 percent your state tax. You're not giving 50 percent for most people. Right. So I thought that was a really interesting, like eye opener, like You know, it's a us problem, right?\r\nOur, it's like our, our, um, you know, kind of thought process about our taxing system and how everybody feels like they get taxed all the way around. And in all actuality, most countries are much worse than ours. \r\n[00:54:55] Judy Vorndran: They're much worse. And I feel like I wish people would appreciate that. I always try to get from a perspective of appreciation.\r\nI mean, certainly we advocate on behalf of taxing. Fairs, but we also recognize that got, they haven't complied. So we've gotta rep, you know, rep say with governments like, Hey, you know, give these guys a little grace so that we can get them in compliance. 'cause they do wanna do the right thing they just didn't know.\r\nSo, you know, but you can only plead the fifth so long . \r\n[00:55:19] Kim Blascoe: Right? And you know, the acknowledgement that government is a business, right? So if you're running a business. Which the government should be running a business. You have to be able to make money in order to do things like you said. Nice roads, clean cities, you know, like all those things that take a lot of money, people's time, and infrastructure to do.\r\nSo somebody has to pay for it. Right, but also, you know, I don't want to pay any more than my share. So that's right. My whole deal, but that's the challenge But I feel like everybody needs to actually pony up some money But it does it \r\n[00:55:51] Judy Vorndran: actually I feel it works out from my experience big Porter regional to small.\r\nI'm like the big firms The big companies bear the brunt of the tax obligations and small companies get away with murder, which is why the Wayfair decision did even the playing field. And there's no reason that decision need to go forward. Wayfair could have given a rip about South Dakota. They did it out of the goodness of their hearts because they're very wealthy individuals that started that company and they and Newegg and overstock.\r\ncom all came together, paid the legal fees to hide that fight on behalf of taxpayers. And I think there you have 3. Come some young tech entrepreneurs who are open to this process as they've learned to deal with America. Right. Okay. If I've got to do it because I've made myself a big name, I'm going to sue, get sued, get audited.\r\nI'm going to kind of settle. I'm going to let it go forward. And that's how that decision came forward. Because it was 100 percent a plan thing. It was not, it did not need to go to the Supreme Court. It was, it was a deprived, uh, procedure. And the fastest way the great Supreme Court was to go through South Dakota.\r\nBut it did even the playing field. To some degree from a regulatory things. \r\n[00:56:53] Kim Blascoe: Yep. Yeah. Definitely changed things and I think, you know, to some degree made things a lot more complicated or maybe. Yeah, \r\n[00:57:02] Judy Vorndran: oh, \r\n[00:57:03] Kim Blascoe: way complicated. \r\n[00:57:04] Judy Vorndran: I've never seen states act that quickly in my whole flipping life. I've been doing this almost 30 years.\r\nI've never seen every state get on board within 3 years. Every state has a wayfair law. Now they all are varied, but they all have 1. you just do not see that kind of conformity. Ever, but they're like, there's a huge amount of money not coming to my front door because it's coming to my, I'm getting packages delivered to my front door now.\r\nAnd so I'm going to even it. And you know, the other thing, the cost of doing business is slower now because of tech and people are open for business everywhere, including myself. I don't just have Colorado clients. We have clients all over the world. We can help anybody because we have tech. We can talk to you like we're doing now.\r\nWe're not barrier. We don't have barriers to entry by having someone drive up to our office. So, and even though we have offices, we work remotely because why go in if we don't need to. So it's really changed the dynamic of our ability to help 1 another. And with tech, we can do it. I would, of course, we were pandemic proof because.\r\nYou know, we're we're we're a necessary job. Yeah. \r\n[00:58:03] Kim Blascoe: Yeah. I did say it was 1. I thought that the 1 thing 1 really beneficial thing for cash practices coming out of the pandemic was clients now realized that you didn't have to be sitting in their office to have a conversation with them. Right? Yes. You know, even though a lot of, um, staff on cast practices were already working remotely, they still had a regional draw to them to some degree.\r\nSo like, if they had clients that still wanted them to come and sit in their offices, they did that. Yeah. When the pandemic happened and we spent a year on zoom and then like, I'd have clients and they, I'd be like, do you want me to start coming out again? They're like, no, like we like this. We're used to it.\r\nRight. And it was really the birth of virtual. Um, the virtual conversations and the, and CFO and trusted advisor conversations that individuals were having, having with their businesses and the feeling that sitting next to them wasn't as important anymore. \r\n[01:00:52] Meredith Smith: Well, and as we wrap up, and I can't believe we're kind of coming to the end of Q3, right? Looking into the end of Q4. As 2025 quickly approaches, does cpa.com have a focus that they're looking into that could impact the industry and kind of forward thinking? \r\n[01:01:09] Kim Blascoe: Yeah, so I think 1 of the, you know, I've, I probably mentioned today already, like, one of the big things that we're focused on is the advisory transformation piece.\r\nRight? So we will continue to focus on our audit and cast transformation and offerings that we have. And and we have a lot of firms that haven't even started any of that. You know, I think if you think about the audit transformation, it's a. It's a much slower move than cast transformation has been right, you know, because audit has been the same for many, many years.\r\nSo we now have, um, you know, things being built that change the way audits are done and and that's. Amazing and there's technology being thrown at it. So spreadsheets may be a thing of the past, even in the audit world. Um, so that's really cool. And we continue to work with cast practices on their transformation as well.\r\nBut I think overall, that whole, you know, discussion that we had earlier on the advisory piece of it and what that advisory transformation looks like, um, from an overall firm perspective, and then how do we get things, you know, aligned appropriately, you know, From a service offering perspective, so that we are more client centric and thinking about what that client experience looks like working, you know, with the firms, which is maybe a little bit different approach than we've had in the past.\r\nYou know, we've been very practice or service offering focused, not necessarily thinking about the client experience. So that's a big part of it with what we're doing today. We upscaling piece because we have a long way to go. And there, you know, you had mentioned when we were talking about. Like, you know, things that the younger generation doesn't know how to do a bank reconciliation.\r\nThey don't know how to do bank reconciliations. They grew up on their computers. Everything is on their phones. Everything is in real time. They don't have any of those skills yet. We still do that inside of cast practices, uh, from a business perspective. So, you know, building out even some of those, what we would consider to be entry level skills into a cast practice, because the service offerings in cast.\r\nAre different than what they need from an audit and tax perspective. So we continue to work on our upscaling programs and education that we have. Um, and I think, you know, that is 1 of the areas we know that firms come to us all the time and say, we need this. Right? So we have this thing called cast core at, which is.\r\nUm, an education packaged education platform for, uh, cast. Associates that they can go, they also have something called MBA express, which is really like a leadership soft skills thing, but we don't really have anything on that, that lower end, you know, in our, in our cast leaders are saying to us, you know, could you please build something so that when we have new people coming into our cast practice, we can give them, uh, you know, uh, cast 101 training on what cast is, because this is not something that is being.\r\nUm, trained and educated inside of the university level stuff. So we're working on a lot of that as well. So very much still focused on the education and training piece of it. But transformation is our number 1 focus and continuing to build vendor relationships that help the firms that we work with.\r\nYeah, \r\n[01:04:13] Meredith Smith: that's awesome. And I think we're so kind of grateful and helpful that there are resources out there like cpa. com. Um, especially because I think the industry is changing. We're not just green visors sitting in a desk, you know, not moving anymore, not talking to any people and, you know, it is truly a relationship.\r\nField, and so, Kim, we really, really appreciate your time today and thank you so much for being here and we look forward to continuing the relationship. \r\n[01:04:45] Kim Blascoe: Yeah, so much fun. Thank you for having me. \r\n[01:05:19] Meredith Smith: Well, this has been another episode of SALTovation. \u2018Til next time.\r\n","footnotes":""},"categories":[723,229,226],"tags":[252,167,284,126,265,476,999,30,1007,80,141],"class_list":["post-14322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-podcast","category-state-and-local","category-tax-news","tag-accountant","tag-california","tag-cfo","tag-cpa","tag-finance-professional","tag-franchise-tax","tag-public-law-86-272","tag-state-and-local-tax","tag-tax-cases","tag-tax-provider","tag-tax-returns"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/taxops.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/kipp.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/taxops.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/taxops.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/taxops.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taxops.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taxops.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14322"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/taxops.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14322\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14337,"href":"https:\/\/taxops.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14322\/revisions\/14337"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taxops.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/taxops.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taxops.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taxops.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}