Protecting the Margin: How Avalaunch Media Kept Sales Tax From Becoming a Margin Killer

David Mink helped found Avalaunch Media after years of building online businesses. One of the first e-commerce sites for missionary gifts. One of the first custom mattress companies sold entirely online. Along the way he picked up a rule he still runs by: nobody masters every discipline alone. Legal, finance, tax planning. The right specialists matter as much as the product itself. That instinct, knowing when to hand something off, would matter more than he expected.

That instinct got tested when Avalaunch entered a potential acquisition. Before the deal moved forward, the buyer suggested Mink talk to founders of companies that had also been acquired, just to hear how it really went. That conversation, with Jason Parr (president of The Sales Tax People), had nothing to do with sales tax. It was founder to founder, straight talk about selling a company and what integration actually felt like. It left Mink trusting the people on the other side of the table.

Avalaunch moved forward with the acquisition. Then came due diligence.

Financial experts went through the business line by line and found something Avalaunch didn't know it had: sales tax obligations in states it had crossed nexus thresholds in without realizing it. Mink had gone to law school. He assumed no employees and no storefronts outside Utah meant no responsibility elsewhere. Finding out that he had sales tax exposure in the middle of a major deal was a shock. The buyer held back part of the purchase price to cover the liability until it got sorted out.

Mink realized this wasn’t something to untangle alone or hope it would quietly disappear. He recognized it as exactly the kind of problem his own rule was built for: not his discipline, hand it to someone who actually knows it. He remembered Jason Parr and made one call, straight to The Sales Tax People, laying out what surfaced during diligence and asking what could be done.

Paul Johnson and Dan Peisner started by auditing every state flagged during due diligence. Four states, three years of records, one goal: figure out exactly where Avalaunch had crossed a threshold and where it hadn't.

Sales tax isn't one rulebook. It's fifty, each with its own thresholds and its own idea of what's even taxable. So the work meant going state by state, year by year, transaction by transaction. It took about two months. Real exposure turned up in two of the four states reviewed, $7K+ in one state and $50K+ in another. Mink noticed something else too: every time he had a question, he got an answer back almost immediately. No waiting, no wondering where things stood.

Left alone, this doesn't stay small. Unresolved sales tax liability compounds. States eventually come calling, and by then the bill includes penalties, interest, and the kind of scrutiny that can put a growing business's future in question. Avalaunch had already felt a version of that risk directly: part of the purchase price sitting on hold until the exposure was resolved. Bringing in the right people wasn't just cleanup. It was the difference between a manageable number and something much worse down the road.

Handing the problem to specialists paid off. The Sales Tax People found tens of thousands of dollars in savings for Avalaunch compared to what it would have owed. Money Mink didn't expect to get back. Looking back, he thinks the number could have been much bigger, potentially hundreds of thousands over the life of the business, if he'd made this call five years earlier instead of waiting for a due diligence process to force it.

The real win wasn't just the money. Once the audit wrapped, Mink stopped thinking about sales tax at all. It went from a question mark hanging over the business to someone else's job, done right, every month, without him having to check.

That's the peace of mind he points to now. The relationship with The Sales Tax People didn't end when the audit did. Mink treats it as an ongoing partnership, working with the team every month and using their guidance to shape decisions about where and how Avalaunch offers its services. It frees him up to spend his time on what he actually built his career doing: marketing, growth, building things.

"You should be looking for people that when you surround yourself with them, you're better at what you do," Mink said. "Sales tax compliance is not my job. It's theirs. They're good at it. It means we don't have to think about it and put a lot of time and resources in, but we also know we're saving time and resources. That's an awesome value exchange."

If you're a growing business about to go through a merger, acquisition, or audit, and you're not sure what your multi-state sales tax exposure looks like, call us before someone else finds it first.