Tax Rep Network - Eric Green | Timalyn Bowens | $100K Mark

Eric Green sits down with “America’s Favorite EA,” Timalyn Bowens, to talk about why now is the moment for tax pros to step up, get their EA, and start building real businesses – not just jobs. They dig into how the EA credential opens doors far beyond tax prep, why so many pros get stuck at the $100K mark, and what it actually takes to scale toward a million-dollar practice with automation, advisory work, and smart systems. Timalyn also shares her journey from public accounting to running a virtual firm, the mindset shifts that beat imposter syndrome, and how community, mentorship, and consistency can transform your career one step at a time.

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From $100K to $1 Million

Owning Your EA Power with America’s Favorite EA, Timalyn Bowens

Everyone, thank you for joining us. It took a while to get this together, but I am joined by America’s favorite EA, Timalyn Bowens. Thank you for taking the time. It was funny. I said, “Do we really have to do this?” Timbaland was like, “I literally have a window. Let us do it.” We are here. I am actually a fan of hers. She has a YouTube channel, a podcast. In fact, to do you justice, I actually have my notes.

She is the owner of Bowens Tax Solutions, a virtual firm based in Louisville, Kentucky. She is a major educator in this space and is filling the tax literacy gap with her blog, Tax Tips with Timalyn, and the podcast, Tax Relief with Timalyn Bowens. I generally watch the YouTube channel. You can listen to it on the podcast channels as well. She started her career in public accounting, like I did. She is doing a lot of good in this space. Before that, how are you?

I am doing good. It is my honor to be here. As you said, I am glad it worked out. We had this window because we have been trying to get this together. I am excited to talk tax rep and EA world and all the stuff with you.

Why More People Are Interested In Becoming EA

Originally, how I found you is that we had members who mentioned that they followed you, so I started listening and following. I feel like there is a lot more interest from tax preparers to finally get their EA. Is that what you are seeing? What do you think is behind it aside from you?

People are noticing the opportunities that the EA credential can open up. One of the things that a lot of people that I have encountered did not realize before is that they do not have to have an accounting degree. They do not have to have a law degree like you. I share, “I get to argue with the IRS and get paid for it without having the student loan debt from law school.” There is that. Also, recognizing the impact that they can have on other people’s lives as well by getting this credential.

 

Tax Rep Network - Eric Green | Timalyn Bowens | $100K Mark

 

I agree with all of that. First of all, for the audience, if you are not enrolled, there is some level of credibility in having the designation. You have proven, you took the test, and you have a baseline of knowledge. I do not mean to be rude, but I will be honest. My law partner is naive. We were going to bring somebody in for a non-filer case or to assist. It is not going to be someone who is unenrolled.

This is the lawyer in me. The reason for that was, I will tell you the truth. On the forensic side, Don Brolin, I do not know if you know Don Brolin. Don is an old friend of mine. I urged her to get the CFE. I told her at some point, my law partners, Jeff, Lisa, “They will not use you if you do not have the initials after your name. If we have to put you on the stand, how do we prove you are an expert?

You could be the greatest forensic person in the world, but if you do not have any designation, we are going to have a very difficult time convincing anyone you are an expert.” The EA sends a message. It is certainly good for your marketing if you include that. It does allow you to represent people before the IRS. Even if you do not necessarily want to focus on resolution or representation, the ability to get transcripts, talk to the IRS, get a whole whatever.

If there is an audit notice, you are not trying to do this. I will be honest, if you are an EA, you can do 95% of the things I do. The only time you would have a problem is in a criminal case. Frankly, there are not that many of them. I had that once. I had a CPA come up. He said, “Look, Eric, why don’t you refer all your other work to us. You guys just focus on the criminal work.” I will prove in three months how I can go broke.

There are just more criminal cases. There just are not that many of them. There is a huge need for that. I have found that folks who are EAs are more entrepreneurial. Not always. We have some CPA tax rep members who are very entrepreneurial. I find that the folks who have their EA tend to be more entrepreneurial. The reason I say that I think it is important. I think that is where this industry is going.

I would agree.

If you are somebody who wants to just sit and do returns, I hope you are 70 because you are a dodo bird. That is going to be going away between automation AI and the rest. This is going back to fall 2019. At our IRS Rep Summit at Mohegan Sun, I had the chief CIOs, the Chief Information Officers from Markham, EisnerAmper, Citrin Cooperman, and Marks Paneth.

They are all big regional firms in the Northeast, with 500 to 1,000 accountants. Across the board, they all basically predicted and nobody at their firm will be doing tax returns, they said, by 2020. They have the whole process automated. What they are really looking for in terms of folks who ran. You do not even need to have an accounting degree. They are looking for young people who are smart and driven, who can become consultants and advisors.

How $100K Became The Magic Number

That is where the whole industry is going. One reason to get your EA is to be able to do advisory and rep and all of the other stuff. Automate as much of this as possible. Take it from a practice to a business. I noticed, Timalyn, you have one episode out about how to make $100,000. My tagline for years was add $100,000 to your bottom line. I know where I came up with $100,000. What made you pick that number?

I do not know who made the thing, but a lot of people that I spoke to had that as their goal. People magically went from that to a million dollars. I kept seeing people within my community and peers wanting to hit that first goal of $100,000. Going back a little bit to what you said, I do see more people driven to be entrepreneurs in the EA community. That can be a good thing, but it can also be a crutch.

More people in the EA community are driven to be entrepreneurs, which can be a good thing and a crutch at the same time. Share on X

I will explain because coming up in the CPA world, everyone wants to work in a firm, and they take more advantage of human capital. We are going to hire people, make as much money as we can. It is a trend I have seen. EAs are like, “I am going to come in and do all the work.”

There are no systems in place and no processes. For me, coming from CPA firm experience, I was like, “If I just put this process in place, $100,000 is not that bad. It is just the science of magic numbers.” Seeing my peers and people within the mentor community being like, “I just want to make that first $100,000 because I do not have as much overhead.”

That is still like, “I have to be the bearer of bad news with this entrepreneurship journey.” You are not making $80,000 because you still have to pay taxes, too. That is where I came up with that number because I had to think about where I was when I started. I said, “I am going to focus on this full-time once my daughter goes to kindergarten.” It was a privilege for me to have experience in public accounting and being able to take the systems and things that I saw.

I was able to do it in less than twelve months. Because I had that background, where you do not have to have an accounting background or experience working under somebody as an EA, it is invaluable. It definitely put me ahead of the learning curve. I was like, “Let me try to show that and break down a roadmap to help other people see that it is achievable for them too.

How To Deal With Imposter Syndrome

I came up with $100,000. I was asked, “How much money can I make?” The sky is the limit, but that does not answer anyone’s question. I looked at my average fees. This goes back ten years. The average fee across all my cases was $8,350. I said, “If you can get one client a month, you could add $100,000 to your bottom line.”

That is where it came from. Add $100,000 to your line. Honestly, I figured it was such a low bar that I could really push all the tax rep members to hit it. Not all do. Enough of them were doing it. They were like, “What is the next thing?” I did not have another thing. I am like, “I do not know, 150?” Somebody said to me, “How do I get to a million?”

We adopted the build-a-million-dollar practice because I do not know about you. I found I got to $100,000, $150,000, I marched up to around $200,000, $250,000 in terms of just what I was generating revenue, and it leveled out. What made the difference is a great book on this about scaling, where they basically challenge the class to double their income in six months.

What they point out in the book, the authors, if you have to double in six months, let us be honest. If I said, “Look, you are at $250,000, I want you to get to $300,000. No offense, small price increase, get a few referrals, you are there.” You are not really making that big progress. They said, “If you have to double, all of a sudden you have to start thinking, how am I going to get that explosive growth?”

You start thinking about things you had not thought about before, partnering with other organizations, all kinds of outside-the-box things to really leap. That is what I ended up doing. All of a sudden, I discovered public speaking. I would be getting 4, 5, 6 clients a week referred because I just kept going. I drove all over Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island.

I spoke in beer halls, Veterans of Foreign Wars. I did one in an Irish bar. The person in the front row fell asleep because they wanted me to do it from 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM. They came from work or whatever. I remember the person in the front row fell asleep. That is what I think. I went from like $250,000 to five or $550,000. When I came up with the million, my message out to my folks, the tax rep members were, “Look, you can keep growing.

You can just go along. That is if you want. Not everybody wants the same thing. If you are looking for explosive growth, here are some ideas you overcome your fear.” That is a big one. You have obviously gotten over it. I managed to get over it. The public speaking thing, I have them. I am like, “Really? A middle-aged Jewish guy with a lisp and glasses. I do it. You cannot?” It takes some poking and prodding. Now with AI, you do not even have to do it. Your avatar can do it.

That is true. There are so many different tools available now. People suffer or struggle so much with imposter syndrome. I do not know who made a million dollars, the next cool thing. I remember before we actually even met on Zoom, I was like, “Yeah, I read your book.” I felt validated because I was like, Eric was just an organic, grinded-out person like I was.

I remember when I started Tax Tips with Timalyn, somebody I viewed as a mentor told me, “If you write, you are not going to make any clients or get any clients from that.” What I have to remind people is to make sure they lean into their strengths. Yeah, YouTube is great. I get more calls from YouTube, but the more qualified client is going to come from the podcast and the blog. It is a long game. You have to be consistent.

What I have told people is, “Will your website get you clients? No. Will your podcast? No. Will the blog? No.” If you are doing this consistently, people now go looking. They either find you or get referred to you. The people that you referred to me are going to look at the website. They are going to go and Google me.

That is the world today. What they are going to see is that I am clearly the person. I have a podcast and a blog, and a YouTube channel, whatever. To me, it all feels like a chaotic mess. To them, all this guy talks about. I prefer blogs. I like the way I can get stuff across. People like the video because they get to see and hear me.

Why EAs Need To Learn How To Invest In Themselves

There is a comfort level with that. The biggest thing I have told folks, I do not know if you have discovered this. I did. Do not fake your way through it. People can smell insincerity. If you are you, assuming you are a decent person, people will warm up to you. I am curious about the EAs or new EAs that you see coming through. Are there certain mistakes you see people making?

You hit that first one right on the head. Not being themselves and genuine. I love to write. I am a tax nerd. I will go explore stuff and write about it. That is who I am. Same thing with video. I will have people tell me, like, “I cannot do the podcast.” I am like, “The podcast that people actually see me as the subject matter expert for is audio only. I wish I had known about that before, and not having to edit.”

We have people who are not genuine. When they actually connect with a prospect, they are running into a different person, like, “Who are you?” Another major mistake that I see, again, because in the EA world, it is more entrepreneurial-driven and not building a firm with employees. We have people with no tax or accounting experience who feel like they are alone on an island. They do not go to find community. They do not go find mentorship. Can they make the balance worse? Potentially, if they filed a return wrong or late, it would still add more time because maybe you submitted an OIC. It is a pretty clear case that they are not going to be eligible for that.

Now you have added 6 to 9 months, so the IRS can collect all because I do not know, if we want to look at it as fear or pride and ego, you did not reach out and ask for help. You did not say like, “This is an investment in my business.” Some mentorship happens organically. Some of it you have to pay for, but if you are building your business, it is an investment worth making in yourself and your business.

That has been my feeling. You need to invest in yourself. If you want to get healthier, you do not have to belong to a gym, but going to the gym is going to be a good investment, generally, assuming you go. Any of this stuff, if you are spending the time studying for the EA.

I can assure you, if you get your EA, it will pay for itself many times over. It really is if you are your business, you really need to invest in yourself, education, your health, all of that. Nowadays, automation and software. I literally just had on the podcast last week, Michelle Seiler Tucker, who wrote the bestselling book Exit Rich.

 

Tax Rep Network - Eric Green | Timalyn Bowens | $100K Mark

 

She is an M&A person. She buys and sells practices and all that. What she told us was, “If you are somebody who is sitting there doing returns, you can probably expect to get paid $0.8 times your EBITDA.” Suppose we show up and you have got multiple streams of income, advisory, rep, return preparation, bookkeeping, and you have automated this, you have automated the bookkeeping to a third party, whatever you have done with that, you have automated your return prep, Bruntwork list, all that stuff.

You have automated your engagement letters, the upfront payments, all that, or you are in subscription pricing. She said, “I can get you $1.3 times gross revenue.” In that million-dollar practice, one person will get $400,000. The person who is automated with the same revenue is going to get $1.3 because people want to buy a business, not a job. All of the automation these days, I speak at Scaling New Heights.

It is the largest accounting tech conference in the country. I have had folks come up to me, walk around, and be like, “Who needs all this? I do not think you need all of it,” but there are certain aspects of that. First of all, make your life easier, all of that. If you view your business as an asset, I would want to make my asset the most valuable it can be. The investment in yourself thing and your practice is big, both again, the education, your own health, but also the actual infrastructure, your tech stack is big.

I would say, too, I do not think when people pass the EA exam, they realize the authority that they have, that only two other credentialed professionals have. I see the issue with people not walking in their authority. Maybe they do not understand what that authority is. I encourage them to read Circular 230 again, not just for the sake of preparing or asking for enrollment privileges, but that not full understanding of how powerful it is shows up in their marketing or lack of marketing.

I have people complaining. Nobody knows what it is. That is my sweet spot. I would love to tell you what an enrolled agent is. So much so that YouTube is now paying me to tell you what an enrolled agent is. You can capitalize on the fact that there is not a lot of information out there about it. Unless you go to the IRS website or an EA review system.

I am not trying to sell you on anything yet. I am just telling you how I can help you. I have the authority to step into your shoes and be your mouthpiece and negotiate this IRS issue. It is a team effort. You do not have to deal with your fear of the IRS because I am here to partner with you and do that. I like to see that light bulb go off in EAs’ heads like, “I am somebody.” I am like, “Yeah. Do not forget it when you send that invoice either.”

It is similar. Years ago, an older tax attorney she was an EA. I met her at the Connecticut combined dinners. The Society of CPAs, the Tax Bar, and the EA Society, where we would have a joint dinner and invite someone from the IRS or Department of Revenue, or whoever. I was sitting next to her. She told me she was an EA. She passed the US Tax Court exam, which is very difficult. I honestly do not recommend it.

It is a lot of time, a lot of effort. I do not think you are going to get enough tax court work to justify the hours you are going to put into it. This is me. What she did say is, she discovered nobody. The public is very impressed by this stuff. Her marketing was that not only was she licensed by the IRS to deal with the IRS and resolve issues with the IRS, but she was also authorized to practice in the United States Tax Court.

Now, 99% of clients will never need that. She said, “They are very impressed. She would actually take cases from law firms and everything else.” The lesson is that if no one knows what an EA is, they do not have to. Arguably, maybe we are better off if they do not know what it is. What you really want to do is be able to tell them, “I am licensed by the IRS to deal with the IRS, whether it is your return, resolving a tax issue, or any other issue you have.”

Clients will be very impressed by that. Taxpayers are going to be like, “I do not know about all these other people, but they are licensed by the IRS. I am going to go with them.” The other thing is, you do have real power, which is good and bad. I have had to explain to them that when you are on a power of attorney, what you are saying things on the record. I have had folks say, “I was not really sure of the answer, so I guessed.”

We do not guess. Tell them you do not know. It is funny. I have a client who got audited. Criminal investigators ended up showing up at one point. He gets my name, calls me. I said, “I am thinking, what is going on? Cash, whatever?” He said, “Nothing. I do not, I have no idea what they are talking about,” which is unusual. Usually, they come to me and they are like, “I think I got caught.” I literally said, “I have no idea what they are talking about.”

I speak to them. The lead investigator said, “We need to know who the silent partner is. Name, ID number, address, something.” I am like, “I will talk to the client.” I call the client. I am like, “I do not have a silent partner. I do not know what they are talking about.” I speak to the accountant. I called the criminal investigator back.

I said, “There is no silent partner. He literally has no idea what you are talking about.” I know that the agent. He said, “That is not what the accountant told us.” “Really?” I called the accountant, who is unenrolled by the way, as an aside. I said, “They are asking about a silent partner. They said, “You told them this.” He said, “They mentioned with the auditor,” when it was a civil audit. He mentioned, “The guy does really well. He makes a lot of money. I told him, I think he has a silent partner.”

I said, “Why did you say that?” He said, “I do not know. I just thought he probably does.” First of all, what a strange thing to come up with. He’s very successful. He must have a silent partner is just like it is in the realm of weird. It took two and a half years of a criminal investigation, pulling his bank records. They actually sent us reports every time he went in and out of the country. They wanted to know where he went and why.

Did he report more? Did he have more than 10,000? It was a real surgical review of him. In the end, they returned it to civil. It was nothing. It cost them $25,000 in legal fees and all the rest. I can tell you right now, the fear you do not want. I do this for a living. I would not want to be the target of a criminal investigation by the government. I have seen clients on the receiving end of that. I will tell you, even if you did nothing wrong, they are going to try to figure out a way to find something wrong.

That is the part I find most disturbing about the system. While we are on this weird topic, I had a client who is a police officer. At one point during his service, actually getting a bad guy in the struggle that ensues, he breaks his trigger finger. He is on disability. He gets audited. The auditor sees all these other deposits. The claims unreported, it has got to be criminal. Refers it. What he did was he collected, bought, and sold guns. If you are not a gun person, I have learned more about guns than I ever wanted to know. They do not tend.

That is the cool part of the job. You get to learn about all kinds of stuff.

You learn about all kinds of people. In the buying and selling of guns, if you go and buy a Glock 17 for $700 or whatever, and you sell it a year later, it is worth $675. If you bought someone else’s, it is $710. They do not go up and down in value very much. They are polymer, plastic, whatever.

Unless you have George Washington’s gun from the Battle of Brooklyn Heights, they do not. If it is personal, you have a cost basis. All these things that he did not think he had to report because it is his personal gun. Why would he have to report a sale? Net-net, he owes him barely anything, like $1,200 over three years or some nonsense like that.

The criminal guys are not closing the case in 6 months or 9 months. I finally got one of them. I said, “What are you doing?” They said, “We looked into his disability claim, thinking maybe he committed insurance fraud, but apparently, I guess it was his trigger finger. I guess that is legitimate.” I was like, “Are you insane?” This is what they do.

Why Mindset Matters And How To Believe In Yourself

They are going to try to find something. That is the part that really bothers me about our system. It is still the best system in the world, but it is not perfect. Anyway, to bring this back, when you are in a power of attorney, you are making legal statements. Do not guess. I think he has a silent partner. Again, it is such a weird thing to think.

Unless the client told you, “Look, I got a partner, he helps me here and there, some of the money goes to him.” That is a different issue. In which case, you should not be filing the return because you know it is not accurate. That said, within EA, this comes down to we are dancing around, but it is really a mindset.

If you understand you have a license, it is powerful. The public would be impressed if you actually explained what you can do. You go about building your practice to be a business that can deliver that. I do not see why you cannot give it 2 to 3, 4 years, why you cannot build to a million dollars. Anyone can make a million dollars. I do not think that if you are going to do returns the historical traditional way, you are going to want it.

You are going to want to kill yourself, the number of hours it is going to take. If you can put the pieces in place, outsource what you need to, maybe you can find 1 or 2 good employees, which is tough to do these days, people who want to work. You can build a very profitable practice that can be completely virtual. You can run from anywhere. What I am falling on is that it is about mindset.

At 110%, when I did the EA Bootcamp, it was funny because the first session I did, I called it business foundation. People think we are going to do a business plan. They are excited about that part. It tackled more so the mindset because we looked at the vision and then what rules do you have to live by to actually get there, the principles and things that you have to believe about yourself. Everybody was like, aiming for and missing these goals, but it all fell back to something that they did not believe about themselves. We are always our biggest stumbling block when it comes to building a business out.

In whatever you do, you have to believe in yourself. Share on X

When I played college football. There was hanging in the locker room a sign, “Hard work beats talent when talent does not work hard.” Most of life is just showing up and working. Most people give up because of fear. Fear of failure. I fear I will be made fun of. People do not get it.

Other than maybe a musician and a professional athlete, I think everything else just comes down to two questions. What do you want? What are you willing to pay to get it? How hard are you willing to work? I can tell you right now, Jeff and I have built a $5 million law firm. I think we are bright.

Neither of us is a genius, but nobody will outwork us. That is really just it is when I tell my members, say, “Yeah, I have been doing the marketing. I am not getting enough.” Do more. You gave a talk. You got a little bit. Okay. Do it again. Years ago, at our summit, somebody asked like, “What do you do for work-life balance?” I told them the truth. My marketing team did not like it, which is that I have none.

I actually have, in fact, one of the ongoing discussions my wife and I are having, “Now that we are empty nesters, our youngest went off to college, this idea that we could both work 24/7.” That may be that it is not a great plan. We are trying to be a little more disciplined about work ends. We are going to go for a walk. We are going to watch a show. We are going to whatever, not working. So far, we are getting mixed results, but we are working on it. It is a work in progress.

It is a good thing to love the work that you do. I have 6 or 7more years until I am an empty nester. I have to be intentional. I am like, “If I made all this money, but then my daughter does not like me, is that going to be worth it?” Even in those scaling and building phases, making sure that you have certain things set up, because right now, I am a middle schooler. I want a little bit of flexibility, but we have those intentionally. We are women’s basketball fans around here. She has all the games in my calendar. She is like, “I just saw the alert. You did too. We’ve got to leave.”

 

Tax Rep Network - Eric Green | Timalyn Bowens | $100K Mark

 

You cannot get that back. The answer was, I mentioned this in the book, I would get up at in the morning and work until 7:00. They had to get up. They went off to school. The other thing is that no one is bothering me at that time. I am not getting emails and phone calls, and whatever. Now, being middle-aged, that is a little bit harder for me.

On the flip side, they are off in college, and one has graduated. It is not as big a deal now. First of all, you have to figure out what you want. Explain what you want, what you want your practice to look like, what you want your day to look like, your week, your month. Just keep working at it. Most people quit. It is not easy. They quit. If you do not quit, you will outwork them.

Consistency wins the game for sure.

Consistency wins the game. Share on X

Take Everything One Step At A Time

What is the big message from America’s favorite EA to everyone listening to this?

No pressure at all, Eric. I would say the big message is to take one step at a time. I think we set a goal. We try to do it all in one day. Just using what you said, keep working. If you have a goal, but you have the steps at a time that you need to take, it allows you to be consistent. I have found too when I focus on one step, then I can look back and see the progress and appreciate it. When we try to do it all at one time, it is like, “I am not getting anywhere. I am not getting anything done.” We cannot appreciate the moment and how far we have actually come in building. I am preaching to the choir because I still have to be like, “I am doing way better than I was back here.”

It is funny, Ed Mylett, who has a huge podcast and is an influencer. He has built a huge financial services firm. He mentions that whole, how do you overcome? How do you change your mindset and all that? He came from a really rough childhood. He talked about what he called touching the dream. If he had a really good month or whatever, he and his wife would go away, maybe to the Four Seasons. He could golf.

She could go to the spa. He said, “Over time in doing that, you begin to feel like you belong.” He started to get over this imposter syndrome. One of the great things to do, for instance, if someone is a new EA and you are not, why don’t you go to the national conferences like the NAPT, the NAEA has one, AICPA? Get involved in a committee.

First of all, it is amazing how these partners at these big firms are really just like you. They are probably a little bit further ahead. They may have started earlier, who knows? That is what I found at the ABA. I started hanging around with people. I realized, the people I hung around with, Chuck Reddick, who is our former IRS commissioner, and Kathryn Keneally is the former DOJ tax chief.

Day to day, like Kathyn Keneally is a big pizza fan, like I am. You just hang out with them. You know what, their practice is not that dissimilar. The stuff that their headaches are not dissimilar. First of all, you build a network. Secondly, is how I started meeting everyone at the IRS through the committee work. As a chair of the committee, you have to work with your IRS counterpart in terms of panels and conferences and all that stuff. You will volunteer your time.

I am sure we are all like, “Time is money.” This is a good investment. That network is invaluable. That is why I can email them. I say, “Look, I got the situation. Do you have a few minutes?” I have them call and say, “We did that. Here is how we approached it.’ First of all, you are not out there alone. If you put yourself on an island, you have done that to yourself.

You can be a solo and still have an enormous firm at your fingertips because of your network. You do not press the hell out of clients. I went to a client. Sam Bernstein ran the FBAR program for the IRS when the FBAR was a real hot thing. I know Sam from working with the IRS. I get called into one of the big accounting firms that has been bought by a bigger firm.

The partners clearly hated that they had called me because they were all put out. The client said, “Look, we are having this issue, the FBAR penalties, whatever.” I said, “Yeah, but I think the auditor is wrong that the general stand is not to penalize until whatever.” I said, “We just have to get to, ask Sam.” Like, “Who is Sam?” “Sam Bernstein runs the program.”

I pulled out my cell phone. “We call Sam.” Who answers? We are talking about the program. I said, “Look, I am actually sitting with some folks. We have an auditor. Auditors automatically apply all the FBAR penalties.” He said, “Is there any fraud?” I said, “No.” He said, “Was there any reported income?” I said, “No.” He said, “The auditor is wrong. Cite our internal revenue procedure.”

“Send that over to them. If you have a real problem, call me back.” I made $680,000 go away. Within a few weeks, the auditor and supervisor agreed and removed it. I am a hero. I made a phone call. First of all, it impresses the hell out of everyone in the room that I can just call. Anyway, the point is, whatever it is you, I think it was Henry Ford, “Whether you think you can or whether you think you cannot, you are right.”

If you want to do that, build that kind of a network, be able to get people on the phone, you can do it. I will guarantee everyone listening to this, you can do it. It is not going to be overnight. You have to put the effort in. You are going to have to go to these meetings. You actually have to be under 30. You are going to have to actually meet people in person.

Watching YouTube, you will see this. If you are listening to this, I am holding up my phone. I have friends who are on my phone, but the people I meet through my phone are not my friends. Those are random people on social media who think that they are going to sell me a down jacket or whatever nonsense I got last night.

The point being, you can go do this. I am living proof of it. Trust me, if you hung around with me long enough, you would know that I am no genius. It is a matter of knowing what you want. Just spend the time and follow Timalyn because her messaging is very good. Your content is great. I highly recommend people dive in.

It is funny you brought that up because I was teaching a marketing workshop. People, because they see me online, thought that was all I was going to talk about. I said, “I built this business by going around and introducing myself to people, finding out what networking events people.” It sounds like a stalker now, but people whom I wanted to meet were where they were going to be. If I have to pay $50 to get into this luncheon, I am going to go. If nothing else, same thing I told you, Timalyn had a baby. Next time I come. They remember who I am. I had talked about a case that was over $400,000 that I got settled for much less.

They remember me. There is no price tag. Now it will cost you time initially, but not a price tag that you can put on your in-person network. Somebody explained it to me this way. They were like, “If you have fish jumping in the boat, why are you throwing them out?” Every good impression you are building disciples who can sell you better than you can sell yourself.

There is no price tag that you can put on your in-person network. Share on X

You mentioned the whole stalking thing. I will wrap with this. I wanted to do something really with Chuck Reddick when he was the chair of the Civil Criminal Penalties Committee at the ABA. You cannot just get on their panel. There are so many people from the government everything that want to be on these programs.

What happens is that the meetings were on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Saturday afternoon, nobody wanted to do programming. Half the place was empty. The ABA made every committee, every other year, you had to come up with something. Every committee is stuck with this, and nobody wants to do it.

I knew they had the same problem we did. I was sure it closely helped. I went over to Chuck. I said, “I have an idea about doing a criminal employment tax payroll.” We had not done what we had one in years at the ABA. I said, “Would you guys want to co-sponsor with us?” He is like, “We are in.” That is how I got on the committee with Kathryn and Chuck, and all these people at the time. He said, “We are buddies with Victor Song, who was the head of CI at the time.”

Get In Touch With Timalyn

I became friends with Victor through planning this panel and working with them. I get it. You put yourself in a position to meet the people you need to meet or that are worth meeting. We could keep going. This is actually a webinar is really what this should be. We will have to talk about that next. Timalyn, thank you for taking the time. How can people who want to get hold of you do so? What is the best way to reach you?

I am most active on LinkedIn. A lot of people say, “LinkedIn.” I love LinkedIn. It is my personality. I am Timalyn Bowens, EA over there. If they are interested in joining my mentorship program or seeing what classes I have on my platform, they can find those at AmericasFavoriteEA.com.

Also, Tax Tips with Timalyn is the blog. Tax Relief with Timalyn Bowens is the podcast. I do not think you are difficult to find. Like me, you are everywhere. I connect with you generally through LinkedIn because I am also a big LinkedIn fan. Listen, thank you for taking the time. I appreciate you doing this. I appreciate everything you are doing for the community because, listen, you help people create a career. In many ways, it is God’s work.

I thank you for the kind words. As I said, thanks for following up. It was my pleasure to do this. As I said, talk about all things EA tax rep with you.

Thank you, everyone, for listening. I will put a link in the description. If you want to go out and connect with Timalyn, it will be that easy. Until next week on the show. Thank you.

 

 

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About Timalyn Bowens

Tax Rep Network - Eric Green | Timalyn Bowens | $100K MarkTimalyn Bowens is an Enrolled Agent and the owner of Bowens Tax Solutions, a virtual firm based in Louisville, Ky. Timalyn has a passion for educating taxpayers and filling the tax literacy gap via her blog Tax Tips with Timalyn, and podcast, Tax Relief with Timalyn Bowens.

Timalyn began her career in public accounting in 2011 before starting her own firm. In recent years Timalyn noticed a gap in information for individuals without an accounting background who were interested in becoming Enrolled Agents and starting a firm. This led her to launch the America’s Favorite EA platform and start teaching other tax professionals.

Connect with Timalyn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timalynsbowens/

 

 

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