TaxJar vs Principal Financial Group
Side-by-side comparison of AI visibility scores, market position, and capabilities
Sales tax automation for US e-commerce; acquired by Stripe (2021) and integrated into Stripe Tax; previously served tens of thousands of merchants across all 50 states post-Wayfair ruling.
About
TaxJar is a Portland, Oregon-based sales tax automation platform that was acquired by Stripe in 2021 and subsequently integrated into Stripe Tax, Stripe's native sales tax and VAT calculation product. Founded in 2013, TaxJar built one of the most widely adopted sales tax compliance platforms for e-commerce businesses in the United States, automating the calculation, collection, reporting, and filing of sales tax across all 50 states. Before the Stripe acquisition, TaxJar served tens of thousands of online merchants, marketplaces, and SaaS companies that faced the complex and rapidly evolving U.S. sales tax landscape following the 2018 South Dakota v. Wayfair Supreme Court ruling, which enabled states to impose sales tax collection requirements on out-of-state sellers.\n\nTaxJar's pre-acquisition product addressed the fragmented state-by-state sales tax compliance problem comprehensively: it connected to e-commerce platforms including Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, and Amazon, automatically calculating the correct sales tax rate for every transaction based on origin and destination addresses and product taxability rules. The platform aggregated sales data into state-by-state reports and automatically filed returns directly with state tax authorities, eliminating the manual monthly filing burden that required hours of staff time for merchants with sales in many states. Economic nexus threshold monitoring—tracking whether a merchant had crossed each state's revenue threshold triggering collection obligations—was a key capability given the rapidly changing post-Wayfair compliance landscape.\n\nFollowing the Stripe acquisition, TaxJar's technology forms the foundation of Stripe Tax, which provides real-time tax calculation embedded directly in Stripe's payment processing API. This integration means that any business accepting payments through Stripe can enable automatic sales tax, VAT, and GST calculation and collection without a separate tax software implementation. TaxJar continues as a brand for its AutoFile and reporting services for merchants on platforms outside the core Stripe ecosystem.
Des Moines retirement and asset management (NASDAQ: PFG) at $16.13B 2024 revenue (+18%), $753B AUM; new CEO Deanna Strable (Jan 2025), Ascensus ESOP acquisition (2024), $1.7T AUA competing with Empower for mid-market 401(k).
About
Principal Financial Group, Inc. is a Des Moines, Iowa-based financial services company — publicly traded on NASDAQ (NASDAQ: PFG) as an S&P 500 Financials component — providing retirement savings, asset management, and group insurance and benefits to 61 million customers worldwide through approximately 20,000 employees with $753 billion in assets under management (AUM) as of Q2 2025, $1.7 trillion in assets under administration, and $16.13 billion in 2024 annual revenue (up 18% year-over-year) with net income of $1.57 billion. Founded in 1879 as The Bankers Life Association by Edward Temple and Simon Casady to provide affordable life insurance to Iowans, Principal demutualized and completed its IPO in 2001. Deanna Strable became President and CEO in January 2025 (succeeding Dan Houston), with Joel Pitz named CFO. Principal operates through three segments: Retirement and Income Solutions (RIS — 401(k), 403(b), defined benefit plans, nonqualified executive benefits, pension risk transfer, and individual retirement products), Principal Asset Management (equity, fixed income, real estate, and alternative investments for institutional clients), and Benefits and Protection (group dental, vision, life, and disability insurance). Key acquisitions include AFP Cuprum (Chilean pension, $1.5B, 2012), Wells Fargo's institutional retirement and trust business ($1.2B, 2019, adding 401(k)/pension/ESOP plans), and the 2024 agreement to acquire Ascensus's ESOP business (800 plans, 165,000+ participants). Principal's market capitalization stands at approximately $18.3 billion.
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