Sylvia F. Dion, CPA is the Founder & Managing Member of PrietoDion Consulting Partners LLC, a tax consulting firm specializing in providing State & Local Tax (SALT) consulting and compliance Services to companies throughout the U.S. and in Europe, Canada, Australia and Asia.  Sylvia’s twenty-five plus years of professional tax experience also include holding SALT Senior Management positions with Ernst & Young and Grant Thornton as well as working in the tax department of corporations in the high-tech, manufacturing, retail and biotechnology industries.  

Sylvia’s primary focus is advising U.S. and foreign companies on their multi-state nexus, the taxability of their products and services, and managing and mitigating their exposure such as through the Voluntary Disclosure process. Her industry focus is in eCommerce (online retail), technology and manufacturing. 

In addition to providing SALT consulting and compliance services, Sylvia is a speaker, writer and avid tax blogger. Her articles on SALT issues and developments have been published in the Journal of Accountancy, Journal of State Taxation, Journal of Multistate Taxation and Incentives, eCommerce Law & Policy, State Tax Notes, Institute for Professionals in Taxation (IPT) Tax Report and Bloomberg BNA’s Tax Management Multistate Tax Report and Weekly State Tax Report. Sylvia is also currently the author of "Minding Massachusetts," a State Tax Notes quarterly column and is a contributor to SalesTaxSupport.com where she blogs on “Internet Sales Tax”, “U.S. Sales Tax for Foreign Sellers” and “Massachusetts Sales Tax.” 

Both in her practice, and in her writing, Sylvia focuses extensively on following and reporting on states’ efforts to redefine what constitutes a physical presence and the evolution of nexus expanding laws. Sylvia has also written extensively on the federal remote seller legislation and has reported on every federal remote seller proposal introduced since 2010.

Sylvia also frequently presents on SALT issues and developments and has been quoted in Bloomberg BusinessWeek, the Boston Globe, NPR, and Forbes.com and other media.

Sylvia is a Certified Public Accountant with a Masters in Taxation from the University of Texas at Austin.  Sylvia is also a fluent in Spanish and proficient in French.

Scott Peterson is Avalara’s Vice President of U.S. Tax Policy and Government Relations. Prior to Avalara, he was the first Executive Director of the Streamlined Sales Tax Governing Board—an organization devoted to making sales tax more straightforward and more uniform for the benefit of businesses. Scott also spent 10 years as the Director of the South Dakota Sales Tax Division and 12 years providing research and legal writing for the South Dakota Legislature.