When Brent first set out to build a better telecom tax engine, he wasn’t chasing buzzwords or trends. He was chasing something simpler — speed, accuracy, and a little sanity.
“I just wanted something that worked,” he says. “When we built our last company, every billing cycle felt like a race against time. You had to throw servers at the problem just to get through millions of transactions. Reporting lagged, and costs were brutal. And every delay trickled down to billing, compliance, even commissions.”
Those pain points became the blueprint for CereTax, a modern sales tax automation platform designed to do what legacy systems couldn’t: process telecom transactions at scale, produce detailed reporting on demand, and make sales tax automation for telecom both fast and financially sane.
Now, as Brent steps back from the day-to-day and Michael Yokay takes the lead on CereTax’s communication and energy divisions, both agree that the future of telecom tax is about moving faster, getting smarter, and building tools that make complex compliance feel simple.
Built on Hard Lessons
Ask Brent what inspired the telecom side of CereTax, and he’ll tell you it wasn’t a flash of genius. It was frustration.
“We saw customers struggling with systems that weren’t built for telecom,” he says. “You can’t process millions of call detail records and billing entries on a system designed for ecommerce. The data loads alone are massive. If your tax engine can’t keep up, you’re not just missing reports—you’re missing revenue.”
Telecom billing isn’t one invoice and a few line items. It’s usage data, bundled products, jurisdiction-based rates, surcharges, and compliance layers that shift constantly. That complexity is what CereTax was built to handle.
“The idea was simple,” Brent says. “Make performance scalable. Make reporting flexible. And make sure no one’s paying enterprise-level costs just to stay compliant.”
The Handoff: Michael Steps In
Michael joined CereTax just over a year ago after more than two decades in telecom tax, regulatory, and compliance work.
“I’ve spent more than twenty years in telecom tax and compliance,” he says. “When you live in that world long enough, you start to see patterns—the same problems, the same inefficiencies. CereTax had already solved so many of those. It felt like the right place to dig in.”
For Michael, the telecom tax landscape is constantly shifting. “Compliance is a full-time job,” he says. “New boundaries, new bundles, new fees—it never stops. Automation isn’t a nice-to-have anymore. It’s survival.”
That’s where CereTax stands apart—by making the connections that keep providers moving. “Every telecom provider needs three things: a billing system, a tax engine, and a compliance partner,” Michael explains. “CereTax already connects those dots. You don’t need to reinvent your workflow every time something shifts.”
Communications Experience Drives Innovation
Both Brent and Michael agree: technology alone doesn’t solve telecom’s tax headaches—experience does.
“Our telecom team has people who’ve worked inside carriers, billing companies, and consulting firms,” Michael says. “They know where the real problems hide. That’s the difference. You can’t fake telecom experience.”
Brent nods to that as the secret ingredient that kept CereTax competitive from day one. “It’s easy to underestimate how much domain knowledge matters,” he says. “We weren’t just coding tax logic—we were designing around the way telecom really operates.”
From Performance to Precision
If the first chapter of CereTax was about speed, the next one is about precision.
CereTax’s GIS technology now maps tax boundaries using latitude and longitude instead of zip codes—achieving what Michael calls “rooftop accuracy.” That matters in telecom, where taxes can vary within a few hundred feet, especially for mobility and 911 surcharges.
“It’s not enough to be fast,” Michael says. “You have to be right. GIS accuracy means providers can trust that every single location is taxed correctly the first time.”
What’s Next: Smarter Tools, Better Insight
The next wave of CereTax innovation focuses on visibility. With the upcoming portal upgrade, telecom providers will be able to customize alerts, drill into rates, and understand exactly how a tax was calculated—all in real time.
“Telecom companies already have so much data,” Michael says. “The challenge is turning that into insight. We’re giving them the tools to do that—faster and cleaner.”
Brent’s Parting Advice
Brent’s advice for telecom companies still wrestling with tax and compliance is simple: just start.
“Don’t overthink it,” he says. “The biggest mistakes we see come from companies that freeze because it all feels confusing—or even a little scary. You hear words like ‘federal’ or ‘regulatory’ and it sounds so ominous, so people put it off.”
His recommendation? Get help early. “Find the right consulting team first and get a handle on it,” he says. “Don’t assume things won’t catch up to you. It’s really not that bad once you start working with the right people.”
Brent believes the right team makes all the difference. “Don’t be intimidated by the telecom tax acronyms or all the moving parts,” he says. “You don’t have to have every answer before you reach out for help. There are plenty of experts—inside and outside CereTax—who live and breathe this stuff and can guide you through it.”
A Shared Vision for the Future
The conversation between Brent and Michael feels less like a handoff and more like a relay. Brent built the foundation; Michael is building the next phase.
“CereTax was born from the frustration of what didn’t work,” Brent says. “Now it’s about showing the industry what’s possible when it does.”
Michael agrees. “Telecom providers deserve technology that’s fast, accurate, and built by people who actually understand the business. That’s the CereTax difference.”
From performance to precision, and from legacy to leadership, the next chapter of telecom tax is already underway—and it’s running on the CereTax telecom solution.
Ready to simplify telecom tax once and for all? Talk to our team about how CereTax can power accurate, automated sales tax for every transaction—no lag, no guesswork. Get in touch
