In this episode of the Tax Rep Network Podcast, Eric Green and Carlos Samaniego sit down at the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation’s community center for a wide-ranging and candid discussion about the IRS’s current state of disarray and what it means for tax professionals and their clients. From the revolving door of IRS Commissioners to the DOJ’s surprising shift toward denaturalization cases tied to tax filings, they break down how these developments create both risks and opportunities for practitioners. Eric and Carlos also expose troubling practices among large tax resolution firms, explain why state tax agencies like Connecticut and California are often more aggressive than the IRS, and highlight strategies for protecting clients caught in the chaos. Whether you are a tax pro navigating refund lawsuits or competing against the “big box” resolution companies, this conversation delivers real-time insights, war stories, and actionable advice for surviving – and thriving – in today’s turbulent enforcement environment.

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Watch the episode here

 

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IRS Chaos And Taxpayer Fallout: What Practitioners Need To Know With Carlos Samaniego

Welcome to the Tax Rep Network podcast. We are at the Mashantucket Pequot. We’re actually on the reservation land, but we’re in the community center. Thanks to Christina Walker, one of our tax rep members, who invited us here. Carlos Samaniego is in town here in Connecticut. I had to get together and do a podcast, which led to an adventure finding a place to host it, but we’re here. Good trip in, other than the car rental.

Thanks for inviting me, and thank you, Christina, for inviting us to this beautiful land here. This is like the center of the community nation

Replacing IRS Commissioners Rapidly

Remember, in law school, there was actually a course on tribal law, which is obviously different. I remember thinking, “Who would ever study that?” I moved to Connecticut, and then we actually do. I haven’t had to deal with it myself. Although I did have a good criminal W-2, the false GE gambling thing. They were with one of the casinos. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. A story for another podcast. Anyway, I know there’s been a lot going on. A lot of interesting stuff. I made a joke. I have a client who is very involved in the transition committee for President Trump.

There was an issue going on anyway, so I emailed and said, “Look, I’m going to have to get out of this case.” I said, “I may have to anyway, because I’m expecting to get a phone call for the IRS commissioner for the position.” He emailed me, he said, “Excuse me?” I said, “Everyone else seems to be in for this, so why shouldn’t I? I can join the carousel of commissioners.” He actually said, “That’s not funny,” but it’s true. We’ve had acting after acting while we were waiting for Billy Long to get approved. The term is escaping me at the moment, and you’re the one who’s jet-lagged.

This is the seventh one as of this year.

 

 

Confirmed. For a while, we had a different acting each week. They appointed someone acting, and they were like, “I don’t want to do this. I’m leaving.” The next one, “I don’t want to do this.” There was once we had, I think, was it four different commissioners in four weeks. Billy Long was there for I think three weeks, and it seems he was removed. At first, he decided now he was going to be the ambassador to Iceland, which Trump offered him, but then it came out that he was fighting with the Secretary of the Treasury, Bessent, and that’s a no, no.

Wasn’t this guy the auctioneer guy?

Yeah. My understanding is that he has a high school degree. He was an auctioneer. He served about twelve years in the House of Representatives for Missouri, during which he twice put up bills to do away with the IRS. He was going to be the IRS commissioner. I don’t know. The first thing he did was get rid of the direct file, which I understand was a big Republican. I don’t know why. Look, it seems to me, if you want to really make change, I’m sure the lobbyists have all gotten to them, but the direct file. Anyway, I thought it was a very decent idea. Anyway, he wanted to do away with that. Anyway, he ended up clashing. The point is he’s now gone, and Secretary of the Treasury Bessent is now acting commissioner again.

He’s got two jobs going now.

I’m pretty sure he’s both mostly just delegated the IRS one to the people at the IRS.

That goes to show you the chaos that’s happening over there.

The thing that bothers me about all this is that if you go back historically, the IRS commissioner was not a political position. You had commissioners for 12 years or 14 years. In other words, it wasn’t something you gave to a crony. It was somebody who was there. They clearly had a background in this. The stability there was seen as critical. It didn’t start with our current president. I want to say it probably started around Bush Senior, when the commissioner became a political appointee. Every 4 years or 8 years, you get another one. Again, for continuity and all the rest, I don’t agree with. There is a lot of chaos.

Do you think it affects morale a lot at the IRS?

All About The Stalled ERC Refunds

First of all, who’s in charge this week? For us, it is causing problems. For instance, it’s a policy. All the ERC refunds that people are still waiting for. Jeff Sklarz and I have filed one refund suit in 10 years because, what happens for the folks tuning in, to claim a refund, you have to file a return claiming the refund within three years of the due date of the return or within two years after you pay the tax.

To bring a refund suit, the taxpayer has to be able to pay whatever the assessment is, and then pay for lawyers, because when you do this, you’re in federal district court or the federal court of claims. You’re usually talking big dollars. The client feels they have a very strong case because if you sue the IRS and lose, they now have a judgment. Your 10-year collection statute becomes a 20-year federal judgment. These are fights you want to pick carefully. Again, we’d filed 1 in 10 years. You know my reasonable Comp S-Corp story, Bob, the horror story with Bob?

I do.

I’ve done that a number of times. That was the case. We brought the suit. It’s not something we do all the time. We have filed five in the last month. The people who have these ERC refunds, who’ve made the claim for two years, are going to run out. What happens is you make the claim, you have to wait until either it’s denied or six months, but you cannot wait more than two years. We’ve had these accounting firms calling, say, “We filed it two years ago.” I’m like, “What do you mean two years ago?” They’re like, “The two years will be in three weeks.”

We’re like, “No. We’ve got to hurry up and do this.” Where am I going with this? The chaos at the IRS, people aren’t processing things. ERC is stalled, then it starts again, now it’s stalled again. It’s actually going to wreak havoc with taxpayers who, if they or their accountants don’t realize they might blow the two years, which means now you’d better hope the government does it eventually. Otherwise, you’re out of your money. DOJ has to answer these things. DOJ is in chaos because they decided randomly to get rid of the tax division. The tax division is now going to be part of, like I guess, the other division. I don’t know, the whole thing makes no sense to me.

Everybody’s doing everybody else’s job.

It feels like a Dilbert comic.

One of the processes of becoming a naturalized US citizen is having a history of tax filing. However, this is now being used as a way to get to you. Share on X

Do you know what’s interesting? I’m like super jazzed. I’m actually here because getting the opportunity to sit here with Eric to be able to ask these questions, because I know how close you are to a lot of what’s happening.

On that note, I call my friends. I don’t want to name them and said, “Look, I’m trying to get a hold of blah, blah.” They all say they must have sent out an email with this line. They’re like, “Eric, the house is on fire.” I’m like, “Yeah, I know that.” One of them I was trying to get a hold of, it’s like a 990. It’s a non-profit issue, and they actually told me there’s no one left. They got rid of them all. No one down there knows who’s in charge of anything.

We have to try to find this thing. It’s really it is. It’s unnecessary chaos. A lot of the people we knew who came and spoke at the conferences and stuff all took the buyout. Until October 1st, they cannot talk to me. They’re all sitting at home. Do you know what? None of them wants to get in trouble. They’ll lose their retirement.

When they did this, you’re an IRS employee, which means no speaking out a lot without approval, but you cannot come into the office. They’re literally getting paid to sit at home. That was the early buyout. On October 1st, I got a bunch of texts from people, “I got to come on your podcast on October 1st.” I’m like, “I’m happy to have you. We’ll have the litany of people looking forward to it.”

DOJ’s Crack Down On Non-Filers

Obviously, speaking of the leadership changes happening at the top levels of the IRS. I was telling Eric on my flight here that I had read a recent deal that the recent Major change the DOJ is making on its own that raising a lot of eyebrows. That change was the DOJ’s decision to go after the non-filers and people who make mistakes, specifically for denaturalization. We talked a little bit about that. It’s almost like denaturalization has become a priority for the Department of Justice, and they’re now going to use the IRS and IRS records for that.

Here’s the thing. If anybody really wondered if Steve Miller was racist, this, I think, is your evidence. You’ve gone now from, we got to get the criminals that have come across the border, to now we got to get anybody who’s come across the border, even if they’re working and paying taxes, to people who came here, became citizens, and we still want to get rid of them. That, I think, is very indicative of, and again, for the campaign trail. It was the criminals.

All kinds of stats proved that there aren’t these undocumented illegal criminals that are running on a rampage, whatever. At least I’d say, “Look, if you have people here illegally who have committed a crime, I’m all for it.” I think most of them are, and he won. Most Americans were for that. It seems to be devolving into, is there an excuse to really just get rid of anybody? I’m not sure really what the rationale is, other than some good old-fashioned racism that I can come up with, but yeah.

To me, this is an important topic. I live in the heart of Southern California, and obviously a very big immigrant population, and I mean, we’re seeing it daily. We talk about we’re trying to get rid of the illegal immigrants for not being here, but they’re literally yanking people out of the courthouse, trying to do everything legally. Now I’ve even had situations where people who have green cards want to go through the process of getting their spouse an ITIN number. Now they’re like, “Hell no. There is no way in hell we’re going to give the government information on my spouse.” That’s becoming a big issue now.

I actually feel terrible because there are folks that I helped get an ITIN so they could pay their taxes. The hope being that at some point, because the theory was, if your only crime was that you were here illegally, but you didn’t commit any other crimes, you pay your taxes, and at some point they’re going to get their act together, and you can apply for citizenship and go through that. I do think about that. Those people that I’ve helped, are they all sitting at home now waiting because the government knows where they are?

It’s a catch-22 because I know a lot of naturalization attorneys in Southern California, and they’re basically like one of the processes of becoming a naturalized citizen is literally that you need a history of tax filing. Now that the history of tax filing has become a way to get you. What do you do? Obviously, you have a lot of people who have been naturalized citizens for years. I didn’t even realize up until I was on Ancestry.com and saw my grandparents’ documents.

They became naturalized citizens back in the ‘70s. Literally, this is a process that, imagine had they not filed or made a mistake on their tax return, or not filed a tax return, maybe they didn’t have a filing requirement, and now they’re coming after them for not filing. I don’t know. We don’t know. This is just a Pandora’s box, I think it really is right now.

It’s going to be this way for like three more years, and then hopefully the pendulum will swing back the other way. To the point where people who are US citizens feel they have to carry their birth certificate with them, that’s a problem. Is this really what you want America to be? By the way, again, if you’re tuning in to this and you’re pro getting rid of the undocumented, I get it. I think, like everything else, it’s gone overboard. For instance, this isn’t a tax topic, but Kennedy. Who’s for what is it, health and human services, whatever he’s in charge of. I’m all for getting rid of high fructose corn syrup and the red dye and all that. Does he do that? No. What is he going after? Vaccines.

How Tax Professionals Can Deal With Immigration Issues

Everything’s just a little bit extreme. Going back to what we were talking about at lunch. We have this whole process, DOJ, tax mistakes, non-filers, this presents a huge opportunity, I think, and also I was telling you this, for us as tax professionals to reach out to people that deal with immigration issues, for clients that may be non-filers. A lot of people in the immigrant community are self-employed. They make mistakes on their returns or don’t file their tax returns. I know I’m going to be making a concerted effort to at least let those people know that they have those types of clients who were here. I think that’s a big opportunity for a lot of these guys.

Especially for the people who have become citizens who have not filed, given the DOJ’s opinion. I have to tell you, I think if somebody came to me and they were here undocumented, I’m not so sure I’d be advising them to file. I keep an eye on it. I think what I would tell them is, “Look, I can tell you what the rule is, then I can tell you what I would do, which is I don’t know that I would file.”

What about those individuals who are naturalized citizens? They are citizens officially, but they haven’t filed.

 

 

It sounds like DOJ is going to try to make an argument to DD-Nash. Those folks get into the system, get filed, and if you owe a balance, get into a payment plan or be dealing with it. It’s something I never thought we’d see this.

Paying Huge Bucks To The Big Boys

It’s going to be interesting. Obviously, we’re going to keep track of this as things start happening because all this is literally happening in real-time information. Another topic I really want Eric to talk about was something that happened in our firm just this last week. We’ve had like three clients specifically that I mentioned to you that came to us because they went to, I’ll call them the big boys out there.

Those national companies that offer resolution, you hear them on satellite radio.

I hate these guys.

By the way, it’s not because they’re bigger. Whatever bothers me is that, so first, I want to talk about the misleading, then what you raise is really off the wall. There was one of them, again, I won’t name it, give 1-800-SCAMMERS a phone call. They’re experts in the Fresh Start Initiative. My IRS collection guy, the third edition, and now the fourth edition, which is just out, I actually have in the forward. There is no fresh start initiative.

It was in 2012. Great changes were made. They’re permanent. There is no initiative. I joke that “If you call the IRS and ask them about their fresh start initiative, you’ll get 1 of 2 responses either they’ll laugh at you because they’re old enough to know, yeah, you’re about 13 years late,” or “They won’t know what you’re talking about because they were in high school at the time.” There’s no initiative. What bothers me is they know there’s no initiative, but they’re using it as a tactic, that why you should call them.

We’ve had people call us, and we say, “We have to do the analysis. Don’t you know about the Fresh Start program?” “I’m very familiar with it. There is no program. It ended in 2012.” Anyway, we all have someone who’s a tax practitioner. There are ethics rules that are embodied in Circular 230. Publication by the IRS, whether you’re an attorney, EA, CPA, if you’re representing people before the IRS, you’re bound under Circular 230.

It basically says you cannot take a contingent fee, meaning a percentage of what you save or anything like that, except for very limited circumstances. Refund litigation, credits, or trying to get credits refunded, whistleblower cases, they’re very limited. There’s actually a proposal now to do away with them completely. There will be no contingent fees. With that as background, these companies, I cannot do an offer and call, as if Carlos came to me, I cannot do an offer and get a percentage of what I saved.

First of all, you cannot, it’s a violation of the ethics rules. It never made any sense to me either, because we resolved it. You got an offer because you proved you couldn’t pay, now how are you going to pay me? The whole thing never made any sense to me. With that, they cannot get a contingent fee. It sounds like they’ve swung the other way, which is that they just want everything up front.

I have three specific cases, and I want you to talk just in general. The first case was a young lady who came to us. She had paid $10,000 to one of the big boys here, and basically, they said, “You know, they were going to start the process, and like a lot of our clients do.” I was telling Christina earlier, a lot of times people will pay you to get started, and they disappear on you. They just think it’s magically going to get all resolved without any of their input.

They hired you.

That’s something that’s a whole other training in itself, how to deal with that, but she did pay the $10,000, and then she eventually got that CP504, and she’s like, “Shoot. I still got a tax problem going on.” She reached back out to them, and basically, the big boy came back and said, “We need an additional $25,000 to get started.” When you’re considering a tax debt that’s less than $80,000, that’s a pretty big chunk of that tax debt. That’s case one.

The second case was an individual who got what I call the baby hook. A lot of times, these companies will say, “Don’t go to those other people. They’re charging you thousands of dollars to get started with your retainer. We only charge you $500. We’ll do your full investigation.” Which is just a hook.

That hook in the fish to reel you in. He got super excited, got started, and they literally came back to him and they said, “Based on your situation, it’s going to be $45,000 to get started, and I might be off by a couple thousand.” I’m going by memory here, but they wanted $45,000 to get started. He’s just like, “There’s just no way I can do this.” The guy, not even the professional, the salesperson called him back and literally threatened him or extorted him and said that “If you do not get started with us, we’ll just report you to the IRS.” That’s going on a whole different level right there.

A couple of things. First of all, report what? They already know you owe money. I’m not really sure what the threat is there. A, you’re going to report me, but B, that is good old-fashioned extortion.

California will send you a total of three letters, but they will send them to your last known address. Once that happens, all bets are off and they will come after you. Share on X

I’m like, “Wait a second. Are you serious?” He goes, “They basically said they were going to report me.” Obviously, I wasn’t thinking fast enough. They already know about you. That’s why you’re getting the letters.

It’s clearly a scare tactic.

The third one we had was another individual who paid a few thousand dollars to get started. We got all excited. He was have small business owner who had multiple issues going on. He had the IRS, the FTB, and the CDTFA, California sales tax division. They came back with him and said, “It’s 50 thou um was it $50,000? It was an obscene amount of money.”

He’s just like, “Look at my bank account. I don’t have any money.” They’re like, “No problem. We’ll set you up on a $2,900 monthly payment, and when it’s paid, we can get started.” To me, it’s just these massive massive amount of money. They really don’t know what’s going on. We talked about it all that time, doing that investigation to really know what the problem is.

I later found out that the third person they never looked into the California tax problem. They didn’t look into the sales tax problem. With most of these big chain retailers, they’re only dealing with one agency. It’s the IRS, and we both know we’re in the state of Connecticut. These state agencies, and this can be the final topic we talk about here, are the state agencies. They know the IRS is coming fast. Guess what they’re going to be doing?

Why Some States Are More Aggressive Than The IRS

I have found that the state of Connecticut is far more aggressive than the IRS. There are far fewer rules. If you ask the DRS leadership, so for our offers, there are no rules. You just throw s*** at the wall and see what sticks. When you tell them, “Why don’t you like Massachusetts and New York basically follow what the IRS does?” What they’ll tell you is, “It gives us flexibility.” They never use flexibility in favor of the taxpayer. To them, what’s uncollectible is whether they can grab something or not.

I’ve actually had clients that have told me that they they getting wage garnishments, everything else in the state of Connecticut. They won’t budge. They leave. One went to California, one went to Florida, one went where? What I have found is that if you are out of the state for a couple of years, and now you come to do an offer because they cannot get you. I tell people, so I’ve gotten this phone call. They tell me the situation. I’m now in Florida. “What can Connecticut do?” I said, “Look, broadly speaking, if you go and open an account with Bank of America, there’s a branch in Connecticut, they can hit that account.”

If you go to Sunshine State Credit Union, could Connecticut reach it? Yes. They’d have to get a judgment, bring it to Florida, get an attorney to go to court, get it approved in Florida, and then go over to Sunshine State Credit Union, and they’re not going to do it. I said, “After a couple of years of them not being able to reach you, all of a sudden, you’ll find that they will take one of these very low offers just to get rid of it.” There’s a whole strategy that I cannot really go around marketing. If you can, you owe Connecticut a lot of money, leave Connecticut.

I wish I could say that about Cali Claw, the state of California. That’s my nickname, Cali Claw. It’s just they don’t give a damn where you’re at. You live in Florida, so they’re getting your bank account in Florida. You live in Hong Kong. I’ve had clients um an airline pilot from Hong Kong Airlines, reach out to me because they kept on bringing and going after his bank accounts. Again, each state is just so dramatically different, but you just have to be aware.

All these states already know, and Eric is one of the first people who taught me this concept years ago, that if you have a tax issue, I do it in every one of my interviews. People call me up and I have an IRS problem. They’re in shock when I’m like, “Let’s talk about California,” or “What state do you live in?” They’re like, “Wait a second. I’m calling you.” “No, you don’t understand. More than likely, we’ve got time. We got to go deal with your state issue because you don’t have time, or they’re already trying to come after you.”

They’ll come out of the blue. The IRS, if you go through any of our training, there’s a set number of notices that have to go out statutorily. State of Connecticut, you literally get a tax warrant in the mail, and 30 days later, they’re in your account. They garnish your wages. They’re brutal.

California has this thing is that they will send you, it’s three letters total, but they will send them to your last known address, and your last known address could have been ten years ago. Once that has happened, all bets are off. Basically, all bets are off. They’re coming after you.

I had the situation where the state of Connecticut, a few years ago, updated its software, whatever they were doing. It’s going to be great, going to be wonderful, which you know already. It’s like, “Here we go.” I suddenly started getting calls and emails from clients I haven’t seen in a decade. Didn’t we do an offer with Connecticut? Yeah.

They’re saying I owe half a million dollars. The system woke up. Didn’t recognize any of the offers because, apparently, the way they’d been coded back then, I don’t know the technical details of it. I must have had a dozen former offers that were accepted. Of course, you call Connecticut, they’re like, “Get us the acceptance letter.” It was twelve years ago. I don’t even know if I even have the file anymore.”

I ended up going to the director’s collection, and they did have a way of researching it and finding that stuff, but for like three months, and of course, I cannot charge the client for this, and it’s not my fault. At least I didn’t feel like you could charge the client for it. Finally, they got it all straightened out, but what a nightmare. Here’s the thing. What if you didn’t have an attorney? You went and did it yourself. Now you’ve moved. They think you owe money, and they should start garnishing you again.

There has been more resolution business in the last few weeks than in the last several years. Be ready to take that all in. Share on X

Everything Goes Out But Nothing Goes In

I know we’ve got to wrap up. Eric needs to get on that highway rush hour traffic on a Friday here. I’m super excited in regards to just getting us opportunity to do this.

We’re going to do this again in a month.

I’ll be back in a month. My daughter Bella, for you guys, is following. She’s graduating from the Coast Guard Academy boot camp here tomorrow, actually. Thank you for inviting me to your podcast.

This is great. It’s fun because there are changes all the time. I have to tell you, and again, I’m not. I’m really an apolitical person, and I like to tell people I’m an independent voter. I get to hate both parties equally. The one thing that was a relief when Biden won, whatever you think of either of them, is not waking up every morning to those crazy headlines. Now, how much of that was the media versus how much of it was really President Trump?

The point is, all of a sudden, it got quiet and calm for a little while. Now it feels like we’re back to the crazy. Every day there’s something else. I’ll tell you, the marketing in me, I’m the marketing trainer with Tax Rep, and I take advantage of these news headlines because, Christina, you got more content. You can work with them on a daily basis, literally hourly basis. It’s almost impossible to keep up because things are happening so fast.

That’s the funny thing is every month we do a marketing session, Carlos and Kevin generally do it, and we’ve been doing a lot with the AI tool. I emailed Carlos and Kevin about a month and a half ago. I said, “Look, I’m going to create for our members a checklist of here are the different tools.” You’re like, “Yeah, but half that’s already changed.” It’s changing so quickly that every month it’s it feels like it’s not like yes, you’re building on it, but you’re also updating because it changes quickly.”

We were talking at lunch about another tool that I had found that has blown my mind. Again, it’s just that you have to stay on top of this. The important part for you especially if you’re watching this Tax Rep members and people that are thinking about becoming Tax Rep members is that the opportunities there. I’ve seen more resolution business in the last week. The last two weeks have started flooding in. We always talked about the wave for the last four years. We’re literally at the peak of the wave. We’re ready to take that in.

It is. It’s like a broken fire hose. First of all, just with all the chaos, the IRS still had the largest collection year ever, 5.1 trillion. Why? All the automated enforcement is now on. What you have here is, in a way it’s a perfect storm for taxpayers. They let the people go who answer the phones. It’s hard to get through. They’re closing the taxpayer assistance centers and the automated enforcement. The thing about that is there’s no human being to talk to. It just runs. You have people who now have trouble getting a hold of somebody.

We’re having trouble.

I mean, and so what I’ve been getting a lot of is accounting firms sending their clients to me and and they’ll say very bluntly, “Before we would pick up the phone, we would try to work it out ourselves. We cannot get to anybody.” The contact that I generally call, he’ll tell me, he said, “Eric, your concierge service has ended.” In reality, he does try very hard to put me in touch with somebody, but the problem they have is that it’s just a revolving door at the IRS.

Anyone who can get out is getting out. They’re heading for the doors. We had one. The automated levy came out. Amanda contacted them. We had submitted a financial. The person is uncollectible. I have another story on that, too. The person on the phone agreed that they had it. Nobody, not she, not any of the other people in her little phone bank, or their supervisor, this is ACS, knew how to release a levy.

Amanda’s like, “I understand that, but can we get to somebody who can, because the fact that you don’t know how to do it, we still need it released.” I had one now. It was a revenue officer. We submit everything. He calls me back in April and says, “Yep, uncollectible.” We don’t get a letter, but a week ago, we got a letter from a new revenue officer about the same taxpayer, “Please submit all the financial blah blah blah.”

I sent a fact saying, “We just went through this with this other revenue officer. We sent everything in. I can send it to you because I know this story. If you cannot find it, but you guys determined he was uncollectible. Can you call me?” I don’t hear anything. Three days later, I got all the levies in the mail. I sent that standard letter saying that “You’re in violation of federal statute, uncollectible, 6343, all that.” I get no answer for a day, no answer for a second day.

Now I call Hank Key, who’s the director of collections, who puts me in touch with his chief of staff, with the territory manager. Why? They don’t know who the group manager is. Again, it’s a rotating door. No one knows who the group manager is of this group. Now they finally find the group manager who calls me and says, “We couldn’t find the paperwork, but we found it, and we released and then they faxed me all the levy releases. That’s what we’re dealing with.

That’s why you brought up not too long ago, pricing is going up because this is just getting way more complicated, and the scenario you just said right there. What took an hour is taking 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 hours.

 

 

That’s the thing. A year ago, I could tell you, “This is how this is going to play out. Even if you have to make a phone call, here’s who you’re going to call. It’s going to cost you $3,000 worth of time. If you take 4,500 or 5,000, you’re going to make money. You’ll have profit even above your billable rate. Amanda finally told me, so we would do a 750 just phone consult. We’ll hear what you have to say, and we’ll give you at least our advice verbally, and then if you want to go forward, 1,500 to pull transcripts, do the analysis, and it will also be 1500 if we’re going to also call for first-time abatement and set up a streamline.

She said, “They’re screwing these up. We get people who don’t know what we’re talking about.” She said, “I’ve had to call 3 or 4 times. I just want to let you know that if I actually put my billable time in on this, we’re losing money.” Finally, Jeff and I were literally had a phone call where we’re just like, “Beyond the consult, $5,000 retainer build hourly.” On the one hand, we lose the profit piece, if you want to call it that, but we cannot get burned that way.

It creates work, but it doesn’t make sense. It’s not the kind of work you want created. You know what I mean? It’s creating chaos. We were talking to the deputy commissioner for the DRS. His name is Lou. He’s a good guy. He’s their chief litigator. We were talking, and Jeff interrupted us. He said, “Lou, I can boil this down to right now. If you want to come look what we do, you want to know what we do? We shovel s***. If you want to work here, you can come in any morning and just grab a shovel.”

 He starts laughing, but that’s what it feels like. In other words, my old one of my former senior partners used to say, they said “Eric, there was a time when they had tons of collection work.” I’m trying to remember what year it was when the government woke up and decided to take the gloves off and go after everyone. You had the 98 act. I’m going to say it was probably around 2010, around there. For a while after the 98 act, no one at the IRS knew what they could do anymore.

They didn’t do anything. From 1999 to 2005, there was like very little enforcement. Maybe it was 2007. Anyway, at one point, it swung back and he told me he said, “It’s good to have work, but this isn’t the work I want to have. This is like fighting upstream, work is the way he put it.” It feels like we’re there. This will, by the way, smooth itself out. I’m confident this will calm down at least in three years. I hope, but hopefully sooner than that, this will all settle down. Until then, it’s interesting times.

Until next month.

Until next month, when we reconvene.

See what the hell’s happened in the last month. We’ll probably have two more commissioners now

Episode Wrap-Up And Closing Words

We’ll have how many more commissions? We should actually know what we should put out as a survey or a bet, and we’ll give away t-shirts or something. How many more commissioners do you think we’ll have between now and 30 days from now? We know they’re not going to get anyone appointed because that takes months. The sense’s probably going to be there for a while. It would be my guess. We’re not running that. We’re not running the contest. Anyway, because everyone just says, “Yeah, one.” No, cool. We will reconvene and do this again.

Let’s do it again next month. Thanks again to Christina and the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation for giving us the opportunity to use their beautiful facilities. If you ever get a chance, come visit. It’s gorgeous.

Foxwoods. If you wondered, “Why have I heard the name?” They have Foxwoods Hotel and Casino. That’s what’s with all the entertainment. It’s one of our two casinos here in Connecticut. We did the New England Iris Rep Conference here in the first five years.

We’re becoming honorary residents for the next four years, so we’re going to be up here quite a bit for the next four years. Looking forward to coming back again.

Thanks everyone for tuning in, and see you next week on the show.

Next week. Bye-bye.

 

 

Important Links

• Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation
• Carlos Samaniego
• Carlos Samaniego on LinkedIn
• Carlos Samaniego on Instagram
• Tax Debt Consultants

 

About Carlos Samaniego

When the Federal Family comes knocking, smart people call Carlos Samaniego, the man who wrote “How to Make The IRS An Offer They Can’t Refuse.” As an Enrolled Agent and NTPI Fellow®, he’s not just licensed to practice – he’s one of the elite few who can sit at the table with the highest levels of the tax authorities.

For nearly two decades, “The Fixer” has been the bridge between ordinary citizens and the powerful tax families. His expertise in negotiating with both the Federal Family and the CaliClaw has earned him the Tax Professional of the Year Award and Quilly Awards, but his real satisfaction comes from seeing his clients sleep peacefully at night, knowing their tax troubles are being handled by the best in the business.

As Founder of Tax Debt Consultants, LLC, Carlos has built a reputation as the man who can make tax problems disappear – legally and permanently. His methods aren’t magic; they’re built on intimate knowledge of the tax code and decades of experience dealing with the collection families.

When he’s not in his office making deals with the tax authorities, The Consigliere shares his wisdom across the country, teaching others how to navigate the dangerous waters of tax debt. His voice reaches thousands through the Tax Debt Consultant Podcast and YouTube channel, where he and his distinguished guests reveal the inner workings of the tax world.

Carlos’s influence extends beyond the streets of tax trouble – he’s been featured on NBC, CBS, ABC, and USA Today, bringing his street-smart tax wisdom to the mainstream. His Amazon bestseller “Never Give Up: Stories of Grit, Determination, Tenacity and Triumph” isn’t just a book – it’s a testament to the fighting spirit he brings to every case.

Behind the power moves and high-stakes negotiations, Carlos remains a family man, devoted husband, and proud father. His soft spot for animal rescue shows that even The Fixer has a heart of gold. But make no mistake – when it comes to protecting his clients from the tax families, nobody does it better than The Consigliere.

Remember: In this business, it’s not personal, it’s procedural. And Carlos Samaniego, EA, NTPI Fellow® makes sure the procedure always works in your favor.