BeansTalk
BeansTalk: Where Expertise Meets Opportunity, Mauldin & Jenkins' podcast, where we are sharing and showcasing our areas of expertise through conversations with practice leaders on their knowledge and experience.
BeansTalk
Diving Deeper into Nexus: The Tax Risk You Didn’t Know You Had
Think you’re safe from out-of-state tax obligations? Think again. In this episode, we dive deep into the concept of tax nexus, what it is, how it's triggered, and why it’s one of the most overlooked compliance risks for businesses operating across state lines. Learn how remote work, e-commerce, and digital services might be creating unexpected tax liabilities, and what steps you can take to stay ahead of the curve.
About Our Guest
Jeff Dorris, CPA, is a Partner who leads our specialty tax practice and specializes in consulting and advisory services in all aspects of state taxation, including income, franchise, and sales and use tax.
About Our Host
Brent Ullrich is a Partner with Mauldin & Jenkins, LLC, with over 15 years of experience in many areas of taxation and industries, most notably in healthcare, real estate, private equity, technology and professional services. He also serves as the Firm’s Tax Strategy and Research Leader, which offers technical guidance and identifies planning opportunities for the firm to support clients on complex issues across a range of technical tax areas.
Learn more about our Specialty Taxation services here: https://www.mjcpa.com/services/consulting-advisory-services/specialty-tax/
Welcome to Beck, Images Podcast, where we are sharing and showcasing our areas of expertise through conversation with practice leaders on their knowledge and experience.
SPEAKER_02:Welcome to another podcast featuring uh Mullen Jenkins Finist. I am your guest host, Brent Ulrich. Uh I lead the National Tax Office here. Uh and we're gonna take, we're gonna bring back a guest, backed by popular demand, uh Mr. Jeff Doris, who uh leads our our salt, our state and local tax, our credits and incentives, among other things. Uh we're gonna talk with him about, we're gonna take a deep dive today into Nexus, everybody's favorite state subject. So, Jeff, thanks for coming back.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, Brent, thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I don't know about the backed by popular demand, but I'll take it when I can get it.
SPEAKER_02:Hey, you know, we hey, we'll see after this if we if we get you back. So, you know, keep it, keep it rolling. Keep it at it. That's right. Um, so yeah, Nexus. We're we're we always hear about this, right? You know, whether in a good or bad way. So tell me about, you know, I think probably safe to just go through the history of it. You know, how did it come about? You know, what changes have been in the last, you know, 20 years? How's it, how's it, how's it changing?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I I can never do a Nexus topic presentation conversation without the 10,000-foot view Nexus. You gotta kind of get your basis a little bit. And, you know, from a definition perspective, Nexus is just the idea of do you have a substantial connection with a jurisdiction, whether it be a state, county, city, but do you have a substantial connection with that jurisdiction for them to be able to impose their tax on you? So that's as simple as you can put it. Um, every jurisdiction will define what they believe creates nexus within their jurisdiction. But the idea is if you have that substantial connection with that jurisdiction, you have Nexus. Therefore, you have a filing obligation for whatever tax type we're talking about. And that's a whole other can of worms. Yeah, that's a whole other can of worms uh of why there's differences. Um, but that's Nexus. Do you have Nexus? Then you you have the filing obligation. If you don't, if you don't have that substantial connection, you don't have Nexus. And Nexus, you know, is a much bigger topic of conversation today than it has always historically been, primarily because of the internet and the way we as businesses do business now versus uh you know, 100 years ago. And I do sales tax presentations and things like that, and I got a slide. It's kind of like a timeline that I really like. And what the slide does, and it's specific to sales tax, but what it does is it paints a picture of how far we've come, how fast and how far we've come over the last 20 years versus the previous 90 years or 70 years. And don't quote me on my dates because I don't have it in front of me, but it shows like the first sales tax was imposed in the 1920s. And then not a lot happened from 1920 to the early 90s. And if you think about business and the US and how we did business, during that time period, you really had to be physically in a state or in a jurisdiction to really operate and manage a business. Not a lot of internet salesmen, not a lot of internet salesmen, right? Um, and then we so we have a uh Supreme Court case that essentially establishes physical presence requirements for sales tax. So from 1920 to early 90s, give or take, you got 70 years, not a lot going on, and then you finally somebody comes out and says, you know what, we do have a requirement, and this is physical presence, right? You have to be there, and it makes a lot of sense. Well, what's happened since then, right? So about that same timeline, you have the internet and the first website, and you have things like Google and Amazon and Bitcoin, whatever that is, right? So you have all those things. And as time progresses, we start modifying how we do business over the internet and and retail and sales and everything.
SPEAKER_02:Well, it made it easier, right, to circumvent physical presence if I don't have to. I mean, I can market in your state. I mean, you could do that, you could do certain things, right, outside of physical presence for for sales tax purposes. But now all of a sudden I don't have to be in your state to deliver a service in your state. Right.
SPEAKER_01:And not only that, sometimes it's a lot cheaper and a lot more cost effective not to be there, right? Because you don't have to send crews and have an office and things like that. So it made a lot of sense for businesses to to trans, you know, you know, change the way their operations were. So states started losing revenue because businesses weren't physically within their states. So they started changing their statutes, right? What they started to change in their definition of Nexus and what constitutes Nexus. So we move away from physical presence and into what we call economic nexus standards. And another court case, Wayfair in 2018, and effectively what we saw there was South Dakota rewrote their statutes to where they they had what they coined thresholds or common business uh activity that they constituted as having nexus, even without physical presence. So that ended up into the Supreme Court, and it was deemed that that was constitutional, and therefore now you have this concept of economic nexus. So that's a story of where we went from physical presence and how it's changed all the way through economic nexus, and then where we sit today with that is now spreading its wings, far reaching, and we don't know where it's gonna end.
SPEAKER_02:Right. Well, I remember the early days of Amazon, and I was excited, right? Because you they didn't charge you sales tax. And I was like, well, this is an obvious competitive advantage, right? And so I guess Wayfair pretty much did away with that. I mean, I think Amazon was collecting sales tax before that, but you know, I think there was the goal was to level the playing field to a degree. Obviously, states trying to reach out and get gets get their portion of a tax for you know activity that's you know economic in their in their eyes, right? I mean, are they how how do you feel like other states followed Wayfair? Are they getting more aggressive? Like what are their tactics now? Or, you know, does that make sense?
SPEAKER_01:It does. And they're definitely more aggressive. I don't I don't know that in the totality of total aggression a state is any more aggressive, but they've now focused on, you know, they don't have to be as aggressive on the economic or on the physical presence audits and that sort of thing, but they've now shifted to economic nexus and and they had to learn just like any other business, they had to learn how to go about that. How do they identify which businesses may have economic nexus within their states versus you know physical presence and and how they go about that effectively, efficiently, and things like that. But they've definitely shifted and they are much more aggressive on the economic nexus front now.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. So and we're we're talking about we've probably said the word nexus a lot, right? So we'll we'll try and you know talk about it without mentioning it because it might just lose the the word might just lose meaning in a second. But um, you know, we're we have sales tax, we have income tax. Sometimes there are different thresholds, right? And there are 50 states. So you're talking about maybe a hundred thresholds that you might meet, may or may not meet. Like how how does a how does a business like track this? You know, like how what do they do when they're expanding? How do they how do they know when they trip Nexus?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's that's kind of that million-dollar question of how how much time and effort do you spend figuring that out before you're there, right? You you don't you definitely don't want to grow and expand into all 50 states and never consider Nexus. But if I'm still locally in one branch, one office in one county, I don't necessarily need to know my Nexus footprint in all 50 states yet. I may not have a Nexus footprint in those states. Um the key there, I think, is as a business owner, a great partnership with whoever your professional service provider is, your tax, your CPA accountant, whatever. And then having a plan, knowing what you need to keep an eye on, having a way to get that information, and then keeping, you can do it whether you do it a quarterly analysis, biannual, annual, that sort of thing, but the plan's important. So if you don't have a plan, even if you have good data, you don't know what you're looking at, you don't know what you're should be looking at, you don't know how to analyze it. So having that plan is step one. And then from there, if you have a plan and you you marry that plan with your business plan of where do I want to be in five years, ten years, what what does my growth look like? From there, we can come up with how do we, you know, continue to monitor it and and and manage it. The plan is the key.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Are there are there like good softwares or technology partners that people can use, right, to help them? You know, depending on their industry, right?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And that's what I was gonna say. That it a lot of times the industry will industry will drive that. Um, you know, for sales tax purposes, when you start talking about high volume sales tax collection obligations in a bunch of states, you have to onboard some form of a tax engine. So we can go down that rabbit hole too, of which engines uh make most sense in which industries and that sort of thing. But they all have some tool or mechanism. Uh, and so you need to be making sure you're taking advantage of whatever that that tool is or whatever software you're using to do that. You need to make sure you you look at it.
SPEAKER_02:But the theme is hey, you're expanding, you need to be aware that these that you'll you're gonna trip these things eventually, right? That the Nexus thresholds. Am I retracking the right data? Am I partnering with the right, you know, software providers or advisors? But that's important. I mean, obviously, obviously it's important for as you expand, you want to make sure that you understand the consequences of your expansion. Um, so there there are tools out there that can help with that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and and I think you said you know, that's a great problem to have. You want to be growing as a business owner, typically, you want to be growing. That's the goal. You want to be expanding, um, but there are consequences to that expansion. And I think you put it in a very good picture there. There are consequences to that, and they can be good consequences or they can be bad consequences, and the last thing we want is it to be a negative consequence.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, so we know the history, we know it exists, right? And it's it's expanding, right? You know, you don't have to be in a state very long or for very much to have an obligation to pay tax or file or anything. What what's the next step, right? So I I'm in a state, I have compliance obligations. Um you know, let's say I I don't I don't file. I don't I don't know I have to file, I don't file. Like what what happens? So how does how does the state know to come after me? What do they do? And you know, what are my options after that?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's it depends on whether you're talking about income tax, sales tax, you know, some non-income based tax, franchise tax, gross receipts tax. There's a lot of different caveats to to all of that. Um, but a state, they they've gotten very good if you want to look at both income tax and franchise tax or even sales tax. The way a state will will find you now, so that's that was one of your questions, is when they audit whoever they decide to audit, they will go through all of their uh purchases and they'll find all their different vendors. And then they'll go look and see is that vendor filing? Well, you made sales to this customer in this jurisdiction. Are you filing your sales tax return or are you filing your income tax return? Because we know you made X number of sales and we know what our nexus thresholds are, right? And if it's in an industry where that purchase has a high degree of likelihood that you were some way, shape, or form physically there for at least a certain amount of time, well, now they know, right? So they've got economically there, or economically there, right? So they've they've gotten, I wouldn't say they're still very good at it, but they've gotten significantly better than where they were 10 or 15 years ago of identifying you. Now there's you you mentioned, you know, there's de minimis activities. If you're there long enough, there are you know, things like trade show exemptions and if you're not there longer than two or three days. But what we found in these de minimis rules is the level that most states consider somewhat de minimis uh is typically far lower than what a business owner would consider. I wasn't there but a month, right? Well, a lot of times that is significantly above whatever threshold that that jurisdiction has.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and obviously you can't monitor it all the time, right? I mean, so so what's like a good plan? You know, I would equate it to like an estate plan. You don't visit it every year, but you got to visit it every now and then to make sure, hey, am I am I doing things right? Or, you know, like what's a good cadence to you know establish with your advisor of, hey, are we are we doing the right things statewise or anything we need to consider?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, uh step one is have the initial conversation, right? Put together that plan, and that plan is going to be very different depending on your industry. Um, but then from there, that plan is probably going to have data points that you got to make sure you pull. Um, and if you don't have access or capture those data points, you need to put in uh some type of process to be able to get those data points. It will probably include uh some strategic annual or biannual meetings with your call them your project managers or that sort of thing. So those meetings, you're gonna talk about well, what projects did we have this year? Where where did we send our people? Where did we send our teams and where do our sales folks go? And how do we do those things? And you're gonna you're gonna combine the data that you have or those data points you have with your operation managers, and and you're gonna come up with a uh I guess a picture of where we were that year. Um you probably want to do this every year. You want to have you can you can create your plan uh at the front end of that, but you want to do that every year because you file your income taxes every year. So that can change, right? Your your your filings can change every year from one year to the next. Uh so you got to know where you were last year compared to this year.
SPEAKER_02:And with that probably comes some opportunity, right? I mean, you can kind of see, all right, well, this is where we think we did activity, but you know, from a from a salt perspective, right? As like that might not be what the state interprets as as their state activity, right? I mean, are there ways to, you know, I guess kind of source sales or you know, make sure I'm doing the right things from the state's interpretation?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So now you're kind of getting into where do we add value for our clients in a lot of cases, right? So when you talk about, okay, now we're filing in 10 states. Well, not every state has the same apportionment methodology. Not every state sources the sales of TPP or or services the same way. So once you know your Nexus footprint, you know where your filings are going to be, well, what planning opportunities can we can we uh come up with to reduce our income tax? Not every state has the same tax rate. Some are significantly higher than others, um, both income tax, sales tax, that sort of thing. So are there planning opportunities to where we can reduce our tax liability? And there absolutely are.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. So I mean, if I can appropriately source sales out of a high tax state into a low tax state, or just not at all, right? Just depending on where I have nexus. I can there's there, I can actually lower my tax rate in theory.
SPEAKER_01:In theory, and and there are very legal strategic ways you can do that, right? So yeah, there's absolutely planning opportunities when you get to that point. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Um is it different for I mean, it's obviously different for different industries, you know. I mean, I think most software as a service companies feel like they don't have as much of an obligation to do this. I mean, uh going back to kind of where the states are focusing, you know, uh do you feel like, hey, you certain industries are safe, certain industries need to keep an eye out. I mean, any anything to add there?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think the probably your your safe industries are your physical presence industries, construction, things like that, right? Where they it's hard to build a building if you're not there. Yeah, right. Now there are concepts, agency nexus, where maybe you have a contract, but you you're not physically there, you don't have a crew there, so you you contract uh out with another agency. Um so there are still some non-physical present uh issues there. Uh but I would say your your more your riskier uh industries are gonna be any type of internet-based industry, whether it be online sales boutiques, whether it be SaaS. SaaS is a whole whole other can of worms because one sales tax typically software is taxed in roughly half the states. Well, that's considered selling a product. When you get to SaaS, most states will consider that selling a service. And then you cannot the way you source sales of a service, uh, there's typically two approaches. So you look at whether you performed the service in that state or whether the benefit was received in that state. And a lot of states have the benefit received. So where is your customer? If they're use utilizing that software in that state, they're going that state's going to consider you to have performed your service even though you weren't there in their state. So now you almost technically have physical presence, right? Because they deemed do you perform that service there. So now you open up a whole nother ball game of what do we do, how do we do it, based on an internet type activity, you're selling SaaS and you weren't physically there. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So it's it's really, hey, any industry, unfortunately, has this issue. So you need to at least ask your advisor, hey, what's our exposure here? Because exposure can turn into, you know, cash out the door, can turn into due diligence issues, right? If you're if you're trying to sell your company and this comes up and you haven't addressed it, then it may be, you know, less cash in your pocket if you're if you're trying to sell your company. So, you know, I think, you know, what are the options for, hey, I I have this issue. We haven't dealt with it. We know that it's there, but we need to clean it up, right? Like what can you do, you know, a few years after the fact that you know you had this liability is kind of lingering, you know, how how can we help there?
SPEAKER_01:The biggest thing you can do there is come up with a plan, right? You you you need, we oftentimes call it a nexus study, and with our nexus study, we will bolt on uh uh estimated tax exposure for for whatever period we're doing. So you have a dollar amount for these jurisdictions and the tax type. The reason we do it that way is it's hard to make a decision if you don't know what the tax impact is, right? You got to have a dollar to look at. Do I care um that I haven't filed here if I'm gonna owe 75 cents in tax? Maybe not. If it's 750,000, I absolutely care. Right. So you put a number to it. Uh, and then most states have what they call some version of a voluntary disclosure program, a VDA program. And the benefits there are typically a limited look back period. So statute of limitations are great, and most states three to four years, sometimes five, depending on the state. But the thing about statute of limitations is it never starts if you never file that tax return. That's right. So in most cases, if you don't know you have Nexus and you haven't been filing, your statute of limitations has never started. Well, if you've been doing this for 20 years, technically a state can go back to the beginning of time or at least when you started that activity 20 years or whatever the case may be, and now you owe tax on every transaction you had for that period plus penalty of interest, that still accrues to today or whenever you're talking. Uh so a VDA will limit that look back period to whatever that state says, usually three or four years, but it'll limit that look back period. They will also provide penalty abatements. So, in a lot of cases, if you've ever received an audit, your penalty of interest is as much. Sometimes can outweigh the tax. Right, and the tax. So that's a very big benefit too for the VDA is you have both limited look back periods and then you have the penalty abatement. They don't typically abate the waive the interest, and their thought process there is, well, you've had this money, you've been earning the interest, we should have had it. So they don't usually waive the interest. Um, in some cases, you can you can negotiate a little bit, but typically that's the interest component is not there. Uh, but the VDA is a great option. Not every uh VDA is a good option. Um, and usually when you're talking about what a plan looks like, you tackle it, right? You you you say, where are my higher risk exposures? Where do I want to do business in the next five years? And and you look at it from a strategic business standpoint. But it you gotta have that Nexus study and you gotta have a tax liability uh or at least an estimation tag to it so you can make that decision.
SPEAKER_02:Are VDAs are they anonymous? Like can you go into a state and say, hey, we've got somebody who wants to pay their tax? We won't tell you who until they pay it.
SPEAKER_01:Is that is that is that yeah, you you've heard about that. So that's one of the benefits of that. So most VDAs, most states, it's the intent there is to encourage you to disclose the the liability that you haven't filed before. So they're very taxpayer friendly a lot of times. But let's say that there's uh facts and circumstances where the state will not agree to the VDA, they still don't know you because it's all anonymous. So if they decline it, they still don't know you. And then maybe you go back to the draw on board and figure out, okay, what's our next step? So it's 100% anonymous until you sign the contract, they don't know you, and then you you disclose everything.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. So that's that's I like that.
SPEAKER_01:I like I like that a lot too. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So I feel like we've hit a lot of highlights, right? So I think maybe we get into like a more detailed example, right? Like what's a good example of a Nexus issue, a planning opportunity that that you've dealt with, right? You know, just kind of paint the picture of here's a client, here was their issue, here's how we handled it, and just kind of you know tie it all in.
SPEAKER_01:I I I love examples and I really like to give both examples of how we took a maybe a bad situation and either made it significantly less bad or or a good situation. And then I also like to paint it the the picture to where how can Nexus and how can planning and and that sort of thing add competitive advantage, right? So it goes both ways. And and so we'll we'll talk a little bit uh from a just a bad situation, what does Nexus look like? We take a we'll we'll do industry, uh construction industry, I guess. Take a contractor who is operating in 10 or 15 states or whatever the case may be, and they've never addressed their sales tax or income tax nexus whatsoever. Um so they decide, okay, this risk is more than we're comfortable with. We want to we want to address it. Do the Nexus study, you go through the VDA program and that sort of thing and and make up a number, but let's say they have$250,000 of net cash outlay that they're gonna be you know expected to pay to resolve everything. To resolve everything. Okay, what can we do to help soften that blow a little bit? Um so we've been very successful. There's the good thing about state tax is every state has different opportunities, they have different laws. And depending on the specifics, so so in this this specific one, we did, we coupled a sales and use tax refund review with the Nexus study. So we help them get registered and start filing, and and you we call it a process review where we we set them up a process. How do you want to, because in the construction world, a lot of times you're remitting use tax, it's not just sales tax, it's also use tax. And so if you've if you never had a use tax process in place, we help you set that up. Make sure you're coming through your purchases and and you're remitting the right tax to the right jurisdiction. Because at the end of the day, your your intent of this is to reduce your exposure to or to zero if you can, right? So setting them up a process, but in that process we couple with a sales tax refund review, and certain states have certain ways they treat contracts and general contractors, subcontractors, and that sort of thing. So uh coupling that sales and use tax refund review with a process review and a VDA, in the specific example we're talking about, they actually came out to the better. So we had a little over$300,000 of refund claims that we filed for them. So they were able to become fully compliant, right? And and mitigate all their exposure, come clean and they're good, they can sleep at night. And not only that, they still have money in their pocket. So so that's kind of a really good example of if you do it and you do it right, and we can't promise that. Every every situation's different, right? But making sure that we're looking at both sides of the equation.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I mean, yeah, and nobody considers that part of it, right? It's like, well, maybe I'm paying too much tax because of who I'm working with, my subcontractors, right? If they're paying tax but or or charging me tax and they're not supposed to be, well, then that that hurts my bottom line because now my, you know, in a contractor sense, my bids are gonna have to reflect that. And so maybe my bids are too high, maybe I can lower them, right? And and create a competitive advantage where there wasn't one, you know, a minute ago after before I knew about this sales tax issue. Right.
SPEAKER_01:The the other part of the example, right, is is how can we provide a competitive advantage or help one of our clients with a competitive advantage? So take a construction company in in a state, say Georgia, we're in Atlanta, right? And they've 10,$20 million construction company. They got with their local CPA when they started, they figured out what was and was not subject to sales and use tax, and now they've grown. Well, now they want to go into North Carolina, they want to go into Alabama and Tennessee and go west of Texas. They apply that same methodology of what they did and what they knew in Georgia to all these other states and all these other bids they're putting out and all the contracts they have with their subcontractors and their customers and that sort of thing. Some states will treat subcontractors as a consumer of their material in a construction contract, which means every time they get a bid from a subcontractor, sales tax is included. And then they're not required to charge sales tax to their customer. Well, if they don't know that in their bid, they're charging sales tax in their bid to their customer, now maybe they're 7%, 8%, 9% higher than they need to be, right? So they they are losing a competitive advantage compared to their competitors. Uh or it could be that maybe their competitors don't know that either, and now they can reduce their bid by half that. So now their bid's 4% cheaper than the competitors, not to mention they have now increased their margin by 4%. Right. And the complete opposite of that is true as well, though. So you go into another state and that state now considers the general contractor to be a retailer of the whole contract and they have to charge sales tax their customer, they're not doing that. So they, you know, margins aren't always that good. If you have a 10% margin on a project and now you didn't collect 7% on the materials, well, your 10% is now three. Right. Right.
SPEAKER_02:So it goes both. Yeah. So there are circumstances where it's too good to be true, sometimes too bad to be true. You know, so it's like if something just doesn't feel right, you know, reach out to your advisor and they'll they'll make sure you're you're compliant with with things like that. So well, I think that's a great example, right? I mean, there is just so much that you can't know, especially when you just cross state lines, right? And so it's it's you know important to just have somebody there that can understand and help you help you navigate and help you with your methodologies for for what you're going, you know, your plan, right?
SPEAKER_01:And so one other thing I would add to sorry to interrupt you, but a lot of times you'll see your clients, oh, I'm a construction company, or I'm a software company, or I'm a manufacturer, and that may be their legacy business line. Then you get to know them and you start looking at their uh income statement and and their trial balance. And you say, Well, what is this? What is that? Oh, we started up a small construction, or we also install our product, or we also uh maybe send out some CDs with our SaaS when they ask, right?
SPEAKER_02:So or we consult after we installed. Absolutely, right?
SPEAKER_01:We we sell uh bolt-on products, you know, so on and so forth. So when a company says, I am this or I am that, that is probably true, but that may not be all they do. So a lot of times these these studies help us get to know, you know, partner with with our clients and help us get to know them so that we make sure because just because you're doing something for one of your product lines doesn't mean you're doing it absolutely correct for all product lines.
SPEAKER_02:Well, how they see their business and how the tax law sees their business might be just a little bit off the way. So that's where we come in to help them, you know, digest all the all the differences. That's right. Yeah. Well, good deal. I think, you know, so I think we hit on all the topics we wanted to, right? I mean, is there anything that you want to share with the listeners of, hey, you know, anything else to take away from this discussion, right? I mean, obviously, hey, build a plan, right? That's important. You want to know what you're getting into. Get your advisors in early as you can. You know, you want to revisit that every now and then, especially as you're expanding. Um, you know, you know the risks, you know what we can do for you. Is there anything else that that you think they need to hear?
SPEAKER_01:You outlined it pretty well. Uh I the plan is important, staying on top of it. We don't expect business owners in most cases to manage their Nexus. They're great at their job, which is running the business, that's that's what they want to do. And we encourage them to do that. It's making sure you understand what Nexus is, having that plan, and having a partnership, so an accountability partner, make sure you look at it. Uh, and then don't shy away from opportunities. A lot of cases there's opportunities. We talked about the refund claims, and that's just you know the tip of the iceberg. But don't shy away from that. Partner with somebody that you can trust that makes sure you're taking advantage of that because tax can be very scary and Nexus and sales tax, income tax, franchise tax, it can be very scary. But you put you partner with the right partner and the right team, uh, all that can be taken care of, you know, somewhat seamlessly, and then bring some good things to the table as well. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I mean, you know, like you said, it's it's not always a cost, right? It can be a benefit. You know, sometimes it's just peace of mind. I know that I'm dealt with this, I know I've dealt with it in the right way, but also there are opportunities there. So it's it doesn't hurt to ask the question of your advisor. It's like, hey, what you know, let's let's visit this and let's let's make sure that we're where we need to be and and have a good method, have a good plan going forward, right? Absolutely. Yeah. Well, thank you, Jeff, for uh going into that with us. I think that was important for people to hear, you know. So I know they don't want to address it every now and then, but I think it's it's good for them to understand that it's there.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Thanks for having me. It's a lot of fun.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. So uh and thank everybody for joining us. Um, you know, we we took a bit of a deeper dive into Nexus and how it can help you, you know, how just just the risks that that we want you to be aware of. And I think um, you know, we here at at MJ, uh, you know, we're happy to help uh advise you in in any circumstance that that that may come up. So um please uh please do reach out. Thank you.