77: This Tax Accountant Didn’t Pay Taxes for 8 YEARS

Behind Their Success: Ep. 77

Carlos: [00:00:00] I remember bought a brand new. Nissan Hardbody truck ended up going

from that studio apartment to a one bedroom apartment. I was the life of the party. I'm buying.

Everybody drinks next year rolls around. Guess what? Massive tax bill. I ain't got the money to

pay it. I don't file paid. And that went on for eight years.

Paden: Hello everybody. Welcome to Behind Their Success Podcast. I'm Peyton Squires, the

host, and today we have on Carlos Sango. He's an enrolled agent, He is a recognized tax

resolution expert. Dynamic Speaker and founder of Tax Debt Consultants, LLC. He specialize in

resolving complex IRS and state tax issues for self-employed professionals and small

businesses.

Carlos is also a bestselling author who co-authored the book, never Give Up With Sports

Commentator, Dick Vital, and also wrote a book, how to Make the IRS. An offer they can't

refuse. Carlos, good morning. Welcome. [00:01:00] Good morning. How you doing Peyton?

Doing good, man. I was talking a little bit to you before we started recording here.

I'm Dick Vital. So I'm a millennial and a huge college basketball fan, and you wrote a book with

Dick Vital and I just wanna say. That's awesome, baby.

Carlos: Yeah. Yeah. that was a, one of the coolest experiences ever. It was just a very unique

experience, a chance to help him, support, his cancer foundation.

Yeah.

And um, you know, you had asked how did that happen and, being an entrepreneur, it's just you

start to realize, I had made it an effort this last couple years, probably three years ago. I made a

big effort to, really get out there and get publicity, as entrepreneurs, we have all, all these

multiple avenues of getting business, right.

And I had decided, you know what, there was a book I had read, by Dan Kennedy and. Yeah.

many, many, many years ago I had read this book and one of the things that he had brought up

was that, you could be an expert at your craft. [00:02:00] such as, as you're an accountant, um,

you know, a CPA and I'm in the tax world, you can be the expert or you can be a celebrity

expert.

Mm-hmm. And the easiest way to be a celebrity expert is literally, attach yourself to an actual

celebrity.

And I had multiple opportunities, a variety of different experts, and I'm just thinking, especially

the industry that I'm in, I deal with a lot of tax problems, which we'll dig deep into.

a lot of my clients are, happen to be men. In their thirties, forties, and fifties. And a lot of them

have to be, happen to be, sports fans, right? So I'm just going, whoa, what an opportunity if I

can actually. Somehow connect. and again, I just threw that out there, that, that kind of threw it

out there to the universe, right?

And then this opportunity popped up where he was looking for entrepreneurs who had gone

through some challenges in their lives,like what you're doing with this podcast. He was just

putting a book together, called Never Give Up. in fact, I got a copy of it right here. Yeah, this is

the book.

Never Give up. Yeah. And [00:03:00] he was looking for, you know, he shares his story of kind of

what he's been going through. Mm-hmm. And there's, quite a few co-authors of the book that

share their story and got that opportunity. got to share my story of my entrepreneurial journey of

why I never gave up.

And again, we'll talk about that. And next thing you know, here I am. Co-writing a book with, Dick

Vital. Yeah. But the cool experience, which you're gonna love. we actually, I went out to Tampa,

Florida. where he lives. and we had a book, a book signing celebration.

of all the co-authors got together and we didn't think he was gonna be able to make it. 'cause he

actually, his cancer came back.

started going through treatment and, Luckily for all of us, and obviously for him, he was able to

make that event and we're all there at dinner and I was cognizant that he didn't look the

strongest, right?

And, everybody was like, trying to talk to them and I'm just thinking, I'm not gonna do that. he,

he was making a huge effort, to try to talk to people, but, for those that don't know, he had,

throat [00:04:00] cancer. I just sat back and I happened to be wearing this shirt, actually, it's a

Navy shirt, and I just happened to be sitting there, um, you know, and I had a brief little

introduction.

I just went and sat down dinner and then he gets up and kind of walks over to me and he sits

next to me and he just whispers. He goes, are you a Navy veteran? and I said, no sir. Um,

actually my son is a graduate of the US Naval Academy. and and I do some work with the Naval

Academy. hence the shirt.

He goes,

Navy Academy. Your son went to the Navy Academy. He goes, one of my best buddies. oh my

gosh. why center for the, the Center for your San Antonio Spurs? Oh. David Robinson.

Paden: yeah,

Carlos: yeah. The admiral. Yeah, the admiral. And that's exactly what he said. He goes, my best

buddy, the admiral, he was a graduate at the Naval Academy.

He was. And I said, I know that. I do know that, sir. And he is he goes, Navy Academy. Huh? You

got a bright son? Congratulations. And then, and then he went back, sat down with his wife and

then [00:05:00] Peyton, about a 40 minutes later, I'm still sitting there. he goes like this to me,

sits down, he goes, I want you to sit down, show my wife a picture of your son.

and I'm just talking to them and we just, it was just a great connection and an overall amazing

experience.

Paden: Yeah. Yeah. That's so cool. That's so cool. So obviously you, you had a,a compelling

story in there, right? Entrepreneur story. tell us. Tell us a little bit about it or give us a little

rundown of kind of your history and how you developed your business and got,

Carlos: where you are today.

Sounds good. Sounds good. it's weird. Never thought in a billion years I'd be an entrepreneur.

my parents weren't, they were, just my dad's a disabled veteran. He was been a hundred

percent disabled since the Vietnam War, so he kind of was just a stay home dad for us.

Mom worked at the VA hospital for many years. But, coming outta, coming outta high school, I

actually joined the Army. I thought my career was gonna be in the military. ended up becoming a

medic in the Army. back in the. late seventies. The [00:06:00] late eighties.

I'm not that old.

Yeah, I didn't think you were that old. Yeah.

Yeah. joined the army right outta high school.

But that's what, that's the route I thought that was gonna happen, until I realized once I got in

there and started going through. Be becoming a medic and doing that whole bit. This is not what

I, this is not what the TV commercials made it out to be. Right. You weren't being all you could

be.

Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so I actually got out, after just a few years. I was like, I did my

time, got out, ended up being a medic in the,in the ambulance. I literally drove an ambulance. I

was an EMT coming outta the military and did that, started doing that for quite, quite some time.

And what's interesting, this is one thing, I guess as an entrepreneur, as an adult, make sure you

take advice from somebody that has the experience and knowledge to give you advice. And the

reason I say that is that I had started this job and, I'm in my, I think I'm 19, 20, right around there.

And I was working a whole bunch of overtime and, A lot of [00:07:00] these EMT firefighters

actually do this. They work 24 hour shifts.

So

they'll work at 24, they're off, they work 24. But, I was doing a bunch of these 24 hour shifts and

I remember the older guy, and he must have been in his early twenties, right?

He says, why are you working so much, Carlos? And I'm like, Hey, just trying to make a little

cash for Christmas, the holidays. So this is the advice he gave me. Hey, you don't have to work

as much. Just take your paycheck and claim 10 exemptions on it. and you're gonna get a bigger

paycheck. Well, you know, I know you're giggling 'cause you know where that leads, right?

Yeah. So literally I did that, October, November, December, working a whole bunch of overtime,

got these big old giant checks. Mm-hmm. Wonderful. You know, the spring rolls around, it's time

to do taxes right around April time. And I go to self prepare my return, only to find out I had this

massive tax bill.

And I'm like, I can't afford to pay that thing, so what did I do? That's what a lot of people do. I just

won't send it in. Yeah. Just till final. Right. That's exactly what I did. So, [00:08:00] um, it always

works out. You would think I'd learned a lesson right there, but I didn't. Here's what I did. I left it

alone because what happens to people is that our lifestyles start to reach the level of the income

that's coming in.

So I remember bought a brand new. Nissan Hardbody truck ended up going from that studio

apartment to a one bedroom apartment. I was the life of the party. I'm buying. Everybody drinks

next year rolls around. Guess what? Massive tax bill. I ain't got the money to pay it. I don't file

paid. And that went on for eight years.

no, no notifications in those eight years, not really gotten any notifications. it wasn't like today,

right? This is a, we're talking in the eighties. Um, yeah. Yeah.

Paden: A lot. It's not electronic. It's not quick. It's not in, you know

Carlos: what, and I was the guy that was moving to a different apartment like e every other

year, so yeah.

You're

Paden: out chasing those RS Yeah.

Carlos: I didn't realize, I was like literally running from the IRS. Subconscious, probably

unconsciously doing that. Yeah. Yeah. But I was like, Hey, new [00:09:00] apartment. what was I

doing? I was upgrading my apartment. Hey, this place is nice. This place is nice. So I literally did

that.

And Peyton, it wasn't until, okay, now I'm in my late twenties, getting into my thirties when

during this timeframe, Peyton, what also happened was I started becoming very entrepreneurial

working. These every other, 24 hour shifts. I had a lot of time on my hand.

So I started getting involved in, network marketing, which is for a lot of people is their

introduction into entrepreneurial.

Yeah. I started becoming big in personal development. I remember getting my Tony Robbins

tapes. I actually started listening to those back in the. Eighties, the little cassette tapes, personal

power,I was even involved in a personal, a, a network marketing company called TPN, the

People's Network, which was a personal development satellite channel, which we had people

like Brian Tracy, Les Brown, I love that personal development, the entrepreneurial journey. So

not only am I making money as a EMT guy, but I'm also making PR pretty decent money. During

this timeframe in [00:10:00] network marketing, and of course you've been paying

Paden: taxes, right?

Carlos: you're gonna really start laughing here.

I actually got my tax license and started doing taxes. literally, I just, nowadays we call it a hus, a

side hustle. Mm-hmm. Back then, now just, I got these side businesses going on.

So all this is, all this is accumulating now the state of California starts rolling. I get that letter.

Hey, where's your tax return? and I remember with the state dealing with it, initially I filed the

return that they were looking for. my memory's unclear 'cause I remember filing a return.

I don't think I filed all the returns 'cause they already had a bill. they gave me basically, here's

your bill that we think it's, and I started paying with it. But the IRS still hadn't found me yet, so

just left it alone, you know? Hey, they haven't said nothing. I dealt with the state. went on by this

time.

This was, 11 years. Let's just say this. This EMT period was an 11 year timeframe, and my 11th

[00:11:00] year. I remember losing my job as an EMT. long story short, you gotta have a, a

commercial license. with most commercial license, you can't have more. Than two incidences,

like an accident.

or they, the, they can't insure you to drive the ambulance. Yeah, sure. And I had an incident

where I hit a coffee shop after a 48 hour shift at work. I actually scraped a coffee shop, drive

through. With my ambulance and that was my second incidence for the year. And they're like,

Hey Carlos, you can't work either.

We're gonna have to let you go or give you a desk job. And by this time I was enjoying my

freedom. I was pretty entrepreneurial. I was making some pretty good money on the side. And

I'm like, I'm not gonna go to a desk job working nine to five. so I actually just left the job. Yeah.

And that started my full-time career.

So like now I'm just gonna go entrepreneurial. And and I was just doing my side gig, side

hustles, doing taxes. Until I got, the job that kind of changed my life forever. I ended up, a friend

of mine had told me, Hey, I'm working with Chase Manhattan Mortgage. They're looking for

some loan [00:12:00] officers.

he goes, you should apply. I didn't understand why he said it, because when I saw the ad, it

literally said you needed a four year college degree, five years of mortgage experience. He

goes, dude, just apply. I applied and the manager brought me in, sat down with me, and talked

to him for an hour.

His name was Amen. And he goes, Carlos, you know what, I'm gonna give you a chance. you

technically don't qualify, but I can see you're very good speaking with people. You present

yourself well. And this is a job of all about people and just connecting with people. Yeah.

Yeah.

So he gave me the job, sent me off to New York for the first time, went and trained for 10 days.

And, Love the job as a loan officer. Now we're talking around, this is right before the crash of

two. Oh yeah. I was wondering what

Paden: timeframe that was. Yeah,

Carlos: it was a 2000, what was the crash? 2008? It

Paden: would've been eight. So yeah, I assume this was just a few years before. Yeah, this

Carlos: was like 2005, right around there.

2005. that's kinda why I got outta that job. But 2005 started making some really good money. so

it was some good times, right? But the thing that changed my life is that I ended up, a girl, a

friend of mine introduced me [00:13:00] to a client, to refinance, or she was looking to buy a

house and ended up meeting with this client, fell in love with her.

literally she was a client, took her out to lunch and fell in love with her at lunchtime and knew I

would marry this lady. I literally two years later ended up marrying my. Soon to be client

And the reason that changed my life is because I just told you about me not filing taxes for all

these years, and I married her and never told her about it. Yeah, I never told her that. The IRS, I

hadn't filed taxes.

I didn't even know what my balance was yet with the IRS, I knew what the balance was with the

state and, I did the scumbag move. It is just, and we both know, is that when a couple joins, it

becomes that partnership. they're literally combining everything about themselves, including

their finances.

And literally she married into my problems and that changed my life forever because, I knew

what I had done, I was obviously entrepreneurial enough, business minded enough doing taxes,

what I just did. And, [00:14:00] you, a lot of people have always said, well, why didn't you tell

her? and we know as men because she's gonna leave you.

Yeah. Oh yeah. You don't

Paden: wanna show any weakness or whatever, right? Yeah, yeah,

Carlos: exactly. So, right after I married her, I remember we got back from our honeymoon and I

started doing research who can help me with this tax problem.

And I found out that, as CPAs, enrolled agents and attorneys were really the only people that

can legally represent you in front of the IRS. And luckily for me, I ended up finding a guy he

lived, his office was like two blocks from my house where I lived. remember calling him up, his

name was Ernie.

He's like, Carlos, I'm busy. It's like, obviously the holiday season's tax season here, but if you

could come to my office, I'm gonna be in my office Christmas Eve again, he was two blocks

away from me. I'd be happy to take some time to talk to you. And I went over to Ernie's house,

sat down or his office, and sat down with him, and he sat down in the chair and he goes, Carlos,

you know what, you're a good guy, but you made a stupid mistake.

But we can fix this. Got as long as you make that commitment to fix it. [00:15:00] And I told her

I'm willing to do that. after that conversation, I literally went home. I told Liz, I, we need to sit

down and talk. I got something to share with you. it wasn't a good night, that night. but luckily for

me, she said, she goes, what are we gonna do about this?

And that's, those words changed everything. 'cause she said, what are we gonna do about this

now? What are you gonna do? what are we gonna do about it? And I told her I'd met Ernie and

he was gonna fix it. And he fixed me all up. did what he did. What he did. And what changed me

there was after we finished, he said, Carlos, have you ever decided to make a career change in

your life?

I think you'd be really good at this type of work. 'cause he knew I, I had been doing taxes 'cause

I had to do these return old returns.

He goes, I think you can do it. And, um,

And I just knew, okay, I'm not going back to school, become an attorney. I'm not gonna become

a CPA. How do you become an enrolled agent? And then I started doing what I had to do, got

licensed as an enrolled agent back in 2017. And ever since then, I just made it a [00:16:00]

100% commitment to. helping people deal with the tax problems that they have.

Kind of, that's what I do now.

Paden: Yeah. Yeah. That's a, that's an awesome story, Carlos. And, I know enough about the

industry, right? me and you work in, in, I would say complimentary industries, but, your sitting,

your services are desperately needed, right? And it is such a specialization around tax

resolution, because, I'm a guy with over a decade experience in tax, and, I wouldn't, I.

I would tell, I tell clients all the time, I'm like, I'm not the person to solve that problem.

Carlos: Yeah.

Paden: I,there's way too many rabbit holes, way too many things that Carlos knows that faith

doesn't know. Right. That,that, your generalist CPA, you know, the guy that's just prepping tons

and tons of taxes or whatever, they're probably not the best person to help you with tax

resolution.

Carlos: That's the one thing I, didn't realize it's, the tax world is really kinda like the medical

industry.

and I use medical terminology a lot in my business. 'cause I came from that world, right? And I

said, it is just like doctors, you got a foot doctor, a heart surgeon, you got, you know, it's just

[00:17:00] because there's so many nuances on it, if you're dealing with a tax issue and you say,

I owe some money. maybe not all that bad, but then he, next thing you know, I find out you got a

revenue officer assigned to you. that's a totally different story. Or, yeah, I owe some money and

I'm thinking it's income tax. We find out it's, payroll taxes.

Different worlds, different things can happen. it's just, it's. it's, especially now with all the

craziness happening at the IRS right now, it's just become a nightmare in terms of, have a case

right now that literally we had a guy, a person where. We were able to get into a status that's

called a not collectible status, and you've probably heard that where the IRS basically says, Hey,

show us your finances.

if we feel that you don't have the ability to pay, we're gonna put you in a not collectible status. we

did this for a client. the client was on food stamps,state aid just to survive, and they agreed right

away. The IRS is actually, I tell people all the time, if you talk with the IRS and present your

case.

They're not trying to get blood out of a rock. They just wanna know, are you like just hiding like

Carlos did? Yeah. [00:18:00] Or do you really just don't have the ability to pay? So we did this

with this client and then literally I had an appeals officer, an appeals going on at the same time.

And I spoke to the appeals officer.

She said, yeah, this person, we're gonna put 'em not collectible. Case was closed, everything's

done, and literally paid. And three weeks later, our client is getting a levy letter and we're going,

what the heck?

Yeah,

and then we actually looked up their transcripts. They took 'em out of the not collectible status,

like in a three week timeframe.

So now we're having to go through that process of what the heck happened? What are you guys

doing? you stuck them in it. Now you took 'em out of it. And again, and I think it's just, I don't

think that they intentionally did it. I think there was just confusion or somebody inputted

something incorrectly into the computer system.

Paden: See it every day.

Carlos: And that's, and I tell people, that's why you hire us. It's just because here's the thing,

you don't know what the heck is going on over there, and we're just trying to fix it,

Paden: Yeah. And Carla, I can a hundred percent relate as, especially [00:19:00] since,

everything revolves around Covid, but especially since Covid, like trying to get issues resolved

with the IRS has been, just crazy.

Carlos: Yeah.

Paden: for years after Covid,if you sent them letters or anything, like they'd sit on a truck for six

or eight months before anybody even open them up. Or they would just destroy it or throw it

away or whatever, you

Carlos: know, It's funny, it, it's like, approximately June of last year, the IRS restarted sending

letters and I, and people were like, what did I do?

Did I do something wrong? Is that why they're after me? I go, no. during Covid they literally had,

they stopped all collections. They basically said, world's in a pandemic. We're not gonna come

after you. We're gonna stop sending out collection letters. I have people, they actually even

stopped their installment of payments and installment ag agreement.

They're like, okay. They literally turned it off. Iris had money coming to them debited, and they

turned it off. and obviously they never called it back up. Hey, why aren't you taking my money?

Yeah.

But. For four years that happened. So a lot of people have this mistaken [00:20:00] view that the

IRS forgot about them.

No, they didn't forget about you. They just happened to turn it off. And the problem is, last June

they turned it back on. So, and it's waves of letters. the IRS is not gonna send out 80 million

collection letters in, in one month.

Yeah.

They would be just overwhelmed with phone calls and so they're just sending they're, anyways,

yeah, they're just sending these waves out, which for me it's great.

It's just, I got waves of business coming in at different time frames, but, The IRS is it's an animal

and I think it's gonna get uglier because everything's gonna be a lot more automated. with the

new administration, they're gonna try to use ai.

They've talked about a lot more AI is gonna be used to come after people. which again, going

back to when I was going through this. mail coming to your house, and if you were moving, they

had no idea where you were at. yeah. And they're

Paden: not even getting all back then.

They're not even getting all these ten nine, you know, and all this income's never Oh, no.

Showing up anywhere.

Carlos: Yeah. Now, just like everything's electronic, you can't do nothing with, they have it all.

Yeah.

Hell, I can't walk [00:21:00] outta the house without being videotaped by my own house, you

know?

Paden: Right. Yeah.

Everything's documented.

Carlos: Right.

Paden: I certified mailed receipts in the last five years have saved my clients from a lot of

problems because oh, yeah, there's, there's been so many times where the IRS is like, no, we

don't have that.

I'm like, I have. You signed off on it, right? or just we've documents we've sent in three or four

times and they still, you know, they're like, oh no, we don't have that. Absolutely. Absolutely. and

it's just, it's, make sure you have a professional For sure, Carlos man turning, turn the

conversation back to you a little bit like,

you've obviously had some level of success in your career and whatnot like. what would you

say has been like the most rewarding experience on your entrepreneur journey here? Or what?

Yeah. what would you say is the most rewarding experience you've had through this

Carlos: man?

I think the most rewarding experience, literally, it's just the ability, it's not really the success of

the business because we all know with business ventures [00:22:00] it's good, some months

bad.

The other, it's this waves, waves of Success and failures. and and I remember when I married

my wife because she came from,being a public employee, to. like a year after we got married,

she actually just joined me in my business ventures.

Yeah. That's awesome. at Chase, she was actually, she became my marketing person and, I

actually launched a marketing company while I was working at Chase helping other real estate

people with their marketing stuff.

and I remember telling her it's just Hey, don't get too high on the highs and don't get too low on

the lows.

Just kind of take it here.

Yeah.

But for me it's,it's kind of been the time freedom. It's just the ability to raise my son, and

daughter and be there, right now I'm working here, from the home office, in essence.

and to be able to like, Hey, I'm not gonna go to the office, or I'm just gonna stay home because

we're gonna do something. When my son was growing up, he was, in Boy Scouts, became an

Eagle Scout, had the ability to be able to go on all these camping trips with the family.

So having that ability to be there to [00:23:00] support them. he eventually graduated, ended up

going to the US Naval Academy, graduated from there and then, serving in the Navy and Last

year he told me, dad, I've decided it is time for me to, they just had a child, my first grandson. he

goes, you know what, I'm gonna get out of the Navy.

I don't want to have to both go on deployment at the same time, take care of my son, and I'm

like, what are you gonna do? You know? He's like, well, I became an enrolled agent. Caught me

by surprise. I'm like, excuse me.

Paden: He didn't tell you about it at

Carlos: all. So while he was serving in the Navy, he started studying, studying and became an

enrolled agent.

He goes, I'd like to join you in the business. Wow. that's cool. And literally, December of last

year, he officially, separated from the Navy and now he's doing all my returns for all these non-

filing that I'm doing. Nice. And I'm literally teaching him the business of the tax resolution

business.

Yeah. Yeah. So

thanks for bringing that up. I never thought he wanted to do anything like this, but I get, and he

told me, he goes, I love the time, the ability to [00:24:00] be able to work from home, don't have

to go into the office.

I can watch the kids. and that's why I like this so much.

Paden: Yeah. that's an amazing story, you know, as an entrepreneur and I, as an entrepreneur

myself and, my kids are obviously, much younger.

Mine are nine or eight, seven and five. But,it's, my kids are getting to the age where. my wife

actually really recently left her job and it, it was really to focus, focus on the family there at

home. And we really, really pressing into teaching kids, teaching our kids entrepreneurship and

mindset and really just, how to navigate the world and the stuff that,maybe we didn't know as

kids.

and just how the business world exists and then how, there, there are other opportunities and

other. Avenues than, than just go to college, get a job, and, and work there for 40 years. and you

talk about freedom of time. Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy are a couple authors that I are

really big fans of and they talk about like a few freedoms of entrepreneurship and one is

freedom of time, right?

[00:25:00] You have the flexibility. Talk about the freedom of money, right? Once you've grown

and got to a little better, you can have freedom relationship, and then ultimately, yeah. Then

ultimately when you have the freedom of money, you can have freedom relationship or you're.

You're choosing, like who and what you want to interact with and you can develop amazing

relationships.

Like, you know, writing a book with Dick Del right? Yeah. and things like that. and you never

would've had any of those opportunities, even if you stayed, as a loan officer or whatnot. it's,

there's just so much more opportunity when you're just floating around doing your thing.

Carlos: I love the journey, the, this entrepreneurial journey because,some of the people that I

had mentioned in this journey played a huge part in this journey.

You

know, I had mentioned to you, the guy, who took a chance of me Yeah. And hired me at Chase

Manhattan Mortgage, and he never had, he should never have, have done that.

Paden: he had no reason to do that.

Carlos: None whatsoever. His name was Amen. and I say that purposely because, he recently

passed, he was only in his early sixties,due to cancer. And I spoke at his [00:26:00] funeral.

Wow.

and I brought that up and I said, you know what? This man took a chance on me.

And had he had not taken that chance, one, my SI never would've met my wife. two, he's the

one that also introduced me to Boy Scouts. with his sons, he had three sons. we never would've

been Boy Scouts, my son, probably never would've been introduced to the Naval Academy.

Never would've became a naval officer. Never would've met his wife, never would've had my

current grandson who just turned one. Mm-hmm.

So these little

moments in your life just take you so dramatically. Into a different direction. Yeah. And that goes

to the second person, Ernie, who the one that saved my butt from the IRS and said, you, you're

not a bad man.

You just made a stupid decision. Yeah.

Yeah.

Ernie is the one that said, Hey, if you're ever thinking about a career change, I think you'd be

good at this. And Ernie recently also passed a few months ago.

he was in his, late seventies and this last year [00:27:00] he actually joined me in my practice.

He didn't wanna have a full-time practice, so he joined me, and he was working with me in my

practice. so these, these two specific individuals who had passed that just dramatically changed

my life in a totally different direction. That I'm blessed now to live this life of, helping people with

their tax issues.

Having two amazing kids that are gonna go off and do amazing things. And, getting to meet

people like yourself now, just telling that story, and sometimes when you start asking questions,

I'm like, wow, I didn't even think of that.

Paden: Yeah. Yeah. That's, and yeah, man, it's, it, like you said, it is a journey and you're talking

about, connected dots, right?

Like throughout your history and, there's a famous kind of Steve Jobs speech where he talks

about, you can always connect dots backwards, right? You can always look back and see, okay,

this led to that, led to this, led to that, but it's impossible to connect dots moving forward, right?

You just never know what, say this conversation could ever lead to. And it, and are any

relationship or [00:28:00] anybody you bump into, like you, you really have no idea like the

potential in that. and I think it's. I think just as entrepreneurs, like what we need to practice and

what we need to do is constantly being open and curious.

and being able to have new conversations, new relationships, and always being curious to, to

develop. and also the world changes so fast and, our businesses, business models, everything

gets shaken up like every day. It's like at lightning speed compared to what it used to be.

and it, the ability to adapt and change and move and be curious and constantly learning those

skills are even more valuable than in my belief than they've ever been. Oh, absolutely. Because

you have to be able to adapt in today's world and quickly.

Carlos: Yeah.

especially now with the advent of ai, things are changing so freaking fast.

Paden: Yeah. Every day we're figuring out how do we use this, how do we implement this? Like

how do we use this tool because it's unending, its applications

you gotta be on your toes. Right. [00:29:00] Well, Carlos, man, this has been a fantastic

conversation. what's the best way people can connect with you or get to know more about you

or read, your books or, yeah.

Well,

Carlos: I encourage everybody pick up my book. it's called How to Make the IRS An Offer they

Can't Refuse. I never planned on sharing my story ever that I did. I was a non filer, especially

becoming an enrolled agent. I'm like, what an embarrassing thing.

You're No,

Paden: it's, it's the perfect story.

Carlos: Yeah.

share the heck out of it for years. I did not. Yeah. You hit it. You

Paden: were ashamed

Carlos: of it. I read this book and it literally said, If you got skeletons, make 'em dance.

Paden: Yeah. and then there's nothing held over you anymore.

Carlos: Nothing. So I literally said, okay, I'm gonna write this book. my favorite movie is The

Godfather. and a lot of times I feel like the Godfather, right? Because you sit there and people

come in like, tell me, talk to me. What is going on? And they unload on you. And they, and for

the first time in their life, I call Tax secrets is like the, it's.

America's secret that nobody talks about because when you got a tax problem, you do not,

[00:30:00] that's not your Sunday dinner conversation at the Yeah.

Paden: You're not telling anybody, go ahead. Hey, I'm not

Carlos: paying my taxes, or I haven't filed in years, so people live with this secret.

That's just. It's a billion bricks on their shoulders. So when they come Yeah, because it's this

Paden: big unknown thing, right.

Carlos: They come in, they sit down with me and they talk. I literally watch all this pressure

come off them. Because it's the first time they've been able to say, here's what's happening, and

I don't know what to do.

Yeah.

And then I could come in and say, you know what? There's light at the end of the tunnel here.

That's when I decided to write this book. And even if you just read the first chapter, I tell that my

entire story. But you can get this book@taxdebtbook.com for free. if you get the book for free,

yes, you're gonna get emails, follow up from me.

Hey, if you don't like all the emails, let it go. But there's some great stories in there. Yeah, it's a

great, I tell for business people, it's a great lesson in marketing. But yeah, grab that book. you'll

get all my contact information. If you're listening to this and you are like, okay, I got a text file I

gotta deal with right now, just head over to tax [00:31:00] debt consultant.com.

and you can, get all my contact information, but grab the book. it's free, it's a PDF version

obviously, but, that, that's what I do. that's the best way to reach me and I thank you for giving

me this opportunity, Peyton, because. Here's what you did that a lot of times people don't

realize, especially my people, bring me as a guest, you've saved somebody's life financially at

least, and maybe even, actual life because, I just had a client, not a client, but a friend of mine, a

CPA out in the Midwest, who had a client that, a doctor who owed over a million dollars in taxes

that took his own life.

'cause he didn't know what he could do. we're trying to save people's financial lives and their

actual lives because guess what? Everything has a solution to it. It really does.

Paden: Yeah. Yeah. You just got to, you gotta get over the shame and turn and face it, right?

that's the first big step, right?

Carlos man, I really enjoy getting to know you. Anything you, any piece of advice or anything

you wanna [00:32:00] leave for

Carlos: the listeners before we, sign off? You know, if you're an entrepreneur, as Peyton said,

keep that curiosity. Read as much as you can. Learn as much as you can because

things,Things are changing so fast. you gotta be on a constant learning curve, right over here

next to me, I get a stack of books like this, it's just every little idea. I always keep a notebook

with me because I just like, ideas happen so fast. And yeah, they come in and they take off real

quick, so I gotta capture them now.

This is actually one of the best things I've ever done. yeah, everybody's got a cell phone, but I

noticed when I put stuff in cell phones, it just gets lost in there. But if I write it down, I remember

everything.

Paden: Yeah. That's awesome. That's awesome, Carlos, man, I appreciate you guys and

listeners, we'll catch you next time.

Speaker: Thank you so much for listening to the podcast. If you found it valuable, please rate,

review, and share it. That is the best way to help us build this and reach more people as we're

trying to accomplish our goal of help creating more healthy, wealthy, and wise entrepreneurs.

[00:33:00] You can follow us on social media by searching for me Peyton Squires.

Or going to payton squires.com on the website and social media. We're always sharing tips of

personal growth and there we can actually interact. I'm looking forward to it. Thanks guys.