Sales Tax: The Buyer Finds It Before The Tax Office | Gareth Kobrin, Yonda Tax
Oct 13, 2026 · 44 min · 10 segments
Most founders worry about the wrong person finding their sales tax problem. A tax office rarely comes looking for a foreign ecommerce brand. A buyer checks every time, because it's a standard due…
Most founders worry about the wrong person finding their sales tax problem. A tax office rarely comes looking for a foreign ecommerce brand. A buyer checks every time, because it's a standard due diligence item. Gareth Kobrin is the CEO and co-founder of Yonda, based in London. Yonda handles the compliance side of indirect tax for ecommerce brands, so sales tax in the US and VAT and GST everywhere else. He's worked in ecommerce for about ten years. In this episode: \- How a single warehouse creates a US obligation on day one \- The state thresholds that matter, and where they're far higher than you'd guess \- What Amazon and TikTok Shop cover, and the part that still lands back on you \- What full compliance costs a month, from one state to all fifty plus Europe \- The odds of a tax office finding you, and what a voluntary disclosure does and doesn't wipe \- How a $2M liability turned a $10M offer into $7M in his worked example \- The fulfillment change that turns a $10 tariff into $2 Nothing here is tax advice, and Gareth says so on the recording. Rules vary by state, by country and by supply chain, so get advice on your own facts. CHAPTERS 00:00 Intro 01:04 Who Gareth is and what Yonda handles 01:51 Indirect tax, defined 05:26 A $99 product that has to sell at $115 06:12 Tax-inclusive pricing vs tax at checkout 08:30 Who owns the money before it is filed 09:47 Physical nexus, economic nexus and the thresholds 16:36 Tax follows where the goods are delivered 18:04 Selling on Amazon and TikTok Shop 19:17 What full compliance actually costs 25:13 Never registered: the odds a tax office finds you 29:39 A $10M offer that closed at $7M 31:15 What tariffs changed for US and EU sellers 33:33 Cutting a tariff bill without changing product 38:10 From $1M a month to zero on one missed cost 40:03 When a US entity starts to make sense 41:30 The first move for an operator next week GARETH KOBRIN Yonda: https://yondatax.com Free Shopify app: https://apps.shopify.com/yonda-tax-1 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gareth-kobrin ECOM GROWTH INSIDER Every episode: https://ecomgrowthinsider.com If you're between $100K and $1M a month and paid is no longer handing you cheaper customers, that's the constraint we work on at HoloGrowth: https://hologrowth.com
Most founders worry about the wrong person finding their sales tax problem. A tax office rarely comes looking for a foreign ecommerce brand. A buyer checks every time, because it's a standard due…
