Brent Watson, CPA

Brent has thirty-two years of practice in sales tax, property tax, and tax incentive programs.  Brent has focused his services for clients in educating personnel, improving sales tax processes, and building rapport with taxing authorities to effectively resolve tax issues on behalf of clients in Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas.  He is an Avalara sales tax software implementation partner.

Brent launched the non-income tax group at Tyson Foods in 1990, then led that group for ten years. He has fifteen years of experience as a consultant and has extensive experience in the manufacturing, oil and gas, construction, and multi-state retailing industries. 

Brent frequently speaks before many organizations including the Oklahoma and Arkansas Societies of CPAs, COPAS, and Institute for Professionals in Taxation.  Additionally, Brent has authored numerous articles for the OSCPA Focus and COPAS Accounts magazines.

Brent is a member of the Institute for Professionals in Taxation, Oklahoma Society of Certified Public Accountants, and the Tulsa Chapter of the Oklahoma Society. 

OSCPA Golden Pen Writers Award – 2022

Mike Hayes, CMI

Mike brings more than 10 years of experience in sales and use and severance tax consulting, with a diverse background of audit defense, compliance, acquisitions, refund reviews, and tax planning.  

Mike previously led a team as Director of Sales and Use Tax with Merit Advisors, LLC and has in depth experience in oil and gas, manufacturing, construction, e-commerce, and retailing industries. Mike has spoken before OSCPA, COPAS, and numerous in-house training seminars for clients. 

Mike is a Certified Member of the Institute for Professionals in Taxation (CMI) and a member of the Petroleum Alliance of Oklahoma.

Haven Willis, CMI

Haven has thirty-five years of experience in sales and use tax matters, including thirty-one years with the Illinois Department of Revenue, auditing for sales tax and business income tax.  She conducted over 500 complex audits of multi-national corporations and partnerships.

Haven’s skillful application of tax law, accounting, and audit methodology (including statistical sampling techniques), as well as her respectful treatment of auditors, enables her to provide great representation to clients who are under audit.

Since joining SALTA in 2018, Haven has served clients with tax recovery projects, audit coordination, compliance reviews, voluntary disclosures, state tax registrations, tax research, sales tax return preparation, due diligence and tax planning.  Haven has recently earned the designation of CMI with the Institute for Professionals in Taxation, signifying her expertise in sales and use taxation.

Chris Saxon

918.951.9623

Chris has over sixteen years’ experience capturing Oklahoma state economic incentives dollars and federal tax credits for clients in multiple industries.  Only a handful of people in Oklahoma have been involved in as many Oklahoma Quality Jobs contracts as Chris has. 

Chris works directly with clients to quickly access eligibility and estimate benefits available.  In addition, Chris works with prospective clients to raise awareness of the programs available to new and existing businesses.  Through this process many learn, for the first time, that programs to help lower the cost of doing business exist.  Other companies that are aware of the programs may simply be reminded and updated on new or changing rules and regulations that may make the program more useful today or in the future.  Once we determine that a client should be eligible for the program, Chris and the SALTA team will guide them through the process of application and continuing compliance to maximize the bottom line result. For other clients who are in the program, but finding it difficult to timely file claims for rebates, SALTA will perform those compliance duties for a reasonable cost, providing assurance the filings are filed timely and all of the benefits that the client is entitled to are received.

A family man, Chris has three children and 4 grandchildren.  When he isn’t entertaining or playing with grandkids, Chris is an avid outdoorsman enjoying fishing and hunting whatever is in season.