Tax professional finds niche

By the mid-1990s, as accounting firms were preparing for the uncertainty of Y2K and replacing their in-house sales tax calculation systems with more standardized products, Yetter was asked to help conduct trainings on the new software packages, working closely with the companies that created them.

“I’m learning the software and learning how to teach it in the classroom, realizing that all of these companies need help implementing it,” she recalls. Sensing a demand for this specialty, she pitched the idea of starting a practice that focused on sales tax implementation. “I went to my partner and said, ‘I think this is the next thing. I think this is where we need to go.’ And they turned me down.”

Not one to dismiss her instincts, Yetter struck out on her own in 1996, founding YETTER Tax, a sales tax consulting and tax technology firm, and the Sales Tax Institute, which offers in-person and online training courses and resources for tax professionals. Over the past 24 years, she has adapted her practice to changing industry needs and has worked with a variety of companies, from Fortune 10 firms to small, family-owned businesses. In July she launched the Sales Tax Nerd Community, an affectionately named online membership platform that encourages networking and education among sales tax professionals.

Yetter has been recognized multiple times by Accounting Today as one of the “Top 100 Most Influential People in Accounting” and in September was named the 2020 Woman Business Owner of the Year by the Chicago area chapter of the National Association of Women Business Owners. The award is especially meaningful to Yetter, who built her practice with little guidance at a time when the field was largely dominated by men. “It was challenging,” she says, “but you know, I had a real stick-to-it-ness and I was going to make it happen. I really haven’t looked back.”

Yetter credits much of her success to the education she received at KU, and she has remained active in the School of Business community, serving for the past 16 years on the dean’s advisory board and as an adjunct professor on state and local taxation and entrepreneurship. As a leader in the sales tax industry for more than three decades, she guides and encourages young business professionals to reach their goals.

“What I like to tell [students] is if you want to succeed, you need to have passion and you need to find that thing that excites you,” she says. “I have been lucky that I fell into something that I loved when I was 22 years old. I have no desire to do anything else.”