Municipal Sales and Use Tax Auditing Service

The Vendor is required to provide investigate sales/use tax records and identify the recovery of revenue for the city.
- General Strategy
•    Identify strategies for sales and use tax auditing.
•    Provide quality assurance/quality control measures to ensure the auditing of the sales and use tax is error-free.
•    Define the role of city staff and city records as it relates to consultant’s efforts.
•    Interact with the board and with businesses being audited.
•    Provide sales and use tax analysis reports benchmarked to previous years. 
•    Analysis must include successful appeals and a summary of previous five fiscal years.
•    Provide the city on a quarterly and as-needed basis with detailed business and state sale tax information and include any legislative issues or updates.
- Sales and Use Tax Information Services
•    Provide the data in a proprietary software system maintained by consultant or through a non-proprietary system. 
•    Perform monthly updates of sales tax permit registration information. In either case, the data shall be provided in a format allowing the city to export data into an Excel compatible format, allowing for integration of various databases.
•    Provide city staff with as-needed training on the use of the firm’s system. 
•    Update the data in the system each calendar quarter, or on an as needed basis. 
•    Consultant shall provide geographical data mapping capability in its proprietary system or else provide city staff with address data in a format which would allow staff to export and map data.
•    Create and provide the city with an electronic database consisting of the city’s sales and use tax data to facilitate monitoring, analysis and forecasting.
- The database shall include the following features at a minimum:
•    All sales tax producers in the City of Irvine, including business name, address, and board account number and current and historical sales tax allocations.
•    Quarterly updates.
•    Ability for the City to create and maintain subsets of the information based on geographic features (e.g., GIS mapping).
•    Ability to define and print reports.
•    Ability to export all data to a spreadsheet.
•    Provide a sample showing the database layout and file type your firm is proposing.
- Provide written sales tax reports on a quarterly basis to the city in a timely manner, following the receipt of the quarterly distribution report. 
- The reports shall include the following Municipal Sales/Use Tax Auditing:
•    Top sales tax generators ranked by the amount of sales and use tax produced.
•    Analysis of sales trends by business category, identifying by business the major increases and decreases each quarter.
•    Comparisons to other local, county, and state jurisdictions.
•    Sales and use tax projections, updated quarterly.
•    Information regarding state and federal legislative issues, including an analysis of their potential impact on the City.
•    Other reports as mutually agreed upon.
- Provide on a quarterly and as-needed basis, an update of the city’s fiscal year’s forecasted sales tax revenue, utilizing the 60-day accrual convention, and a forecast of next fiscal year’s sales tax revenue.
- Provide an updated budgetary forecast based on 4th quarter sales tax information. 
- Timeline for tasks shall be agreed upon by the City and consultant.

- Contract Period/Term: 1 year
- Questions/Inquires Deadline: August 19, 2025