The Godfather of Tax Resolution Carlos Samaniego Reveals How To Make The IRS An Offer They Can't Refuse If You Have A Tax Issue (#415)

415 Carlos Samaniego ESQ
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Jeffrey Feldberg: [00:00:00] Carlos Samaniego is a renowned tax resolution expert, dynamic speaker, and founder of Tax Debt Consultants, LLC. Licensed as an enrolled agent by the U. S. Department of Treasury, he specializes in resolving complex IRS and state tax issues for self employed professionals and small business owners. A best selling author, Carlos co authored Never Give Up with sports commentator Dick Vitale, and penned How to Make the IRS an Offer They Can't Refuse, detailing his journey through tax challenges.

His upcoming book, The FTB Taxpayer Survival Guide provides critical insights for navigating disputes with the California Franchise Tax Board. Recognized with the Quilly Award and XBee Award, he's appeared on major media platforms including Fox, NBC, CBS, and USA Today.

And before we start this episode, a quick word from our sponsor, Deep Wealth and the 90 Day Deep Wealth Mastery Program. Here's Jane, a graduate who says, and I quote, the Deep Wealth [00:01:00] Mastery Program prevented me from making what would have been one of the biggest mistakes of my career. I almost signed on the dotted line with an unsolicited offer that I now realized would have shortchanged my hard work and my future had I accepted that offer. Deep Wealth Mastery has tilted the playing field to my advantage.

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Deep Wealth Nation, welcome to another episode of the Deep Wealth Podcast. Now, I don't want you to shoot the messenger when I ask you this question. When I say this one word, it's actually three letters. What does it make you feel? And that one word is IRS. If you're like most people, it's fear, it's I don't want to be in their crosshairs.

But what if you are? Or what if you will be? What are you going to do? Because all too many of terrific entrepreneurs. Got detracted from getting their goals or maybe even got put out of business because they didn't know what to do or at the wrong place at the wrong time. We're going to put a stop to all of that.

We have a terrific guest on the show and I want you to really listen and you're going to come out of this episode with some strategies, with some insights that will make you stronger and better in what you're doing. So Carlos, Podcast. It is an absolute pleasure to have you with us. Now [00:05:00] you have a very interesting story.

for having me. for the benefit of the Deep Wealth Nation, what is your story behind the story? What got you from where you were to where you are today?

Carlos Samaniego ESQ: Well, thank you, Jeffrey. Great introduction and I'm super excited to be on this podcast and honored to be on it. My story is actually what you just said. I didn't wake up one day or, graduate from high school and say, oh, I want to go fight the IRS for a living. That was the last thing I ever thought about.

And in fact, as you said, those three words just put fear into everybody. Unfortunately, for me My story started with primarily my very first career as an EMT, paramedic driving an ambulance. a very young age, around 18, 19 years old. Actually, I started in the army as a medic and then went right into an ambulance service.

And I was doing what a lot of people do, you're always trying to make extra money. I'm a salesperson, to work extra overtime, and I ended up getting my very first business advice from a very inexperienced person, the older guy on the ambulance, guy who's probably 19, 20 years old, a few years older [00:06:00] than I was, said, why are you working so much, Carlos, and I said, I gotta make some extra money for the holidays here, and he's like, you know what, all you gotta do is take your paycheck and your exemptions, everybody knows, paycheck exemptions, what they take taxes out, he goes, just claim 10 exemptions, They won't take any taxes, you're gonna get a whole lot of extra money.

Well, guess what I did? I did that. Well, one of the worst financial advice I've ever gotten, and because what had happened is that, tax time came around the following year, I ended up going to get my tax returns prepared, and here's what happened, I had a big tax bill, Jeffrey, I had a huge tax bill, and I had no ability to pay that tax bill what did I do?

I didn't file my tax return, and this is a very common thing, believe it or not, I found out, that when people end up getting these big tax bills, They actually do the worst possible thing, they actually don't file the tax return. Well, unfortunately for me is that I never made the changes on that paycheck stub, and another year rolled around, and guess what? Ended [00:07:00] up having another big tax bill, and I didn't file the tax return. Jeffrey, that went on for eight years. Eight years I went, not filing tax returns, and by this time maybe couple of thousand dollars I owed that first year, became tens of thousands, and eventually, almost became a six figure tax bill.

I was literally a person that had tax problems and had unfiled tax returns. And the IRS back then, they didn't catch me and this happens a lot, I think back in the 80s and 90s when this was happening, that it was more so that the IRS, all they really did was mail.

It wasn't as easy to find people as it is today with technology and stuff like that. So I actually throughout my early, my mid twenties, even into my early thirties. None of it was resolved until the state of California, if you live in that state income tax state, came looking for me asking, hey, I got that letter, where's your tax returns?

And that started the domino effect, the state was asking for the tax returns, [00:08:00] and eventually the state caught up with the IRS, and then now here I am, I'm in the crosshairs of the big bad bully, the IRS, and kind of, how this kind of ended up, people say, well, did you go from that to Doing what you're doing.

What ended up happening is, by this time, I was at the EMT industry, the paramedic industry. I was actually, became a small business owner. I started working as a real estate lender, real estate agent. I've had multiple careers in there, trying to deal with this tax problem, and working as a self employed individual entrepreneur.

And then when I was in the real estate industry, I happened to meet a young lady who was trying to buy a house, and Ended up getting married to this young lady, and I did the worst possible thing. I call it the scumbag move. I did not tell her, Jeffrey, that I had unfiled tax returns and almost a six figure tax bill.

And then it wasn't until I married her, and literally right after I married her, I knew what I just did to her. she literally married into my tax problems and my tax problems became her tax [00:09:00] problems. Fortunately for me I actually started looking for people to be able to help me. I call him my mentor and God rest his soul.

He passed recently. I went to Ernie, who was an enrolled agent, CPA, that specialized in dealing with tax problems. He helped me with my tax problems. I was able to go to my wife. She didn't divorce me when I told her but she was happy I came to her with a solution to solve my tax problems, now her tax problems and we ended up fixing the tax problems and it wasn't until back in 2015 Liz had told me, you know I was out of the real estate industry, 2008 2009, real estate collapse kind of happened.

Jeffrey and I didn't know what I was going to do. I almost became a minister, had a variety of other, trying to do that. So I was just trying to survive. And my wife had told me something that kind of changed my life and where I am today. She's Ernie had mentioned to you, If you ever wanted to make a career change, why don't you help people with tax problems like yourself?

So she put that bug back into my ear and I decided to [00:10:00] do the study and go back to school, became a federally licensed, enrolled agent, and I specialize now in helping people with tax problems basically people like myself. And here I am, now I'm on your 

Jeffrey Feldberg: Wealth Nation, I want you to know that Carlos is being very modest, because Carlos, he's known as the godfather of tax resolution. He's an author. In the show notes, he's an author. Click on the link. Pick up his book, How to Make the IRS an Offer They Can't Refuse, and I love your tagline to that.

Learn three steps you must take to handle your tax debt problem, reduce your tax debt, and get the IRS, quote, hitman, quote, off your back for good. And let's face it, having some tax issues, which can start small, like in your case, and then just catapult, become so big, it's life changing, and it goes into our personal relations, our business relations.

It just affects everything. And in your case, like so many other people, I suspect, It was good intention advice that you received that was wrong. You didn't know any better. [00:11:00] Not that ignorance is bliss, it certainly wasn't, and it's not an excuse. You didn't intentionally go and do that. And so many people find themselves in this situation.

So I'm curious with your journey, and by the way, firstly, thank you so much for your service in terms of what you did back in the day. That sacrifice allowing us to do what we do and you were doing what you were doing. So thank you for your service to the country. Much appreciated. And also really appreciate how you took what was a terrible experience, you resolved it, but the learning lessons from that, and you're now very deeply committed to that and paying that forward.

So I'm wondering if we start from the very top, very high level, 50, 000 foot in the air overview. Where is it that most of us are? Just getting it wrong. What are maybe the, what some people call Predo's Law, the 80 20 rule. Are there 20 percent of the same, I'll call them mistakes, that people are making that are creating 80 percent of the issues or challenges that we find [00:12:00] ourselves in as business owners, entrepreneurs and founders?

Carlos Samaniego ESQ: Yeah, I think the top, the 10 mistakes I see, especially with entrepreneurs is their unwillingness to get immediate, to really start their business on the right financial footing with the basics, bookkeeping to keep track of your income and your expenses.

Because if you don't keep track of that, what ends up happening, you end up getting surprises at tax time.

And I guarantee there's so many business owners out there that a lot of times to them doing taxes is a once a year thing, right? Come April 15th. Or if you're in a corporation, at the very beginning of the year. And we both know, Jeffrey, is that these business owners need to be doing that tax planning way ahead of time because what happens if you don't do that, if you don't keep track of that, you're going to end up with this huge tax bill.

And then all of a sudden, that puts you in a really bad predicament. And we tend to make bad decisions when we're in a bad predicament, kind of like me. I was in a situation where I had a big [00:13:00] tax bill, so I thought I did what was the worst thing was I didn't file the return. Which from the IRS's point of view, that is the worst possible thing you can do is not file the return.

A lot of people don't realize not filing the return, there's like a 5% penalty per month when you don't file that return. So whereby the penalty, if you don't pay it, as long as you file it's 0.05%. It's minute compared to what, the actual not filing part of it. And then what happens is that.

All it takes is that first trigger that creates an avalanche effect, and the next thing I get people coming to me all the time, it's just, 50, 100, 000, half a million dollars in tax debt, and they don't realize they're like in shock because a lot of times, When it started, it was so small, but they don't realize the compounding effect of one year after another, the penalties upon the interest and the interest on the penalties.

It's just a massive snowball and [00:14:00] you just caught like deer in a headlight situation. What do I do now? Where do I go? That's where I was at. What do I do? Who do you go to? We were talking about this earlier, Jeffrey, before we got started. When you're in that situation, who do you go to? Do you go to your friends and family and say, oh, I got financial problems.

I can't pay my taxes. No, that's, our finances is one of the most closely guarded secrets, right? we don't talk to anybody about that. And in in my situation, I've gotten married and people say, well, why didn't you tell her before you got married? And every guy here or any spouse is going to know, or future spouse, well, I don't want them to leave me because of it.

Which is wrong thinking in the first place, to me, it's just, it starts, going back to the original question, it starts with getting the right experts on your team, and I know you're, on your show, you probably talk about that, is getting those experts to basically guide you, that way you don't make these kind of mistakes going forward.

So that's my big, it just, Start at the beginning with the right people on your team to [00:15:00] be able to kind of guide you and not to make foolish decisions like I made.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And it's socially awkward, let's be honest about this. You're out there, you're meeting somebody, whether it be on the business side or on the personal side, oh, hi, I'm so and and by the way, let me tell you about the tax debt that I have. And going back to your comment, Deep Wealth Nation, there's a reason why Warren Buffett called compound interest the eighth wonder of the world.

Compound interest, it can work for you or against you. When you have the money in the bank or in an investment, the compound interest, wow, can it really stack up in such a great way as working for you. But when you owe money. And you're not paying that, and they're charging you month over month, week over week, year over year, that can really add up, and in your case, Carlos, it went from a few thousand to almost six figures, and for other people, it can get even beyond that, so it's crazy what's going on out there.

Now, in the book, and again, Deep Wealth Nation, go to the show notes, click on the link, get the book, How to Make the IRS an Offer They Can't Refuse, from a very high level, because this could be an episode in and of itself. In chapter two, you talk about three [00:16:00] crucial steps to resolve your tax debts. So from a high level, Carlos, what's going on there?

What do you want to share with Deep Wealth Nation of the three crucial steps?

Carlos Samaniego ESQ: Yeah no matter how big a problem can become, whether it's a 10, 000 problem or a 10 million problem, I tell people any tax problem can be resolved with three steps, and the high level steps I'll just share step one. Step one I always call the investigation, and Power of Attorney. And here's what that step is.

we're dealing with somebody's tax problem, so many people come to me, Jeffrey, and when they sit down with me or I'm talking with them on the phone or on Zoom, most of them have no idea what the problem is. They just know that, well, I haven't filed, and I'm not sure, I think it was 2016 I think my balance is this, I'm getting all these notices, but one year says this, one year says that my spouse handled the finances they just don't know.

So I tell people, being a former EMT paramedic guy, I understand the medical industry, [00:17:00] right? If you've got a medical problem, Jeffrey, let's just say you've got an extreme headache and won't go away. Well, when you call the doctor to get help for that, the doctor doesn't say, hey, Jeffrey, show up next week for brain surgery.

That would be malpractice, right? Here's what they do. What do they ask for? You know what? Let's get some blood labs and x rays done for you. Let's see what's the underlying, what's going on. And that's kind of what I call my investigation, a part of dealing with the tax problem, is I'm ordering blood labs and x rays on your situation.

I want to know what the underlying problem is. How much money do you currently owe? Or at least, not currently, I would expect that up. How much money does the government claim that you owe? That's the better question. What tax returns were filed or not filed? When does your tax debt expire? Tax debt does expire.

We're finding out all this information. we get all your income documentation for the last 10 years. If you haven't filed returns, what returns need to be filed? And most importantly, [00:18:00] when I'm looking at that, I want to find out what returns have to be filed. Because we don't want to file too many returns if we don't want to.

the government really has a rule that says, We only want six years of returns to get you fully compliant. I get many people that have 10, 15, 20 years of unfiled tax returns. That's what we're doing. That's phase one, is knowing what the problem is. And also, most importantly, when I file that power of attorney, I become protector, your guard.

You will not talk with the IRS anymore. They're going to talk to me. I don't want them asking you questions that you don't want to have to answer. Let me deal with that. That's part one. So once we know what the problem is, kind of like Getro's blood labs and x rays, we know what the underlying issue is, here's what we need to do next.

Part two to solve any tax problem is the government wants you to become compliant. Here's what that basically means. They want you to file the tax returns that they want. Which is typically six [00:19:00] years. We can actually go to them and say, we're gonna file only six years. So I always tell people, if you have less than six years of returns, we're gonna have to file all those returns.

Bottom line. If you've got more than six years of returns, We're going to let you know what returns we need to file to make sure that you're compliant. Because the government will not deal with your tax problems, Jeffrey, unless you're fully compliant with your tax filings. And the last part of that is making sure That going forward, you're not gonna have a tax problem next year.

What does that mean? Common question I get is Carlos, what's the most important tax I can be paying? My oldest tax year, last year's taxes. I always say no, the IRS most important tax is next year's taxes. We got to stop the bleeding. They don't want you owing money year after year. So we got to stop that.

We got to make sure that you're paying your taxes through your withholdings or your estimated taxes. That's part two. So we now, part one was we found out what the problem is. Part two [00:20:00] is you're compliant. You're not going to get yourself in trouble going forward. Here's the final step.

Final step is now it's time to resolve the tax problem. Now that we know whether you actually have a tax problem or not, because we've done our investigation, we've filed all the tax returns, do you actually owe money after we finish all this process? Jeffrey, I've had situations where people came to me, half a million dollars in debt, years of unfiled tax returns, and they thought, how are we going to solve this?

the time I finished step two, we realized that They didn't have a tax problem because what had happened is that when we followed all those returns, we eliminated all those assessments the government made up because they can make up an assessment when you don't follow a return. By the time we followed all the returns, we figured out that you didn't even have a tax problem.

She owed a few thousand dollars. She was done. But if you're in a situation where now you do have a large amount of debt, now we just got to figure out what is the best way to resolve that [00:21:00] based on IRS's guidelines in your current financial situation. And there's basically four major categories, and I'll we'll simplify that.

Either you can afford to pay your tax debt, that's an installment agreement. Another portion of that is maybe you can't afford to pay the full installment agreement, but maybe you can pay a partial amount of that installment agreement. that's an option. Part two is, it's kind of what you hear on the radio settle pennies on the dollar, or the government will settle your debt.

Yes, the government does do that, but there's really strict guidelines in terms of financially where you're at to be able to settle the debt. But that is an option. the other option is currently not collectible. The the government basically feels you do not have the ability to pay back this tax debt.

Based on your current financial situation Jeffrey, just yesterday I spoke to a senior. She was in her late 60s on social security. She had 85, 000 in tax debt. She called me begging for help because she had gotten some letters from the IRS. She had called some other people that did this type of work and [00:22:00] they were trying to charge her, Jeffrey, like 5, 000 to deal with her problem.

But when I was speaking to her on the phone and I was reading the letters with her, she I told her, the government put you in a not collectible status. So they are not even going to attempt to collect this debt. You don't have a tax problem. You don't need to pay a dime to anybody. Your problem has been solved.

The IRS is just notifying you that they're not coming after you. And here's the good news. That debt will eventually expire for her. And she started crying because of that.

Jeffrey Feldberg: so much going on there. So Carlos, let's unwind this and unpack this. Let's go back to something you said early on. And Deep Wealth Nation, I hope you're paying attention to this because it's so important. So Carlos, when somebody gets a letter from the IRS, I know the heart rate goes up, panic, fear sets in.

I know some other reactions which we're not going to get into while the IRS They shouldn't even exist. It's not even in the Constitution. All those other things. We're gonna put all that off to the side and we're just gonna deal with what's there. You said something interesting just because you see some numbers in a letter from the IRS, [00:23:00] those numbers of what you.

Allegedly, O may not be accurate, and it sounds like a lot of times it simply isn't accurate. So what's going on there? What would you want us to know?

Carlos Samaniego ESQ: Yeah. Anytime you get a letter from the IRS, I think really the most important thing is just to open it. There's way too many people that have letters from the IRS that don't open them. They throw them in the trash. They think they can ignore them. Jeffrey, kind of just something that's happening recently, the last four years, basically, the entire United States the IRS has attempted to collect no debt, pretty much.

They stopped all collections because of COVID. So nobody really got any letters from the IRS. That all changed at the beginning of this year, in January, where the government was basically told, IRS people, go back to work, and then restart sending out collection letters. So people are getting these collection letters.

The most important thing you can do is open the letter. Because the letter's gonna tell you a lot. It's gonna tell you if the government believes that you owe them money. And I said that earlier, is that just because the government claims [00:24:00] that you owe them money doesn't mean that you owe that money.

You wanna confirm that information. Because I've had time and time again where I'm thinking of one specific client or restaurant owner. The government was trying to collect over $60,000 a tax debt for years. I'm talking like 10 years. When I got involved, we actually found out the government owed her 30, 000.

Big difference, right?

Jeffrey Feldberg: difference in the right way.

Carlos Samaniego ESQ: in the right way, she was shocked, right? She was just like, and the government was just, they weren't even shocked. They're like, oh no, we owe her money. But she ignored all our letters for 10 years. We had nobody to talk to. Because we were just trying to figure out this information for them.

Big picture is just open up the letters, take the, when you get a certified, this is a big one, Jeffrey, because a lot of these are coming out. Any certified letter from the IRS typically means you are in a very bad predicament where the IRS is getting ready to levy a bank account that's taking money out of a bank account, [00:25:00] a wage garnishment or a lien.

You need to respond to those letters. There's specific dates on those letters. If you don't want to call the IRS, call a person like myself, and literally I do this. I'll get on the phone and tell people what's the code number on the top right corner. Is it CP504? Gives us a little bit of time. Is it letter 11?

You got 30 days. You gotta do something. You gotta open up those letters. That's, for me, can just keep on going back. Open the letters and read them. You cannot no longer ignore these letters. Yeah,

Jeffrey Feldberg: on there, and just like anything else, if I have, in your case, you're talking about with your medical background, and you said if you had these horrible headaches or these ailments. You're not going to go to a generalist. You're going to go to a specialist. And so Deep Wealth Nation, are you thinking, well, I can solve this myself.

I can negotiate with the IRS. I'm a good negotiator in my business. Think again. You want to have the right person behind you because I suspect like in life, like in person, in our personal relations, we have one chance to make a really good first [00:26:00] impression. But if we blow it, it becomes harder. Now, I know in preparing for today, Carlos, I was reading some of the articles that you've written in the past, and one that really stood out for me.

So many people, when they find that they're on the wrong side of the IRS, and they're trying to explain to the IRS, well, these expenses, they're really legitimate, and the IRS comes back and says, not a chance, this is not happening, you're not able to count that. Can you share for the nation, particularly business owners, because let's be honest.

Some business owners, and we don't condone this here at Deep Wealth, it's a lifestyle business for them. They'll put lifestyle expenses through the business and maybe that's okay for a while, but it's in a gray area or maybe even offside. So when the IRS flags you and now you're under the microscope and you're trying to claim different kinds of expenses, even business expenses or lifestyle expenses, what should we know?

Let's bust some of those common myths that if we drink that Kool Aid, we're in a lot of trouble.

Carlos Samaniego ESQ: When it comes to business owners, especially, need to be really careful going forward. [00:27:00] The government has already made, public announcements. They're gonna dramatically increase audits. For a lot of business owners if you're a sole proprietor running a Schedule C in your business, your chance of audit has literally tripled, probably, based on the new guidelines, there's going to be a lot of scrutiny on all those expenses.

I would suggest, that if you're writing something off, one of the best things you need to hire a tax professional, whether it's a CPA, local that you can specifically ask them, is this a legitimate tax write off? One of the things that we're seeing that's causing a lot of people having to hire us is that they're taking advice, I call them the social media tax gurus online creating everything from fake trusts to fake LLCs to try to write off.

Lifestyle expenses like your home, your literally everything that it costs to run your actual living expenses. In fact, dealing with an audit right now where the business owner was audited and I'm looking at the [00:28:00] expenses and I'm like looking at, runs his business out of his home.

It's a home based business, but I see that he had 30, 000 of rent expense on there. Let And I had realized what this other person had did. They're literally just writing off their entire rent. The rent that they're actually paying to live in their condominium, and you can't do that, that's illegal, it's a percentage of that rent and we're seeing this time and time again, it's just entertainment expenses or meal expenses, a couple of years it was 100 percent business write off for meal expenses, but that's for business purpose meals.

That doesn't mean that every meal with your family is a write off, right? So these are the little things you have to pay attention to. We're seeing a lot of people, becoming S Corps or C Corps. They have a slightly less chance of being audited compared to a sole proprietorship.

And the reason is that. There you got to actually have bookkeeping, accounting bookkeeping, for those S Corp returns. So these are the kind [00:29:00] of things you need to be aware of. For me, it's just that here's an illegitimate business expense. If you're spending something, if it's a legitimate business need for you to run your business, you have a legitimate business expense.

Stop trying to trip over, how am I going to write off the country club membership? Believe it or not, is that a lot of those memberships are no longer deductible. These are a lot of things that, and these rules are constantly changing. Now, I think a lot more rules are going to be changing over the next couple of years because of the new administration.

to benefit taxpayers. We definitely see a lot of tax deductions that are gonna happen there, but again, make sure you have your CPA, your enrolled agent somebody who truly understands how business taxes work.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Now, it's interesting, as you're talking about that, Carlos, you're actually reminding me in the Deep Wealth nine step roadmap, step three, future buyer. So whether you're looking to get a capital infusion into the business through a liquidity event, whether you're looking to sell the business, there's going to be a buyer either in a liquidity event or a business exit.

We call [00:30:00] those the EBITDA adjustments, and this is where, as a business owner, I have some flexibility, and maybe I'll put some lifestyle expenses through the business, but I want to take them out a little bit later on to show the company that it's more profitable, increases the value of the company. But they're really offside in the first place to begin with, and so it sounds like we're really in alignment here.

When we're thinking of a liquidity event, whether it's selling the business or some kind of capital investment into the business, we want to have clean books and it's really no different with what you're talking about here. So Deep Wealth Nation, again, we are not giving you a prescriptive advice here.

Check with your advisor, hopefully, maybe even Carlos if you find yourself in this situation, but a heads up on what you're putting through as expenses or so called business expenses, You may have that working for you today, but it may not tomorrow. Now, I don't know what it is, Carlos, with the IRS. They like these acronyms and these different short form things of what's going on there.

But they have, and I love how you positioned this, Letter 11, the IRS [00:31:00] Letter 11. And they're having some fun with this because Letter 11 gives you 12 days. So 11 12, you have this Letter 11 that you receive. You have 12 days to respond. Otherwise, you're in trouble. What's going on with Letter 11? What is Letter 11?

Why should we care about it?

Carlos Samaniego ESQ: Okay. Sounds good. When you owe money to the IRS there's a series of collection letters that, that start. CP501 is the very first, it's an automated collection letter. It's basically that first letter that basically says, hey, you owe us some money. Sounds good. And then it goes all the way down to CP504, which looks scary because it's certified mail and it says final notice of levy.

Well, I always tell people, I call that letter the gunshot across the bow. They know you exist. They didn't forget about you. Millions of those letters, Jeffrey, have gone out this year. And there's millions more that are coming out. It's just reminding people, remember, there was no collections happening for almost four years.

They're notifying people, we didn't forget about you, so you still owe us some money, here's [00:32:00] this CP504. Why is that important when we're talking about that letter 11? Because once you get that CP504, typically you will get that letter 11. Within 30 to 60 days later, you're going to get Letter 11.

Letter 11 looks exactly the same as that CP504, Final Notice of Levy. The only difference on that letter, there's a little statement right after it, with Hearing Rights. This letter is You have to do something. And actually, Jeffrey, it's 30 days. Once you get that letter, the government has the right to levy a bank account, doing any type of wage garnishment, and for you self employed that get 1099, that's also levy your 1099s.

I just had a real estate agent that got this letter that got a levy on his real estate commission. They took 100 percent of the real estate commission. A lot of people think it's just a small percentage. No, the percentage is based on a paycheck stub, WII, right? [00:33:00] That letter basically gives the IRS the right to come after you for anything that you have and also a right to file tax lien against you and your property.

When you get that letter 11, you have to do something. You cannot ignore that letter, because any time after that time frame, that 30 to 45 day time frame, you get that letter, that, those bad things are going to happen. That's when you're going to be at the grocery store, and you're trying to buy groceries, and you swipe that card, and it says denied.

And this is usually, Jeffrey, I get so many phone calls from grocery store parking lots. Because that's how people end up finding out that they got that letter and a lot of times I mentioned they don't even open the letter They toss it or they don't go pick it up from the post office because it was a certified letter they're thinking, well, why did the government do this to me?

They didn't even notify me. Well, you probably didn't pick up the letter at the mailbox, at the post office, because it was set certified mail, or you got the letter and it's sitting in your drawer unopened. none of these letters for four years have [00:34:00] gone out. Those letters started coming out August 15th.

I know the exact date because I was in San Diego at an IRS conference and I had a client that called me and scanned me that letter and I said, I looked at my son who's a partner with me in my business and I said, the letter 11s are coming out. They're coming after people.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Wow so much going on there and it sounds as though it's the old saying, that really, the prevention, the time, the effort in the prevention, that's really where we want to be, not in trying to fix something that's really gone offside and running into all kinds of problems that's going on there.

Carlos Samaniego ESQ: what's interesting when you get that letter 11, we have a procedure that can immediately stop the IRS, all collection efforts, To give us some time to figure out how to resolve your problems. But you got to do it within 30 days of getting that letter. So that's what makes that letter so important. Yeah. Yeah there's only three people in the country that are allowed to assist people with, to legally represent people with tax problems, IRS tax [00:35:00] problems. It's an attorney, A CPA and a licensed enrolled agent. That's what I am. What's a licensed enrolled agent? It's a federal license from the Department of Treasury to legally represent a person IRS across all 50 states.

It's a federal license, so we don't have state limitations. They need to at least have one of those three licenses, but it gets even more technical, I think, if you're dealing with a big tax problem. Just because you're that person that has one of those licenses doesn't necessarily mean you're experienced in dealing with tax problems.

Because there's less than 300 attorneys across the country that actually specialize in IRS tax representation. I know that one of my best friends is a licensed tax attorney that does this work. I'm actually one of his coaches that we train people to do this type of work. And he said there's less than 300 people across the country that do this work.

CPAs, most CPAs, I would I think the last statistic I saw, 97 percent of CPAs, Do not do tax [00:36:00] resolution work. And even enrolled agents, it's over 90 percent don't even do tax So you want to find somebody that specializes in doing this work on a daily basis. This is all I do.

I'm, I'm not the person you come to, Hey, I just wanna do my taxes for next year. That's not what I do. Just like every industry really kind of specializes, just like doctors. There's foot doctors, there's heart surgeons and brain surgeons in the tax industry, the same thing. They're specialists that actually deal.

That's all they do. All I deal all day long are. IRS tax problems and state tax problems. That's who you want to find to be able to help you. And the best way to do that is just ask them, you specialize in this work? Is that what you normally do? And most people would be honest about that. And the final thing is this.

Be very careful because they're popping up all over the country. The IRS even has a page dedicated to this. Of these scam companies that are popping up. Claiming that they'll settle your debt for penalties on the dollar. we're [00:37:00] seeing this all over the country, is that they're giving people false hope, thinking that they actually qualify to settle their debt for penalties on the dollar, and they never have any possibility of ever qualifying.

So what these companies will do, they give these people false hope, they'll charge them 5, They submit the paperwork, it takes the IRS months to be able to process that paperwork, and normally by the time it gets processed and denied, they've disappeared and they opened up down the street under a different name.

So you got to be careful those companies. I always tell people, I can tell you typically within five to ten minutes whether you would even qualify for one of those settle for debts on the penny. There's a couple of questions I got to ask and I can let you know if you're, if it's even a possibility. yeah, you know the last four years been a abnormally, is that the word I want to use? Just abnormal. Just because There's been cases that have been going on for years that haven't been resolved. A lot of us heard the rumors that [00:38:00] IRS was shut down. They were boxing things up and sticking them in storage houses, lost tax returns, files lost.

So the last four years, totally abnormal, and we're still even dealing with a lot of that back stuff. But I honestly believe now that the IRS is fully back at work making some good impact on the past resolution cases. But going forward, I wouldn't be shocked if, depending on the situation, and again, 000 debt is going to be totally different than dealing with a 2 million debt or dealing with a business owner that has multiple business entities that we're trying to deal with, or dealing with somebody that's just got a paycheck stub, but typically it can be resolved as a I would say from 30 to 90 days, we can have a pretty good idea of how we're going to resolve it.

A lot of it can really come down to just the IRS's processing time to deal with it. But within 30 to 60 days, I can give somebody here's what's going to happen. Now we just got to wait for the IRS to process all this [00:39:00] stuff. That we're actually trying to resolve with you. Give you a perfect example of a case.

I had somebody, they came in here, had 100, This was a state tax debt, 100, 000. The state had come after his bank account. And we were able to stop that, able to get him into an installment agreement to deal with this 100, 000 tax debt. And then all of a sudden, as I'm reviewing one of his returns, I caught something that didn't look right. Yesterday I had him, hey, I need you to bring the other three years that were involved here. Here's what we found out. That $100, 000 tax debt he had with the state, was wrong. The CPA in this case that did his returns made a huge blunder whereby his tax debt for the last three years is zero. And we're going to be able to change that and that's going to be done within 30 days.

That's how fast that's going to happen. So he went from coming to me with a 100, 000 tax debt, the state coming after his bank account, to trying to figure out how to stop them, to me realizing there was a boo boo on the [00:40:00] tax rate, a big boo for three years, that we're going to be able to fix and wipe out that tax debt.

The big message, and this is something making public announcement and actually doing a lot of education on this, there's a lot of people that have unfiled tax returns. A lot. In fact, the IRS has a number, 11 million. There's 11 million people that have unfiled tax returns, and for a lot of time, they flew under the radar for years.

Even before COVID, they flew under the radar. The IRS has made a massive initiative to go after those non filers. And what's starting to happen, they're starting to get legal summons. To report to their local IRS office building and what's happening is this they're being assigned a revenue officer That is the one type of agent.

You don't want to be in their crosshairs That revenue officer their only job is to collect past due tax debt if you have unfiled returns, whether it's two years or 20 You need to deal with somebody immediately that specializes in the unfiled tax returns. You can no longer [00:41:00] wait because if you get that legal summons, you have to show up at the IRS buildings And I already can tell you, they want every bank account statement that you've had for the last 12 months, all your assets, all your vehicles, they want documentations of all that, and they want to know how you were living for the last X amount of years, and here's big thing too, when you get assigned a revenue officer, they can have you file as many tax returns as they want to get you compliant.

If you do it voluntarily, we can typically go six years. So you want to take care of that now because don't be that person that gets that legal summons. I've already shown up to two local ones. I got two more scheduled where I got to show up for that person to be able to protect them limit the damage that's going to happen. That's 100 percent true. They love it when we show up. They know when they're dealing with people with tax problems, the stress and the anxiety that they have. They get very apprehensive, they get very [00:42:00] combative with them, but when we come in, they know that we know what the rules are. They know that we become responsible for that communications.

When we sign that power of attorney, we are responsible to the IRS. They know that we're going to be responsive. They give us the ability to extend dates if we need it. Not too long ago I was going on vacation. They wanted to speak to me. I called them up. I'm like, Hey, I'm, I happen to be on vacation.

Can we extend this? Absolutely. They ain't going to do that with you. If we need to do that, so they love working with us. it's just, it's a totally different dynamic. It's kind of like when attorneys have. Attorney respects for each other in a courthouse, it's very similar.

[00:43:00] Exactly. Absolutely. I always tell people misconceptions that IRS is just trying to collect as much money from possible. With a lot of these revenue officers, they're just trying to close the case. get it off their table. and we tell them, we just want to get this case off your [00:44:00] caseloads here, so let's get this resolved as fast as possible.

They love hearing that.

Right.

I talk about this all the time, believe it or not I have year old son who's a Navy officer, graduate of the Naval Academy, 17 year old daughter who wants to go there, and they've asked me this [00:45:00] question, what was the best time of your life, and being a kid of the 80s, I would love to go back to 1985, 1986, the music, the friendships, the no more, no cell phones, people communicated, I think that's just a beautiful time frame of my life.

In fact, I live within a 10 mile radius of where I grew up. And those memories is just amazing I love going to Universal Studios here in Hollywood they have that whole studio set up for Back to the Future, and that, that's my favorite part is driving right through there and seeing the DeLorean car yeah, great question. If they go to taxdebtconsultant. com all my contact [00:46:00] information is there, it's my company website, I even have a link, I believe, on the top there. You can ask Carlos, you can send me a voice message if you want, I'd be happy to answer any questions. My email, my contact information is all there, that's the best place to find me, TaxDebtConsulted.

com. Thank you, Jeffrey. 

Jeffrey Feldberg: So there you have it, Deep Wealth Nation. What did you think? 

So with all that said and as we wrap it up, I have another question for you.

Actually, it's more of a personal favor. 

Did you find this episode helpful? 

Have you found other episodes of the Deep Wealth Podcast empowering and a game changer for your journey? 

And if you said yes, and I really hope you did, I have a small but really meaningful way that you can actually help us out and keep these episodes coming to you.

Are you ready for it? 

The dramatic pause. I'll just wait a moment. Drumroll, [00:47:00] please. Subscribe. Please subscribe to the Deep Wealth podcast on your favorite podcast channel. When you subscribe to the Deep Wealth Podcast, you're saving yourself time. Every episode automatically comes to you, and I want you to know that we meticulously craft Every one of our episodes to have impactful strategies, stories, expert insights that are designed to help you grow your profits, increase the value of your business, and yes, even optimize your post exit life and your life right now, whatever you want that to look like.

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So all that said. Thank you so much for listening. And remember your wealth isn't just about the money in the bank. It's about the depth of your journey and the impact that you're creating. So let's continue this journey together. And from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for listening to this episode.

And as we love to say here at Deep Wealth, may you continue to thrive and prosper while you remain healthy and safe. 

Thank you so much. 

God bless.