Executive Management Team
Jim DiBenedetto - President and Chief Operating Officer
Prior to co-founding DTS, Jim was a Transaction Tax Senior Manager for KPMG LLP. Since joining KPMG in January 2008, he spent his time assisting clients with sales and use tax
overpayment reviews, systems automation efforts, audit defense resolution, and various other
consulting projects.
Prior to coming to KPMG, Jim spent 7 years as the Associate Director of Transaction Taxes for Verizon Wireless. In that role, he was primarily responsible for
overseeing all transaction tax issues that were associated with more than 6 billion dollars of annual purchases. Additionally, Jim managed multiple transaction tax recovery projects, implemented a
multi-billion dollar purchasing/leasing company, and architected the company’s current purchase order and non-purchase order Use Tax accrual systems.
Prior to joining Verizon Wireless,
Jim spent 6 years as a Manager in Ernst & Young’s Transaction Tax practice. While at Ernst & Young, he conducted numerous research projects, audit defense projects, due diligence projects, reverse audits,
and negotiated settlements. Additionally, he became the Southeast Area liaison for TEAMS exemption certificate software and the product champion for all transaction tax voluntary disclosure
agreements.
EDUCATION
Bachelor of Arts Degree (Economics) - University of Georgia, June 1994
Certified Member of the Institute for Professionals in
Taxation (CMI), 2000
EXTERNAL PUBLICATIONS AND SPEAKING
Tax Association of Georgia (TAG) - Speaker on Bundling Transactions
Institute of Professionals in Taxation (IPT) - Speaker on various tax issues
Tax Executive Institute (TEI) - Speaker on various tax issues
Mark Mercer - Chief Financial and Strategy Officer
Prior to co-founding DTS, Mark was a Tax Managing Director in the Indirect Tax group for KPMG LLP, which he joined in 2004. Mark held geographical and telecommunications industry leadership positions and was a member of the National Indirect Tax Leadership Team. In addition, Mark helped coordinate a national initiative that involved improving practice financial metrics and improving core competencies. Mark served as a frequent speaker for internal training and was a multi-year team member of the internal Quality Performance Review.
Prior to coming to his current roles, Mark worked as the Associate Director of Transaction Tax Audits for Verizon Wireless. At Verizon, he was responsible for coordinating the defense and management of sales, use and telecommunications tax audits for Verizon Wireless and calculating the associated reserve requirements. Mark also managed and advised on various special projects, including the recovery of overpayments, the implementation of an automated audit defense function, analysis of new billing and procurement systems, and drafting of audit defense and waiver policies.
Prior to joining Verizon Wireless, Mark was a Manager at PriceWaterhouseCoopers LLP and a contributing member of the national telecommunications service team and Southeast region state and local team. He managed a wide variety of tax matters involving sales and use tax audit coordination and defense, voluntary disclosures, refund claims, and reserve audits.
Mark began his career as a Banking Officer and later worked for two regional public accounting firms before joining Coopers & Lybrand in 1998.
EDUCATION
Bachelor of Business Administration (Accounting) - Texas A&M University, December 1994
MEMBERSHIPS, EXTERNAL PUBLICATIONS AND SPEAKING
Council on State Taxation (COST) - Speaker on Indirect Tax and FAS 5 issues
Broadband Tax Institute – Member
Institute of Professionals in Taxation (IPT) – Member
Author, "Current Issues & Developments" Internet Tax Advisor - Corporate Business Taxation Monthly
Brent Walker - Chief Technology Officer
Prior to co-founding DTS, Brent was a Senior Manager and East Coast Practice Leader in the Transaction Tax Systems (TTS) Practice for KPMG LLP. Since joining that firm in July 2007, Brent focused on growing their practices in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and Southeast regions.
Brent has sold and successfully implemented several large tax engine projects in each of the regions for companies in the pharmaceutical, healthcare, utilities, manufacturing and telecommunication industries.
Prior to joining the firm, Brent spent 8 years from 1999 to 2006 as Executive Vice President for Burr Wolff, LP - a Houston-based state and local tax consulting and software company. Brent was responsible for the operations of the transaction tax division of the company. The core product offering of the division was STS Corporate, a sales and use tax determination software which he architected prior to joining Burr Wolff. Burr Wolff acquired the technology as part of an asset purchase transaction with the company that Brent previously founded and owned. During his tenure at Burr Wolff, STS was successfully implemented for 25 large companies across the nation in a variety of industries. Along with the STS operations, Brent also managed the consulting resources of the division which recovered almost a hundred million in overpaid sales and use tax on behalf of its clients.
Brent’s experience spans all aspects of the state and local tax industry beginning in 1989 as an sales tax auditor with the Texas State Comptroller of Public Accounts; 1993 to 1995 - industry experience with Lyondell Petrochemical; 1995 to 2007 - technology and consulting with ITS and Burr Wolff; 2007 to 2009 with KPMG.
EDUCATION
Bachelor of Business Administration (Accounting) - Texas State University, May of 1989.
EXTERNAL
PUBLICATIONS AND SPEAKING
Brent has been contributor and speaker on transaction tax issues and technology for The Tax Executive Institute (TEI), and The Institute of Professionals in Taxation (IPT), the Association for Computers in Taxation (ACT) and The American Petroleum Institute (API)
Bill Murray - Chief Product Officer
Prior to co-founding DTS, Bill was an Independent Information Technology Consultant and Project Management Professional (PMP). His experience in business software development spans over 17 years, and for the past six years, Bill has designed and built custom software
solutions for companies in the property tax, oilfield, healthcare, energy, and insurance industries.
Prior to becoming an independent consultant, Bill worked with Hammonds Homes, a Top 100 homebuilder, based in Houston, Texas. As the Vice President of
Technology, Bill was responsible for all application and web development. He also was responsible for the infrastructure support and technology training of multiple divisional and remote offices throughout Texas. Other responsibilities included evaluating and purchasing
computer hardware, software, peripherals, and technical services and negotiating and executing service contracts with business partners. In addition, Bill participated as the Executive Sponsor to a consortium of over 30 of the Top 100 US homebuilders.
Prior to
Hammonds Homes, Bill spent four years with BSI Consulting, an information technology consultancy in Houston, Texas. As a Consultant Manager, Bill helped to expand the start up consultancy from 4 consultants to over 150 consultants. At BSI Consulting, Bill designed and
developed various custom applications and managed multiple software development projects.
EDUCATION
Bachelor of Business Administration (MIS) - Texas A&M University, December 1991
Certified Member of the Project Management Institute (PMI), 2004
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