Relationship to Vertex

Tax 2.0 is a limited liability company that is a wholly owned subsidiary of Vertex Inc.

From 2008 until 2011, Vertex was the founding corporate sponsor of Tax 2.0. This sponsorship took the form of supporting a small group of highly motivated corporate tax executives as they came together to articulate a Vision for their profession, and a Mission for Tax 2.0. Vertex will continue to support Tax
2.0 as it seeks to attract new members to its community, and to develop sophisticated resources for its members to use in pursuing tax department operational excellence.

Vertex supports not only the Mission of Tax 2.0, but its commitment to collaboration among tax professionals who bring a wealth of valuable experience and insight which might not otherwise be shared with colleagues in a way that can further the entire tax profession.

In the course of their pursuit of operational excellence, Tax 2.0 members may review and assess the role of technology in their organizations. In some cases they will discover the need to acquire new technologies, and Vertex certainly believes that its solutions may be included in member evaluations. However, Tax 2.0 is not a promotional vehicle for Vertex technologies – it is intended to be a “vendor- neutral” community.

Vertex’s support for Tax 2.0 comes in the form of both financial and human resources. A multi-year funding agreement has been developed to enable the Tax 2.0 community to achieve a degree of financial self-sufficiency. In addition, a small team of Vertex employees develops and executes the operational plans in coordination with the Tax 2.0 Executive Steering Committee and other volunteer leaders.

In response to this member input, several governance and operational components of the Tax 2.0 initiative have been specifically designed to provide assurance of the separation between the it and Vertex. These include:

• Establishing Tax 2.0 as a separate legal entity
• Establishing an Executive Steering Committee and Sub-Committee governing structure, staffed by volunteer corporate tax professionals, to represent the voice of the industry, provide leadership to the initiative and ensure appropriate behavior by Vertex operational resources
• Making membership available to all corporate tax professionals, not only to Vertex customers
• Adopting a proven industry collaborative product development methodology from an innovative third party research firm
• Establishing extensive privacy assurance policies and structures and auditing these on a regular basis
• Establishing guidelines and monitoring the behavior of service and technology providers who are members of our eMarketplace

Members of the community are encouraged to express any concerns about Vertex’s community
involvement to the Executive Steering Committee by contacting Michael Davis, Tax 2.0 Executive Director
at michael.davis@tax2point0.com.