Donald Trump and Elon Musk are threatening to gut the IRS. What will the IRS look like? What will be the fallout of this for taxpayers and their tax pros? In this episode, Eric Green and Carlos Samaniego cover the good, the bad, and the ugly that will likely come from the downsizing of the IRS. Navigating anxiety and confusion, they discuss how automation could transform this federal organization, particularly in enforcing tax laws and debt collection. The two also present actionable advice for taxpayers on how to take action as soon as possible to secure their finances and brace for the worst.
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Trump And Elon Era: Is This The End For The IRS?
I am joined by my buddy, Carlos Samaniego. If you don’t know Carlos, he’s easy to find. You can Google him and he’ll come right up. It’s TaxDebtConsultant.com. Carlos is an Enrolled Agent and an NTPI fellow. He’s a Certified Tax Resolution Consultant with Tax Rep Network. He’s the author of several books, including How To Make The IRS An Offer They Can’t Refuse, which I love that one, and Never Give Up, and others. I just love the title. I just grabbed a couple of them.
Trump’s Plan To Gut The IRS
He is also very knee-deep in this. The big thing on everyone’s mind after the headline, beyond the fact that apparently we’re going to take over Gaza and turn it into the Riviera of the Middle East, is Donald Trump going to actually gut the IRS? Carlos, we’re getting bombarded. I’ve got people in the government. What’s funny is I’ve got revenue agents and officers calling me, asking me what I think is going to happen. You work for the IRS. I hate to break it to you, but President Trump didn’t call me and said, “Eric, this is what I’m thinking about.”
You know what’s crazy, Eric? That’s the reason I reached out to you. You’re getting these calls. I’m getting the exact same calls because literally, Tax Rep professionals are calling me, “What’s going to happen to our business? Are we not going to be in business anymore?” The opposite side of that. I’m actually getting clients saying, “There’s no need for us to move forward because the new administration is going to wipe out the IRS and they’re not going to collect.”
How many final notices came in?
Liz said 32 letter 11s came in.
Here’s what I think is going to happen. They’ve offered the buyout. I’ve already heard from two appeals officers, they’re taking the buyout. Anyone who can leave the government, who is close to retirement anyway, this is their ticket out the door. Here’s what I think is going to happen, in all honesty. I equate it to what happened with COVID. If you’re wondering, I’m not talking about people getting sick and dying. What I’m talking about is it accelerated what was already happening.
Whereas businesses would not have been into this remote work thing, they would do it one day a week, maybe if you were a good performer. Nothing changed, it just accelerated everything, in my mind. What is happening here to me is that Daniel Werfel, the commissioner who just stepped down, had a five-year plan to automate, do much more online, and make things easier for taxpayers to go into the government system and deal with their issues. Look who’s leading this. It’s Elon Musk, who’s all about automation.
I think what this is going to do is you’re going to see those resources, they are going to stop the hiring. There’s already a hiring freeze at the IRS. They’ve already stopped all their hiring. They’re going to shed everyone they can shed voluntarily. They can’t go away. They still have to still enforce. They still have to collect, but that shift we’ve seen over the years of more correspondence audits done through the mail or online, the automated enforcement they’ve turned on, or the letter 11s that are coming in and waves we’re getting them too.
That’s going to become the norm. As a big picture, not to get on a soapbox, let’s talk about the tax industry before we get into just the rep stuff. You have automated bookkeeping. Intuit, Xero, Botkeeper, take your pick. Bookkeeping can be automated. The human beings should review it, but the bulk of the labor is done. Tax return prep, Liscio and GruntWorx have automated the 1040 prep. Everyone got very bent out of shape. Remember the Super Bowl when Intuit broke up with your tax preparer?
An industry went into meltdown over it. I think it was the NATP. One of them contacted me and wanted a quote from me. I said, “It’s probably in bad taste. It’s probably a bit crass, but it’s honest.” I told them, “If you’re someone who just preps returns, you’re a dodo bird. You’re going to become like the pharmacist.” If you’re a pharmacist in America, you work for Walgreens or CVS. It used to be Duane Reade, but they bought Duane Reade.
What I think you’re going to see in the tax prep world, the big, I don’t know what’s going on in California, Carlos, but out here, the big regional firms, Citrin Cooperman, Markham, CBIZ, they’re buying up all of the decent small firms. The accounting firm that does our work just got bought by Citrin Cooperman because if you’ve got all these automated systems and you have everything in place, all you want is the clients. I just want your clients. In the tax prep world, I think you’re going to see it split and you’ll have a few islands in the middle.
The decent firms are going to get bought by bigger firms and consolidate it. The solo folks who bang out 1040s will go to work for Intuit because they’ll be the person on the video who will answer your questions. It’s like the pharmacist. They’re going to go to work for Intuit, H&R Block, Liberty Tax, one of those. The folks in the middle are advisors who are doing forensic work, rep work, and that stuff. Automation is not there, and it’s a long way off because of intellect and strategy.
Eventually, I think it’ll get there, but we’ve been talking about it, about developing something. Everyone we’re hearing from is it will do the rote stuff really well. AI is not where you think it is in terms of the matrix. In other words, being able to solve things. It’s really going to put pressure. In the rep world, I think that we’re not going away. What’s going to happen is it’s going to become automated. They’re going to need Carlos because people are going to get a letter. You can’t get to a human being.
I think that in many ways, we will be in higher demand, as we’ve already seen that demand going up. I think that you’re going to have to be trained. If you read my book, Building a Million Dollar Practice, where I just went in and fudged it, and they trained me on what to do, “You got to go do this, Mr. Green, go do this,” those days are gone. You don’t have to be able to get a human being, let alone have them tell you what to do. I think the pressure, in many ways, will be on the tax pro to understand what they’re doing. I think the need for trained representation is actually going to go up, not down.
You brought up a good point because I had a conversation with somebody, Eric, in your neck of the woods, New Hampshire, actually, and they said that they needed to hire somebody because they were trying to do it themselves and they could never get through to anybody. Even when they did get through to somebody, it seemed like they always gave them totally different options. They said it was a confusing nightmare to be able to deal with.
Elon Musk’s Influence And Possibility Of Automation
Now they’re super excited that they have somebody that can pick up that phone, contact somebody, and know what they’re doing. I told them, Eric, I know you guys have seen this. Sometimes, you’re telling the people on the telephone and including newer revenue agents what to do. They’re like, “I didn’t know you can do that.” Yes, you can. What you’re saying just makes perfect sense. I do have a question, though, Eric. You probably saw this news article. Elon Musk deleted the whole IRS direct file, a portion of it online. What’s that all about? Have you seen that news article?
I saw it and because I don’t do returns myself, I’m not as up on that. I have to tell you, so the Democrats loved the free file. If you’re asking me personally, from a tax system, if you have a W-2 and that’s it, why should you have to go pay someone to prep your return? Why can’t I log online, confirm that, confirm the standard deduction, and hit submit? To me, it feels like the lobbyists are winning. The Republicans, again, view it as it’s anti-competition, which I get. Anytime the government gets into providing something, now you’re skewing the market. Now you’re competing with H&R Block, Liberty Tax, Intuit and the rest.
I understand the theory why Elon Musk and the Republicans would be like, “We are not in the business of doing returns, we should be out of it.” On the flip side, I understand from the democratic political point of view, why should we compel you to go file a form when we can just do this in a couple of minutes and automate it? By the way, it’s another thing that’s just done. Why should we have something submitted and the e-filing that bounces, goes wrong because I’m a typo or whatever? I see both sides of it. Given that the Republicans are in power, I suspect that the free file will go away for a while, at least.
It makes much more sense now what you’re saying because if you get rid of the whole free file, they’re going to have to go to an H&R block or whatever it might be because the average person has no clue what they’re doing anyway. That makes sense. When they try to do it themselves, that’s how they end up as our clients. I always tell people, “I love it when you guys use that direct file. Try to do it yourself because you just become a client down the road.”
I have a client who I’m actually friends with now. I met him because he got TurboTax. He had three different partnerships. He’s never been trying to do his own return. It kept asking him in the interview for each business, “Do you have miles for business?” We kept adding and putting in the same miles, so 25,000 miles. He had 75,000 miles. Do you wonder why he got audited?
Bookkeeping can be automated. Human beings should still review it, but the bulk of the labor is done. Share on XI was just going through the interview. I remember because of their age, he kept threatening criminals. This was clearly intentional. We actually sat down with the client, with the software, and the agent said to me, “That’s dumb. Why does he keep asking the same question?” I’m like, “This is what it is.” In the end, he even took the penalty off. He wiped out the accuracy penalty for him, he said, because we blamed it all on the software. What do I actually think is going to happen? I don’t know that the IRS is going to get gutted.
What I think you’re going to see is anyone who will voluntarily go. First of all, the increases over the next six years that were supposed to happen, remember it was $80 billion, they clawed back $19 billion, so it was $61 billion. We’ve had a few years of that, whatever’s left on that, that I think you’re going to see go away. They’re going to take that funding back. With the freed-up funding from the people that leave, and I’m just basing this on the fact that Elon Musk is driving this, they’re going to automate. Whatever Werfel had laid out, he’s going to probably hand it to people inside and say, “You got eighteen months.” When I told him, it was over 60.
I’ve got a question. You brought up something. You said a whole bunch of appeals officers are taking that retirement package. We’ve known for a long time, you’ve actually talked about it in the past, that a lot of people in the IRS are in their 50s and 60s, and they were already looking towards retirement. It’s one of the reasons the IRS was trying to get that extra fund, getting that funding to hire the replacements.
Now that we’re losing these appeals officers, one of the things I’d noticed, a bunch of letter 11s came out. We filed the CDP appeal, and then normally, back during COVID time, it would take 6, 7, 8, 9 months to get an appeals officer. When we filed this last batch, we literally got an appeals officer within 30 days, pretty quickly. Now that you’re saying that a lot of these guys are taking that early retirement and we just got a whole batch of letter 11s, which we’re going to be filing that CDP appeal, based on what you’re saying, I don’t think that we’re going to get those appeals officers as fast anymore.
I can pitch in my two cents here. Here’s what I’ve been urging the folks that I know, the executives. Here’s what I think. I do not know the new commissioner, assuming he gets appointed. Frankly, I’ve talked to a bunch of people, nobody knows. He was the former state rep from Missouri and he was very involved in the ERC stuff. Here’s what I think you’re going to find.
I suspect he’ll get approved. There have been people whining, but I haven’t heard any good reason why. I have reason to believe the Republicans are not going to appoint him. Do you know that ERC credit, voluntary disclosure resolution off plan they came out with? You’re going to see another one come in, resolve your debt. They’re going to try to do everything voluntarily that they can to clear the deck.
You’re going to see a lot less litigation. The government is not going to have the means to litigate. They’re going to pick and choose very carefully. Years ago, Nina Olson, when she was a taxpayer advocate, did a study. The study showed that the average offer that the government received was $0.16 on the dollar. She went back and looked. All of the ones that they rejected, how much did they ultimately collect? $0.07. This means even the bad offs were better than what they ultimately collected.
If I’m Billy Long, I have a massive inventory. We need to collect, we need to enforce. I don’t have the bodies to just hash out every single item. I don’t know if they’ll change the standards, but if I were him, I would talk to the offer people. “You have to resolve. We’re not concerned about the nickels and dimes. Get it done.” Same with CDP. If you’re proposing a payment plan, do they have to fight about every allowable expense? In fact, a couple of years ago, we went down to one settlement officer in Connecticut because of retirements, whatever.
She literally called me and said, “You’re offering like $1,400 a month. I’m coming up with $1,800. Would your guy do $1,500?” I said, “Yeah.” She’s like, “Done.” In other words, just resolve them, whatever. I think that you’ll see some more programs out there to try to resolve. They may overhaul the offer program. He could come out and say, “If you’re willing to pay the tax,” even though they’ve never done that before. The IRS works on a reasonable collection potential formula.
I always have clients say, “If I could just pay the tax, can you make the penalty an interest?” The government doesn’t do that. Our state has done that. I’ve called up before and they were like, “Can you pay the tax?” “Yeah.” “Good, done.” “Really?” The state of Connecticut will do that stuff. I’m just guessing we’ll see them lighten up on what it is they want to close cases. I’ve been urging them for a number of years. The $250,000 is called a non-streamline, but it’s the streamlined agreement over the CSIN, but not if you’re with the field because they perceive the people with the revenue officers to be their worst offenders.
AI is not where many people think it is in terms of the matrix. It still struggles to solve things. Share on XI’ve been arguing, “A lot of those people keep defaulting because you’re so restrictive on their plan that they have no wiggle room. Extend it.” I’ve been saying that even if they go 3 years in default, it’s 3 years of payments we got that we wouldn’t have otherwise. Just collect what you can collect. Even though they all said, “It makes sense. We don’t know,” I wouldn’t be surprised if they start warming up to those ideas of anything we can do to move the inventory, let’s move it.
If they went through and did the math and they sent a letter to Baxter and said, “You owe this one. We could levy you. We’re proposing a payment plan of X. If you agree, scan this, go online, approve it, put in your checking information, and we’ll take the first payment in 60 days.” I bet in the 15 million-something that 0 balances, I bet you could get 500,000 to 1 million to just take the deal.
It’s almost similar to what I’ve seen when people come in with their student loan debts. A lot of times, they’ll just get a notice, “Start making this payment and we’ll consider you complying with your student loans,” probably very similar to something like that.
Focusing On The Big Items
A number of years ago, I don’t remember the name of it, it was something limited audit. I don’t remember the term for it. What they literally did was they tried this as a test basis. I got two of these. You got an audit letter that said, “We reviewed this. If you agree to get us everything within fourteen days, we’re only going to look at these two issues. Get us the backup on those two. We promise the audit stays there.” It was like limited scope something audit.
When I got them, I remember calling one of the auditors. She said, “It’s a test program, but can we focus on the big items and just move the audit pile?” What they probably found, and I’m guessing, if you study the time, if it takes a year to do an audit, after the few first big items, how much are you really collecting on all the other little nitty-gritty things you’re picking on? I’m wondering if you’re not going to see a warming up to that let’s focus on the big items, almost like in public auditing.
Carlos, I don’t think you ever worked at a public accounting firm. What you did is it was like looking at the error rate and all of that. If you have 5,000 receivables, but sometimes like 30% to 40% of it is like 2 or 3 items, they hit the big item and you know we’ve already been testing. We tested 40%. If we’re good, we’re going to assume we’re good. Nowadays, with AI, they can audit everything. Way back in the ‘80s and ‘90s, it was doing this. Imagine auditing JP Morgan with $25 million transactions a day.
With AI, which has now loaded on the system, they can test every single one of them, but they couldn’t. Back then, you took a percentage of the biggest items, you tested them and you hope for the best. One of the things I think they can do easily is, “We’re going to do what we’re going to do, we’re going to limit the scope, we’re going to shift it to these items and we’re going to move on.”
They could go to the non-filers and say, “If you file your returns, we need the last six years, whatever returns are missing, we’ll waive the penalty and we’ll cut interest. This is a one-time opportunity. Come in and voluntarily file so we don’t have to go after you.” There are things that they could do that states have done. The IRS generally does not do this, but I think all things they could do in an attempt to move the inventory with the minimum number of people possible. I do think, in the end, it’s going to be automation.
You brought up a couple of things I want you to dig deep into it. You were talking about the state of Connecticut, and we were talking about states. We know California and Connecticut are probably just twin brothers when it comes down to collection. I’ve told other resolution people, and I’ve been saying this for years.
You’re one of the people who taught me this, go after the state cases because they’re going to move much faster anyway. If they got a state case, guess what they’re going to have? They’re going to have a more likely an IRS issue. What do you think happens with the states, considering all the new administrations wanting to cut funding for everybody? I think the states are even more so going to go after their past due tax debt that people have.
With AI, the IRS can audit everything. Share on XIf you go back and look, whenever we’ve gone into economic slumps, what you’ll see a lot of are amnesty deals and I think you’re going to see a ton of amnesty. “Come in, settle that back tax debt. We’re willing to take $0.50 on the dollar. Let’s collect what we can collect.” Our state of Connecticut had an assistant commissioner years ago. He’s gone now. We can say that Connecticut shows this receivable because they assume 100% is collectible on every single debt. I said, “How much of that stuff after three years is collectible?” He said, “Almost nothing.”
I’m like, “Why don’t you just send them an offer, paying $0.25?” First of all, just get rid of it. You don’t have to keep sending them paper bills. I think that at the state side, if I were the state of Connecticut, I would adopt those limited scopes because those audits seem to drag on forever and they don’t seem to ever really find a ton and then they come up with baloney where we had one here.
They came into the client and you’re not reporting and paying admissions tax, which is like if you have an amusement park or whatever and it’s a business that has this in it. You’re not charging and they went all the way back to the beginning because they never filed their paid $2 million bill, except that they don’t charge. It’s free. There is no admissions tax because you’re not charging. We submitted it for an informal conference with the head of audit, and we sent them photos. It’s free. There’s no admissions tax, too.
He gets on the phone call with me, this is during COVID, and I don’t think the auditor ever went to the location because of COVID. I can’t prove it because they were open, but I strongly suspect, given the report, that he wasn’t physically there because everything he said was wrong. The audit manager said, “Eric, I’ve reviewed this and I’m good with it. I’m good with the audit report. However, COVID, whatever, I have a lot of leeway to settle this. Make me an offer.” I’m like, “What I’m going to tell the client is, ‘We’re going to spend $25,000 fighting this. I would just pay the $25,000 to make it go away.’ In terms of an offer, I just want to give you a heads-up. It’s going to be a lot closer to the $25,000 than it is your $2 million.”
He said, “I understand that.” I spoke to the client, “Are they going to come back in three years?” The state actually did away with the admissions tax that year. At the end of that year, the admission tax went away. We don’t have it anymore. The client said, “Offer the $25,000.” They took it. It was a shakedown. Will the state focus on just big things? Tell the auditors, “You can’t be out there for six months. I want you in and out in 30 days. Let’s pick the big things.”
“Honestly, the client will sign and pay. We’ll cut this, we’ll cut this, we’ll make deals. Let’s just collect money and move.” If this stuff gets dragged out, it goes to appeals, now we’re in the collection, I’m cutting deals. How much are you really getting? Honestly, I’d argue that there’s no benefit. Once you get past the first tranche of information, I think that what you’d see is the return on that drops pretty quickly.
What To Do With Unfiled Tax Returns And Balance Dues
I want to take you in a different direction here. We’ve been talking about how this is really going to affect tax resolution professionals. I mentioned to you at the very beginning of this that I’m actually getting people saying that we don’t need to worry about it anymore because the IRS is going to be wiped out, whether it’s by Trump or Elon Musk. What do you say to the people who are reading this have a large talent balance due, and have unfiled tax returns? Should they be still concerned with what’s getting ready to happen?
I would be if you’re if you’re a taxpayer with an issue. Here’s what happens if you do nothing. Due to the automated enforcement, it’s going to happen anyway. Let’s say you meet with Carlos and what? I’m going to wait. They’re not bugging me right now. It sounds like they’re all going to go away because, apparently, the government will fund itself from meth dealers? I don’t know what we’re going to become, but we’re going to fund ourselves somehow, and I’m not going to do anything.
The other side of what Elon and President Trump are talking about. Now you get levied. Do you know hard it’s going to be to get to a human being to get that released? In fact, I would almost suggest whatever they got in that levy is probably gone. The chance of me getting to someone in 21 days with a financial getting it released is going to drop precipitously. Right now, it’s really good. I can get to a taxpayer advocate, and I can get to an appeals officer without too much trouble. That is going to change drastically.
If I’m a taxpayer, I might want to see where I am. If I haven’t gotten the final notice, I might wait a little bit and see if they’re going to come out with an amnesty deal or something like that. I actually think that I would be more aggressively trying to settle it because, in the world of automated enforcement, I do not wanna get caught up in the machinery. I’ve actually made calls to the SPSC commissioner, not Leah, the one prior, and had her tell me, this is before they started all the hiring, “I don’t have anyone on staff who can even deal with it.”
They’re that short-staffed. In fact, to give you some insight, that person was telling me that she’s been involved in some of the new hiring. They weren’t even doing background checks. They had people who had been fired from other jobs for theft. It ultimately came out and they had to get rid of people. In the old days, they would vet people very carefully. Now, they can’t get anyone.
I really think in many ways this is going to just accelerate what would have happened. What would have happened over 10 or 15 years, I think, is now going to happen over 5. What we’re getting is a lot of people who call us and like, “What should I do?” I’m telling them, “When they talk about gutting it, they’re going to get anyone who can do it voluntarily.” I’ll tell you, we had a call with a client, one of those appeals officers who’s taking the deal. He’s like, “I’m putting my paperwork in Thursday on the deadline and I’m going to take the deal.” He wants us to close this.
I called the client, the client said, “I think we’ve got to negotiate.” By the way, he actually came back and said, “Here’s where I am with my number. I’m willing to round down.” He was like at like $392,000, whatever. We threw out $380,000. The bill is $800,000. We got it down. It’s down to the liability. The client didn’t have great records. He didn’t have a basis for something. He owes money. We’ve done as good as we can. The client actually said to me, “Given everything going on, should we do nothing?”
I said, “Here’s what’s going to happen. If we don’t take this deal, he’s going to reject it when he walks out the door. He’s not going to leave it for somebody else. We rejected it. It’s rejected. You can’t file another one without new information. We have no other new information. You are precluded from this. Your next step to challenge would be to full pay and file for a refund and start litigation because you’ve already been to appeals. They’re not going to hear it again. You’re now looking at paying $800,000 with penalty and interest plus, plus by the time we get around to it.”
I said, “I would take this deal today, now.” The client actually texted me and said, “That makes perfect sense. Do it.” There are some folks that, for instance, if people called you and they didn’t get a final notice, say, “They might come out with some tweak to the system they’re going to keep enforcing, but if you’re not under threat of final notice so they can’t levy you, if you want to wait until a notice shows up, okay. It’s up to you. You’re an adult. It’s your issue. If you are under final notice, the levy will happen probably automatically.”
“I won’t be able to stop it. Once it happens, we’re going to have a hell of a time trying to get it released because the same reason that you think that it might go away is going to be the same reason I can’t get a human being to help you. I would not do that.” If you’re thinking, “I was going to file an offer. I think they might change the plan,” good. Get into a de minimis installment agreement, and let’s wait and see what happens, but at least avoid the enforcement aspect.
I think that’s why it’s important. It’s a service we both provide that we do the account monitoring by filing that power of attorney. It’s just so if you haven’t got that letter 11, we can at least monitor what’s happening in real-time to be able to react if something were to happen. It’s funny because I sent an email, I think I sent you a copy of the email that people literally believe that the IRS is just going to be wiped out. I said in my email that the IRS has outlived the Great Depression, two world wars, 31 presidents, and very much reform promised since 1862. The IRS is not going anywhere anytime soon.
To me, if, in fact, they truly had that idea, that would be like us getting rid of our accounts receivable department. It makes no sense to me whatsoever. By the way, Donald Trump said they had to deal with the deficit. He wants a dish. He wants to extend the TCGA provisions and possibly get more aggressive at cutting for businesses to try to promote the economy.
Where’s this money coming from? Now I know that people are tariffs. What happens generally with tariffs is prices are going to go up because people are going to be buying less. We’re not going to be collecting as much on tariffs because it makes it undesirable for people to buy it. It was very expensive. Our income in the country could go up because of tariffs, but not enough. I’ve also heard about the sales tax. Have you heard this? Are they just going to do a sales tax and get rid of the income tax?
No.
Remember it came up with, what’s his name, we had the 777.
What would have happened over 10 or 15 years will now happen over five with what’s currently going on with the IRS. Share on XThat’s right.
Kane was his name. He had the chicken restaurants, I think. The problem with a sales tax. If you’re a taxpayer reading this, or even if you’re a tax pro, go pull most of your clients, take their total liability for the year, and divide it by their income. I’m betting they’re paying somewhere between 9% and 13% when you add it all up. In order to cover the sales tax number, I think it has to be somewhere around 24% to 26%.
Most Americans would see their tax bill go through the roof. Now, you’re not going to see the bill because it’s on what you spend but the cost of everything is going to accelerate. The reason it’s referred to as regressive, 100% of their income, they’re going to pay the tax. The wealthy who live on a fraction of their income, they’re going to see their taxes drop. Though it would be good for Mr. Trump himself, I think this would be really bad for America.
Why Taxpayers Should Deal With The Problem Now
You probably do the same thing. You wake up every morning with, “What the hell’s going to happen next?” I think this was perfect, at least for people on both sides of the aisle here in regards to our tax professionals that we train at Tax Rep Network, that our business is not going anywhere anytime soon. For the taxpayers who are reading this, they want to know what they have to deal with regarding their tax debt or their unfiled returns. It sounds like, overall, Eric, you’re just saying you’ve got to deal with it. It’s not going away anytime soon. It’s going to get much harder.
Just for people reading, I’ll be honest with you and I’m an independent voter, I hate both Democrats and Republicans equally, I’m not suggesting that this is necessarily a bad thing. To accelerate and invest in the automation and the online structure and for taxpayers to be able to log in and deal with it. Everything we’ve been talking about for years. I think, in many ways, there’s a good thing to this. It’s going to be the pain of going through it because what’s going to happen is that automation is not there yet.
Now the bodies aren’t going to be there. We’re going to have this period, whether it’s 1 year or 5 years, where we’re going to go back to you can’t get somebody. People are not going to get their problems resolved. People are going to end up getting levied and paying taxes but they’re hamstrung. As much as I like the business, I think it’s offensive that you have to hire tax lawyers and high-end tax pros to get anything done with the government. In a way, it’s almost a form of corruption.
I’m not suggesting that Mr. Trump is corrupt. I think what he’s saying is, here’s my idea, go do it. He has people that are bulldozers. Elon Musk, look what he did to Twitter. What is it? Full sail ahead, be damned the mines. There’s going to be growing pains going through this. Unfortunately, I think taxpayers are going to bear the brunt of it. My advice, I agree with everything you’re saying. I think if you have a problem, I would deal with it now. I would try to get ahead of it. The rationale would be, one, just also get it off your plate.
I have to tell you, and I know you see this, we talk about this, people that walk out here after we’ve resolved it and that weight has come off is huge. It’s not just the fact that you owe. It’s the mental and, because of that, the physical toll it takes on you to carry this around with you. One is just for that, I would deal with it.
Two, if you don’t deal with it, what I’m very concerned about is if you get caught up in the machinery, the automated levity, try to get to someone to fix that, who’s even willing to fix that, it’s going to become a lot harder. It is a real gamble that you’re taking because the downside might be that much worse.
Seek Help From Eric And Episode Wrap-up
I want to personally thank you just for taking the time out of your schedule to do this. I know when I brought it up to you, I’m just like, “We got to get out there and let people know what the heck’s going on because a lot of us are just confused about what’s going on.” Thank you. I know you said you had a case that you had to deal with at the bottom of the hour.
Access to the US government will not get easier for a long time. Share on XFor those folks who are tax professionals reading this, and Carlos, here’s what I’m getting a lot of because of Tax Rep. I’m getting a lot of emails, “Eric, I just have this one case,” whatever. If you need a case consult or you want to talk to someone on the Tax Rep team, contact us. We’ll see how we can help you, whether it’s an actual case you just want help with or a director you want to actually get involved in getting trained and adding this to your practice, whatever it is.
We’re going to see interesting times, I think, without a doubt. Patrick, for everyone out, Patrick Wanzer is one of our trainers, literally emailed me and Kevin. He’s like, “I’ve never had so much resolution work ever.” We’re getting bombarded with folks who I think are reading and are saying like, “I want to hurry up and get on this.” I have had two that have questioned, “Should we do this now?” They’re already in the middle of this doubtless liability offer. “No, take the deal.”
The other one is that we’re going to pull transcripts if they’re not under final notice or if they want to wait, but just understand that I don’t think access to the government is going to get easier for a long time. It’s going to get worse. I would take that into consideration. Everyone, and Carlos, thanks for doing this. I think it’s a really interesting topic. We are going to live to see interesting times.
It’s going to be a lot of fun. I know you do, too. We truly enjoy when we help somebody, how good that feels because we save lives. I truly believe we truly save people’s lives by doing what we do.
Just carrying around the weight of that. I actually heard from a client, they’re actually in the book. It was a steel company. They had all this debt, whatever, and it took a while. We worked all that through. Without the debt, they got funding. They just sold their steel company for $12 million. They did great. She said, “You know, we would never been able to do this without the capital. We would never gotten the capital if you hadn’t finally gotten helped us get that debt resolved.”
They went to an attorney who didn’t do much. They went to an accountant who tried to help them. They didn’t understand what he was doing. I agree with you in some respects between the mental anguish and the physical fallout from that, but also the impact on people’s lives, businesses, and income. Saving lives might be a little bit, I don’t want to be overly dramatic, but the truth is we do have a major impact on people’s lives.
I’m coming from a former EMT paramedic and a lot of times, we’ve gone to emergencies and you realize that heart attacks are caused by stress. As you already know, I went eight years dealing with this type of tax debt.
I thought you got into this, actually.
I got into this and yeah, we do a lot. If you are reading this also, and as Eric said, you want to get involved in the tax resolution business to be able to help other people like we’re talking about, go to Tax Rep Network. Eric has been an amazing mentor and trainer to not only me but thousands of people across the country. We are here ready to help you. Eric, I just want to personally thank you on this show for the work that you continue to do in this industry.
Thank you. I appreciate that and thank you for all the help you brought to us. Carlos is one of my marketing geniuses. Everyone, if you want to reach out to us, please do. I hope we’ve given you at least our input on what we think is going to happen, the good the bad, and the ugly, and it’s going to be interesting. I think we’ll be doing an update. We’ll see. Carlos, thank you for doing this. Everyone, thanks for joining us and see you next time on the show.
