With rapidly evolving tax laws and jurisdictional nuances, indirect state and local tax (SALT) management has become a strategic imperative—not just a compliance function. Businesses face increasing pressure to stay compliant, control costs, and uncover opportunities for tax savings, all without expanding headcount or budget.
DMA transforms this challenge into an opportunity. With a holistic approach to SALT strategy, compliance, and advocacy, DMA partners with tax departments to deliver measurable value. Through customized fee structures, cross-functional collaboration, and deep industry expertise—including specialized tax professionals assigned to defined territories for extensive local knowledge—DMA enables companies to solve complex tax challenges without disrupting budgets or workflows.
The Modern SALT Challenge
Enterprises operating across multiple jurisdictions face mounting complexity in property tax, transaction tax, credits and incentives, and unclaimed property. Each state and locality imposes unique rules, reporting requirements, and deadlines—creating administrative burdens, audit risks, and missed opportunities for tax minimization or savings.
Traditional consulting engagements often focus narrowly on compliance or recovery, offering limited long-term value. That’s why companies truly need a strategic partner—one who understands the full tax lifecycle and can integrate seamlessly with existing tax teams to deliver sustainable impact and long-term value.
What Sets DMA Apart from Other Tax Advisory Firms
Corporations often encounter SALT providers who fail to offer sustained relationships, extensive technical insight, or tailored strategies. DMA was built to address these gaps proactively:
National Reach, Local Expertise
DMA’s tax consultants are assigned to specific states and provinces, enabling true local specialization. These teams develop working relationships with assessment authorities and deliver accurate, timely results through informal and formal procedures.
Comprehensive Insight and Proactive Issue Tracking
Our teams actively monitor legislative changes and market trends, ensuring clients are prepared for what’s next.
Full In-House Execution Led by Tenured Experts
Unlike firms that outsource or rely on junior resources, DMA is the largest indirect tax compliance group based solely in the U.S., with all work kept in-house. Tenured experts lead engagements, perform detailed reviews, and provide continuity and authority at every step.
Client-Centric Process and Transparency
Clients review and approve all value and appeal strategies—DMA never proceeds without explicit client consent. A customized protocol is established for every engagement, with detailed reporting at every phase to support knowledge transfer.
Complete Tax Portfolio Access and Visibility
Clients gain real-time access to project status, compliance milestones, and information through the secure DMA Client Portal. This portal also includes forecasting, budgeting tools, and custom reporting capabilities.
Flexible, Customized Pricing
DMA offers a full spectrum of pricing models tailored to the project and the client—from traditional hourly and fixed-fee structures (commonly used for technology implementations and defined-scope engagements) to creative, outcome-tied arrangements. When appropriate, we also offer contingency-based pricing for reviews and appeals. This balanced, customized approach ensures every engagement is aligned with client goals, scope, and budget requirements without limiting options.
Common Market Pain Points & the Value of DMA’s Model
Common shortcomings in traditional advisory models can limit value, increase risk, and strain internal teams. The following market pain points illustrate where traditional models break down—and how DMA’s approach delivers a materially different level of value:
ONE-OFF ENGAGEMENTS THAT LACK CONTINUITY
Across the market, tax advisory relationships are often transactional, specifically focusing on discrete projects that address immediate needs but fail to capture broader strategic potential. This fragmented approach limits knowledge transfer and diminishes long-term value.
DMA takes a partnership-driven approach. Each engagement is treated as part of a sustained partnership aligned with the client’s overarching tax strategy, growth objectives, and operational realities. Through continuous collaboration and strategic integration, DMA ensures tax outcomes that are not only compliant but consistently optimized across the enterprise lifecycle.
FREQUENT STAFF TURNOVER AND LIMITED SENIOR OVERSIGHT
Many firms struggle with staff stability and practitioner expertise. Corporations frequently encounter shifting project teams and limited senior involvement, resulting in variable quality and diminished institutional knowledge. These issues are amplified by industry-wide retention challenges—nearly 40% of advisory firms report insufficient personnel resources to meet client needs.
DMA delivers consistent, senior leadership at every stage. Engagements are led and executed by seasoned consultants with extensive SALT expertise, ensuring accuracy, insight, and accountability from initiation through completion. Our ability to retain top talent is externally validated: DMA is a Certified™ Great Place to Work®, with nearly 90% of employees affirming that it is an exceptional workplace. This commitment to professional growth and collaboration translates directly into consistent client service, continuity, and trusted partnerships.
Generic, One-size-fits-all Approaches
Standardized methodologies may achieve baseline compliance, but they often overlook the distinct operational, structural, and jurisdictional nuances that define each enterprise. Such uniformity can limit strategic opportunities and undercut competitive advantages.
DMA’s solutions are inherently customized. Drawing on decades of cross-industry experience, our consultants tailor strategies to each client’s organizational structure, risk profile, and growth trajectory. Whether optimizing property tax positions, managing complex transaction tax compliance, or structuring incentives for expansion, DMA delivers targeted, actionable guidance grounded in each client’s unique realities.
STRATEGY DEFICIENT COMPLIANCE
Traditional providers tend to view compliance as an end in itself, rather than a platform for strategic advancement. This reactive orientation constrains opportunity identification and limits alignment between tax outcomes and business objectives.
DMA integrates compliance and strategy. We maintain rigorous standards for accuracy and timeliness while embedding proactive planning and lifecycle management into every engagement. Our consultants collaborate across tax functions and business units to uncover inefficiencies, manage risk, and deliver measurable financial results—transforming tax management from a cost center into a source of competitive advantage.
RIGID PRICING MODELS not aligned with client objectives
Fixed fees or hourly billing models often don’t align with the reality of how a client’s business operates. These structures can inadvertently limit collaboration and create incentives that don’t align with client goals or business objectives.
DMA’s pricing model is intentionally adaptive. We design performance-aligned structures reflecting each client’s business priorities and budget parameters, allowing for flexibility based on service scope, realized savings, or credits toward future engagements. By directly linking our success to client outcomes, DMA ensures transparency, cost predictability, and measurable value creation.
TRADITIONAL FIRM MODEL | DMA MODEL |
| Fixed fee or hourly billing, little to no alignment with client objectives | Flexible pricing tied to outcomes, leveraging bundling, and/or credits for creative project funding |
| Heavy use of junior staff, little to no senior-level involvement | Tenured leadership driving every engagement, ensuring continuity |
| Primary focus on solely completing minimum compliance requirements and filings | Holistic approach combining compliance, strategy, advocacy, and optimization |
| Project-by-project engagement with limited follow-through | Ongoing engagement as a seamless extension of your tax department |
| Standardized service offerings and processes across clients | Tailored, industry and jurisdiction-specific strategy and implementation |
DMA’s Holistic, Integrated Model
DMA’s approach to state and local tax is built around collaboration, customization, and continuity. We don’t operate as an outside vendor—we work as an extension of your tax department, helping you streamline processes, mitigate risks, and identify new opportunities for savings and efficiency.
Collaboration: Integrated Expertise, Seamless Execution
Cross-Functional Collaboration
DMA integrates expertise across all SALT disciplines—property tax, transaction tax, tax credits and incentives, and unclaimed property —to deliver comprehensive insight
End-to-End Partnership
DMA provides comprehensive coverage across every aspect of indirect tax within state and local tax:
- Property Tax: Valuation, appeals, compliance, and audit defense
- Transaction Tax: Automation, compliance, M&A support, audit defense and overpayment recovery
- Tax Technology: Integrated tools that enhance accuracy, visibility, and decision-making
- Credits & Incentives: Identification, negotiation, compliance, and audit management
- Unclaimed Property: Advisory, compliance, audit management and defense, software
This enterprise-wide integration ensures a consistent SALT strategy that is proactive, transparent, and aligned with broader business goals.
Customization: Strategies and Structures Built Around You
Custom-Tailored Solutions
DMA develops industry-specific strategies that reflect each client’s structure, jurisdictional footprint, and growth objectives. This industry fluency ensures recommendations are both compliant and commercially strategic—delivering maximum impact and measurable value.
Our consultants bring comprehensive experience across sectors including:
Technology Tailored to Client Workflows
DMA strengthens every engagement with technology designed to simplify complexity and deliver actionable insight. Our TaxARC™ transaction tax analytics platform consolidates data from ERP systems and tax engines to provide real-time visibility into transaction tax positions, automated anomaly detection, and intuitive dashboards that discover overpayments and potential risks. Configured to mirror each client’s existing systems, workflows, and reporting requirements, the TaxARC™ platform creates a customized analytics environment that is both operationally relevant and immediately actionable, empowering tax departments to move faster, improve accuracy, and sustain stronger results without increasing internal workload.
Customized Pricing Aligned with Client Priorities
Recognizing the realities of limited budgets and resource constraints, DMA offers flexible, performance-aligned pricing models designed to make expert partnerships attainable for any enterprise.
Our adaptable structures include, but are not limited to:
- Service bundling to create cost efficiencies across multiple tax areas
- Success-based pricing tied directly to measurable results and realized savings
- Credit options to apply toward future engagements
This approach aligns our incentives with yours, delivering results, transparency, and accountability without expanding your departmental budget.
Continuity: Long-term Partnership and Lasting Value
Sustained Strategic Partnership
DMA’s engagements are designed for long-term success, not short-term deliverables. We function as an ongoing strategic partner providing proactive management, continuous insight, and stability across the lifecycle of your enterprise.
Built on Expertise and Proven Results
For more than 50 years, DMA has helped enterprise-level clients transform tax complexity into clarity. Our senior team of subject matter experts bring decades of hands-on SALT experience across North America, with a proven record of achieving tax savings, process improvement strategies, enhancing compliance, and reducing audit exposure.
The Impact on Your Tax Department
Selecting the wrong SALT adviser can introduce significant hidden costs, missed savings opportunities, unexpected audit exposure, overpaid tax, deferred risks, and internal frustration that can ripple across broader business initiatives. By contrast, partnering with DMA means engaging a firm built for long-term value creation.
DMA transforms the SALT function from just a cost center into a strategic advantage—one that enhances compliance, mitigates risk, and supports sustainable business growth.
DMA:
Builds enduring relationships—not just project-based engagements: Experience a long-term strategic partnership that evolves with your business rather than stopping at one-off solutions.
Deploys tenured experts who understand your business context and operational realities: Benefit from seasoned experts who speak your language and deliver guidance grounded in real-world experience.
Designs tax strategies tailored to your industry, footprint, and growth objectives: Maximize tax efficiency with strategies built around your unique business model, expansion plans, and sector dynamics.
Positions your organization to anticipate and adapt to regulatory, transactional, and structural change: Stay ahead of tax disruption with proactive, forward-looking guidance that helps you navigate complex shifts with confidence.
Provides peace of mind through transparent, client-controlled processes: Maintain full visibility and control with client-approved recommendations and secure, real-time access to engagement details through our Client Portal.
Aligns pricing models with your budget priorities while rewarding measurable outcomes: Invest wisely with flexible pricing that reflects your goals and delivers tangible, performance-driven value.
Partner and Grow Together
Ready to transform State and Local Tax (SALT) complexity into strategic advantage?
Partner with DMA to optimize property and transaction tax, strengthen your indirect tax compliance.