New Avalara-Taxware Partnership Brings Unprecedented Level of Sales Tax Sophistication to Small Businesses

- Taxware's equity position strengthens Avalara's unique ability to bring world-class transaction tax technology to even the smallest companies -

Bainbridge Island, Washington - July 12, 2005:   A new strategic partnership between Avalara (http://www.avalara.com), top technology provider to the emerging SMB tax-calculation marketplace, and Taxware, a global tax calculation and compliance solutions provider and a First Data Corporation (NYSE: FDC) Company, will result in new depth of functionality to Avalara's sales tax compliance solution, while retaining the pricing and simplicity that makes it popular with small and medium businesses.

"With this alliance, Taxware has chosen Avalara to be its "conduit" to the SMB marketplace.  The agreement provides Taxware an equity position in Avalara, and immensely strengthens Avalara's content and technology," Avalara CEO Jared Vogt said.  "Now SMB customers can get a level of service and content that has only been previously available to Fortune 1000 companies." 

The new agreement also enhances Avalara's offerings, with three of Taxware's most significant services: 

• Taxware's highly-regarded Taxability Matrix, which covers thousands of industry-specific product, service, entity and use based rules
  
• TaxSolver, the industry-leading remittance form and report platform
  
• Taxware's international rate and Value-Added Tax (VAT) content, which enables calculation of international value-added taxes for more than 150 countries.

Previously these Taxware services were only available to the "Fortune 1000" clients that Taxware has traditionally served.  However, with this new equity-based alliance, Avalara will now be able to bring these high-end tools to its growing base of small and medium market clients.  "These added services will now help our clients and their accountants simplify a wide range of tax accounting procedures, while minimizing the risks and costs associated with both sales and use tax and international VAT compliance," Vogt added. "In addition it provides our small and medium-market clients with the best of both worlds: the incredible ease of use and Web-based simplicity of Avalara's service, along with the depth and breadth of transaction tax expertise provided by Taxware," Vogt explained.

"Avalara provides a critical service for any small or medium-size business that wants has to manage the complexity of sales tax," said David Treinen, President of First Data Government Solutions. "This partnership extends Avalara's offerings with new technology and content that will make that offering even better.

"Taxware was first to market with solutions for multi-jurisdictional, international and Internet transactions," said Treinen. "Today, we are looking at another "industry first" - in partnership with Avalara, we have the ability to provide a solution for companies of all sizes, from the world's largest global corporations to small, emerging businesses."

Under terms of this new, equity-based strategic partnership, these new offerings will be available through Avalara's fast-growing network of value-added resellers - giving them, for the first time, the opportunity to offer Taxware's high-end solutions to its SMB clients.

About AvaTax ST™
AvaTax ST is an SMB market-leading, Web-service-based sales tax solution that that instantly and accurately calculates sales tax for clients in any of the more than 8,000 taxing jurisdictions in the U.S.; provides detailed, real-time reporting; and automatically generating pre-populated returns. 

AvaTax ST comes integrated with the most popular SMB financial applications serving more businesses any other solution on the market today, including Intuit's QuickBooks, Sage Software's MAS 90® and MAS 200®, ACCPAC International's Advantage Series", Epicor's iScala, and Great Plains, Navision®, and MS Small Business Financials from Microsoft Business Solutions.  Additionally, with AvaTax On-Demand™ a developer can integrate Avalara's sales tax Web service with any e-commerce, third party or custom-build solution with use of a comprehensive Software Developer's Kit (SDK). 

About Avalara
Headquartered on Bainbridge Island near Seattle, Washington, Avalara is changing the sales and use tax landscape by delivering innovative and affordable solutions to small and medium businesses. Led by a team of industry experts in sales and use tax, and security and information technology, Avalara is focused on providing the easiest, most accurate and affordable way for businesses to address all their statutory sales and use tax requirements.  Additional news and information is available at www.avalara.com.

About Taxware
Taxware, a First Data Company, is a leading developer of global commercial tax compliance systems. For more than 25 years, Taxware's products have simplified the tax calculation and compliance process with solutions for sales, use, value added and other consumption taxes for businesses around the globe. By combining expert knowledge of the most current research and changes in tax legislation with the best available automated processes, Taxware has developed comprehensive solutions that facilitate compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley, serving as the control for corporate transaction tax operations. To learn more about Taxware, please visit www.taxware.com.

About First Data Corporation
First Data Corp. (NYSE: FDC) is a leading provider of electronic commerce and payment solutions for businesses and consumers worldwide. Serving 4.1 million merchant locations, 1,400 card issuers and millions of consumers, First Data powers the global economy by making it easy, fast and secure for people and businesses around the world to buy goods and services using virtually any form of payment. The company's portfolio of services and solutions includes credit, debit, private-label, smart and stored-value card issuing and merchant transaction processing services; money transfer services; money orders; fraud protection and authentication solutions; check guarantee and verification services through TeleCheck; as well as Internet commerce and mobile solutions. The company's STAR Network offers PIN-secured debit acceptance at 1.6 million ATM and retail locations. For more information, visit www.firstdata.com.

For more information about Avalara, contact:
Ned Barnett, ned@barnettmarcom.com, 702-696-1200 or
Daryl Toor, dtoor@attentiongroup.com, 770-779-9489
Christina Opalka, christinao@avalara.com, 206 780 7035

Taxware contact:
Dan Dent, ddent@citigatecunningham.com, 617-374-4233