The future of sales tax is intelligent, integrated and increasingly data-driven
In September 2026, I attended the Institute for Professionals in Taxation (IPT) Sales Tax Symposium in Orlando, Florida, with our Tax Manager, Shaira Valdez. Held from 27–30 September at the JW Marriott Orlando, Grande Lakes, the event brought together tax professionals, corporate tax teams, advisers and technology specialists to examine the challenges shaping the future of U.S. sales and use tax compliance.
The symposium provided a valuable opportunity to consider how artificial intelligence (AI), evolving state tax regulations, digital commerce and increasingly complex business models are changing the way companies manage their tax obligations.
One message stands out: sales tax compliance is no longer simply about calculating tax and submitting returns. It is about managing a continuous, data-driven compliance process across an increasingly complex regulatory environment.
For businesses operating across multiple U.S. states, this creates both a challenge and an opportunity. Organisations must keep pace with changing regulations while ensuring that their tax systems, data and operational processes can support continued growth.
1. AI integration: from tax automation to intelligent compliance
Artificial intelligence was a prominent theme in the symposium programme, with sessions including Harnessing AI in Sales Tax, Controls Around AI and Use Cases, and Generative AI in Sales Tax.
These topics reflect an important shift in the tax profession: moving beyond basic automation towards systems that can help professionals interpret information, identify exceptions and make better-informed decisions.
AI has the potential to support several areas of the sales and use tax lifecycle:
- Data analysis: Reviewing large transaction datasets to identify anomalies, missing information and potential tax exposure.
- Tax research: Helping tax professionals locate relevant legislation, administrative guidance and interpretive materials for further review.
- Nexus monitoring: Identifying changes in sales activity and other business indicators that may warrant a state nexus assessment.
- Notice management: Classifying tax authority correspondence, extracting deadlines and directing matters to the appropriate team.
- Compliance monitoring: Highlighting missing returns, overdue tasks, unusual transaction patterns and inconsistencies across reporting periods.
- Knowledge management: Making tax policies, previous decisions and supporting documentation easier to retrieve.
However, integrating AI into tax operations requires more than deploying a chatbot or adding automation to an existing system.
Tax determinations must be grounded in applicable law, accurate source data and documented business facts. AI-generated conclusions need appropriate review, and organisations must establish controls over access, confidentiality, recordkeeping and the use of automated recommendations.
The opportunity is therefore not to replace tax professionals. It is to enable them to spend less time on repetitive administration and more time on analysis, judgement, risk management and strategic decision-making.
2. Evolving state tax regulations: the multistate compliance challenge
The symposium’s programme also addressed the changing regulatory environment through sessions on registration and filing, state sales tax legal developments, digital taxation legislation and practical compliance challenges.
For businesses selling across state lines, the complexity comes from the fact that there is no single, uniform set of state and local sales tax rules that resolves every transaction.
Businesses may need to consider:
- Whether their activities create physical or economic nexus in a state.
- Whether registration is required and when collection obligations begin.
- Whether particular products, services, software or digital transactions are taxable.
- Which sourcing rules apply to a transaction.
- Whether exemptions are available and properly documented.
- Which returns and payments are required, and at what frequency.
- How to respond to notices, audits, refunds and other tax authority matters.
Economic nexus is especially important for businesses that sell remotely. A company may develop state tax obligations without opening an office or employing staff in that state. Thresholds, measurement rules and other requirements vary by jurisdiction and must be assessed against the applicable law.
Growth can therefore create tax obligations before a company has established a local operational presence.
This makes ongoing monitoring essential. A periodic review may identify an issue after the business has already crossed a relevant threshold. A more effective model combines regular data analysis, documented nexus reviews, registration tracking and a coordinated compliance calendar.
3. Digital commerce is changing the taxability equation
The symposium also featured sessions on the sales tax implications of invisible commerce, digital taxability, software and SaaS allocation, and customer-based sourcing challenges.
These subjects are particularly relevant as businesses increasingly deliver value through digital platforms, subscriptions, bundled offerings, usage-based pricing and integrated services.
Consider a company that sells a software subscription with implementation, support and additional data services. Depending on the state, the contractual structure, the nature of each component and applicable rules may influence the tax treatment.
Similarly, a transaction that appears straightforward to a customer may involve several underlying components, jurisdictions or parties.
This creates a need for better coordination between commercial teams, finance, tax specialists and technology systems.
Businesses should ensure that taxability decisions are documented, product and service classifications are maintained, and changes to pricing, packaging or delivery models are assessed before they create unexpected compliance consequences.
Tax technology can assist with repeatable rules and transaction analysis, but complex or uncertain treatments still require appropriate technical review.
4. Use tax, exemption certificates and audit readiness
Another important area of focus in the programme was the practical management of compliance risk, including exemption certificates, refunds, audits and sales tax controversies.
Use tax deserves particular attention because exposure can arise from purchasing activity rather than customer sales.
For example, a business may purchase taxable equipment, software, supplies or services from a vendor that does not charge the appropriate sales tax. Depending on the circumstances and applicable law, the purchaser may have a use tax obligation.
Without a systematic process, identifying these transactions can require significant manual work across accounts payable, procurement, general ledger and enterprise resource planning data.
A structured approach can combine:
- Importing and standardising purchasing and transaction data.
- Classifying transactions and assessing their potential taxability.
- Comparing tax charged with the expected treatment.
- Identifying exceptions for investigation.
- Documenting decisions and corrective actions.
- Retaining supporting evidence for compliance reviews and audits.
Exemption certificate management is another essential control. Organisations need visibility over certificate collection, validation, completeness, expiry and applicability to the relevant transactions.
The broader lesson is that audit readiness should be built into day-to-day processes rather than treated as an exercise undertaken only after a tax authority makes contact.
5. Tax notices and compliance controls: closing the loop
Managing tax obligations does not end when a return is filed.
Businesses must also manage notices, requests for information, payment discrepancies, refund matters, registration changes and other correspondence from tax authorities.
A notice that is received but not assigned, or a response deadline that is not visible to the responsible team, can create unnecessary risk.
A controlled notice management process should capture the correspondence, identify the relevant authority and tax period, assign responsibility, establish deadlines, track responses and preserve the final outcome.
The same principle applies to broader compliance operations: each obligation should have a defined owner, a due date, a status and supporting evidence of completion.
This is where workflow automation and AI-assisted document processing can provide practical value. Technology can help extract information, categorise correspondence and flag urgent matters, while tax professionals retain responsibility for interpretation and response decisions.
6. What these developments mean for tax technology
Taken together, the symposium’s themes reinforce the need for integrated tax operations rather than disconnected point solutions.
A tax team may have one system for transaction analysis, another for filing deadlines, spreadsheets for nexus reviews, email folders for notices and separate repositories for vendor tax forms.
Each tool may solve a specific problem, but the overall process can remain fragmented.
A more effective architecture connects data, tax assessments, registration, filing, documentation and issue resolution into a repeatable workflow.
At TBS Global, we see an opportunity to bring these functions together through our tax technology and managed services portfolio.
Our approach includes:
- Quantra — Data Management: Supporting data preparation, standardisation, validation and analysis to establish a more reliable foundation for tax decisions.
- CMT Nexus Tracking: Supporting state-by-state monitoring and the identification of activities that may warrant a nexus review.
- CMT Tax Calendar: Coordinating filing and payment deadlines, task status, follow-ups and compliance confirmations.
- Synergy Use Tax Analysis: Helping analyse purchasing data, assess potential use tax exposure and identify transactions requiring further review.
- TaxVerse Notice Tool: Supporting the centralised tracking, assignment and resolution of tax notices and related deadlines.
- Form IQ: Supporting W-8 and W-9 collection and management, TIN verification workflows and annual information-reporting processes.
Together, these capabilities can support a more connected operating model, from the initial analysis of business data through to compliance monitoring, reporting and issue resolution.
The goal is not simply to automate individual tasks. It is to improve visibility, consistency, accountability and the ability to scale tax operations as businesses expand.
7. From SaaS to Results as a Service
The developments discussed at the symposium also connect with a broader shift in how businesses evaluate technology and outsourced services.
Software as a Service (SaaS) gives organisations access to applications and functionality. However, the availability of software does not automatically ensure that source data is accurate, tax rules are correctly applied, registrations are completed, returns are filed or notices are resolved.
Those outcomes depend on the people, processes, controls and technology operating together.
This is the thinking behind Results as a Service (RaaS), an approach TBS Global has pursued since 2004.
Under a RaaS model, technology becomes part of a broader service designed around the client’s operational objectives. Software, data management, tax expertise and recurring workflows can be combined to support defined deliverables and measurable service outcomes.
For multistate tax compliance, this could mean moving from the purchase of individual tools to a coordinated service covering data preparation, nexus monitoring, registration coordination, use tax analysis, filing calendars, vendor tax forms and notice management.
The precise scope and accountability would be defined for each engagement, but the principle is straightforward: clients need more than access to technology; they need a reliable operating process that helps them achieve their compliance objectives.
Conclusion: building the next generation of tax operations
My attendance at the 2026 IPT Sales Tax Symposium reinforced the importance of combining technical tax knowledge with effective processes, reliable data and emerging technology.
AI offers significant potential to improve the way tax teams analyse information, manage exceptions and coordinate compliance. At the same time, changing state regulations, digital commerce and increasingly complex business structures make sound tax judgement and robust controls more important than ever.
The organisations best positioned to respond will be those that treat tax compliance as an ongoing business capability rather than a series of isolated filing events.
For TBS Global, this represents a clear direction: combine software, data management, tax expertise and operational delivery to help businesses manage complexity as they grow.
The future of sales tax compliance will not be defined by AI alone, or by software alone. It will be shaped by how effectively people, processes and technology work together to deliver reliable outcomes.
TBS Global — Powering Growth Through People, Process and Technology.
This article reflects themes identified in the published IPT Sales Tax Symposium programme and general industry analysis. It is not a transcript of individual presentations or a substitute for state-specific tax advice.
