I’ve heard nothing but good things from people who’ve learned a new language from the Rosetta Stone program.  Pop in a disk, put on your study cap, and you can be fluent in Spanish, French, German, or even Pashto.  (I had to hit up Google for that one!)

The list of languages you can learn from Rosetta Stone is impressive.  Now, it would be super-impressive if they weren’t missing one language in particular…sales tax.

Let me demonstrate:

If I tell you that I went to a restaurant for lunch, you might be wondering if I went to a fast food restaurant, a Chinese restaurant, a steak house, a food truck, or maybe even a roach coach.  (Do you have to hit up Google for that one?)

Maybe you thought brands instead and wondered if I went to Chick-fil-A, P.F. Chang’s, Morton’s, The Rolling Stove, or even……(do roach coaches typically have names?).

Let’s show how the language of sales tax works like our restaurant example above:

You tell me that your company just bought some software.  Someone like myself who’s fluent in sales tax would be wondering if it was sold to you on a disk, downloaded, offered as a hosted service, sold via a load-and-leave service, canned, custom, sold in conjunction with a maintenance agreement, bundled with future upgrades, or even sold with consulting services.

What’s the big deal?

Picture a scene where a sales tax auditor wants to know more about a software purchase he sees in his audit sample.  If you don’t speak sales tax, your answer may get lost in translation.  (If auditors don’t understand, you may end up paying WAY more sales tax than you should!)

Since Rosetta Stone hasn’t developed a sales tax program yet, call me up and we can meet at a restaurant for some lessons.