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Sales Tax: The Buyer Finds It Before The Tax Office | Gareth Kobrin, Yonda Tax

Published on: 13th October, 2026

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

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About the Podcast

Ecom Growth Insider
Real behind-the-scenes strategies from the trenches of scaling DTC brands. With founders, marketers, and growth experts.
If you're a DTC brand founder, CMO, growth marketer, or operator trying to scale your e-commerce business profitably, this podcast is for you.

Hosted by Andrej Tumachowitsch — founder of the growth agency HoloGrowth — this show goes deep on what actually works to grow online brands in today’s ultra-competitive landscape.

We go way beyond generic advice.

Every episode gives you practical, battle-tested insights directly from 7-, 8-, and 9-figure brand founders, top-tier marketers, and agency operators actively working in the trenches.

You’ll learn:
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- And the biggest mistakes brands are making right now (and how to avoid them)

Expect a mix of founder interviews, expert roundtables, solo lessons, and deep dives into what’s working right now in paid acquisition, conversion, and retention.

No fluff. No recycled advice. Just proven strategies to grow your ecommerce brand.

If you're tired of surface-level podcasts and want unfiltered access to the tactics and lessons real brands are using to scale — hit subscribe and join us inside the Ecom Growth Insider.

About your host

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Andrej Tumachowitsch

I'm the founder of HoloGrowth, a performance-driven growth agency helping e-commerce brands scale profitably to 7- and 8-figures through paid ads.

With years of experience in the trenches of DTC growth, I have worked with over 30 brands worldwide – building, optimizing, and scaling their marketing systems.

As the host of the Ecom Growth Insider podcast, I dive deep with top founders, marketers, and growth experts to unpack what’s really working behind the scenes in the DTC space.

My mission? To bring raw, actionable insights that help brand owners scale smarter.