Avalara went public in June 2018, and days later the Supreme Court made its product essential. The company automated one of the dullest, most painful jobs in commerce. A business that sold in many places had to track thousands of sales tax rates and rules. Avalara's software looked up the right tax for each sale, filed the returns and kept the records. The court's Wayfair case would decide whether states could tax online sellers with no local presence.

Tax Software on Bainbridge Island

Avalara began in 2004 as a small team on Bainbridge Island, near Seattle. Scott McFarlane and his co-founders saw that sales tax software was mostly built for large companies, and it was hard to use. They bet that a cloud service could plug into shopping carts and accounting tools and do the work for a business of any size. Every new tax rule made the service more valuable.

South Dakota v. Wayfair

Avalara priced at $24 a share in June 2018. Days later the Supreme Court decided South Dakota v. Wayfair. The ruling let states require online sellers to collect sales tax, even with no local presence. Many more businesses suddenly needed what Avalara sold, and the stock climbed for years. In 2022 Vista Equity Partners bought the company for about $8.4 billion and took it private.

Cover: The Tribute Money, Rembrandt van Rijn. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a tribute coin (taxes).