Carlos Samaniego
I've spent much of my life solving problems. Fourteen years as a medic — first in the U.S. Army, then in civilian emergency medical services. Eight years as a nonfiler with a mess of my own. And for almost a decade now, helping other people face theirs.
Enrolled Agent · Founder, Tax Debt Consultants · Creator of The Tax Debt Detective · Author · Speaker · Teacher
01
Most problems announce themselves long before they arrive. Look at the file. Look at the room. Look at the person.
02
Nothing gets fixed by wishing. The unglamorous, repetitive, uncomfortable part is the part that counts.
03
What you learned is worth almost nothing if it stays with you. Write it down. Pass it along.
The origin story
For eight years I didn't file. The letters went in a drawer and the drawer stayed shut. The man who got me out was Ernie Mattison, a former IRS agent turned Enrolled Agent. He took the whole thing apart and resolved it. I started preparing taxes in 2012, and then did something I never expected: in August 2017 I became an Enrolled Agent and started standing between people and the IRS. Tax Debt Consultants exists so other people wouldn't have to sit in that drawer alone.
The chapters
01 / Fourteen years
Fourteen years as a medic in total: first a U.S. Army medic, then civilian emergency medical services as an EMT / medic in the Inland Empire. I went through paramedic training, but I was never officially a paramedic, and I don't claim the title. Those years are where I learned to triage: find out what's actually happening, stop the bleeding, stabilize, then move the patient. I still work that way.
02 / After the ambulance
After the ambulance I spent years in mortgage and real estate: writing home loans, selling houses, and helping people use the equity in their homes to get out from under debt — tax debt included. It was a different kind of triage. Same instinct: find the real problem, then find the way out.
03 / Eight years
Eight years as a nonfiler after my real-estate income collapsed. Serious tax debt. Avoidance is not a strategy, but it is a very human response. I know exactly how the mail feels when you stop opening it.
Tax preparer, 2012 · Enrolled Agent, 2017 · NTPI Fellow
I started preparing taxes in 2012. In August 2017 I became an Enrolled Agent — licensed by the U.S. Treasury to represent taxpayers before the IRS — and began representing people with tax debt. I later earned the NTPI Fellow designation. Since then the focus has been IRS and California FTB collections and tax resolution: unfiled returns, balances people can't pay, letters they've stopped opening. That work lives at Tax Debt Consultants LLC, founded in 2017.
Ongoing
Teaching taxpayers what nobody explained to them, and teaching tax professionals the work behind the résumé. Tax Debt LIVE runs every Sunday at 6 PM Pacific.
Ongoing
Eight published books. A comic. Podcast episodes. Video. The Tax Debt Detective. The Tax Underworld. Ideas turned into things that exist.
Ongoing
Mexico. Baja. Small towns. Food, wine, history, buildings, people. Curiosity, not luxury travel.
Now
At some point the stories started mattering as much as the work. This site is where they go.
Always
Liz, my wife and co-founder of the practice. The kids. The grandkids. A Naval Academy parent and Blue & Gold Officer. The part of the record that matters most and gets marketed least.
The through line
Protect what has been entrusted to you. Patients. Clients. Family. A German Shepherd nobody else was coming for.
Field Notes
Field Note
Hope you’re enjoying the holiday weekend. I’ve spent mine up in Pebble Beach. If you’ve been on my list for a while, you know I’m completely in love with this stretch of coast. The cypress trees get me every single…
Read the story →
Field Note
If you served, or you're married to someone who did, this one's for you. Military families are trained to handle hard things. Deployments. A move every few years. Holding the house together while someone is gone. Nobody…
October 7, 2026 · 2 min read
Field Note
You walk past the envelope again. You know it’s from the IRS. You tell yourself you’ll open it after dinner. Then tomorrow. I know that routine. I went eight years without filing. The longer I waited, the harder it…
October 7, 2026 · 1 min read
Field Note
The worst time to fix a tax problem Every week my phone rings with the same story, wearing a different outfit. Somebody found the house. Or they need a car. Or they're about to get engaged, getting married, and they…
October 6, 2026 · 3 min read
Field Note
You owe the IRS. You've got equity in your home. And you figured you'd just set up a payment plan like everybody else. That plan just got harder. This week, a colleague of mine posted in a professional forum for tax…
October 1, 2026 · 3 min read
Field Note
I'm writing to you from Old Saybrook, Connecticut, where we're pretty much trapped. A nor'easter is hammering the coast. Liz and I came out here to watch our daughter play at MIT in Boston, but the storm canceled the…
September 26, 2026 · 3 min read
Field Note
We made it to Boston. Barely. The flight got delayed. Because of the delay, our rental car got canceled. And now there's a nor'easter getting ready to hit the area. This was supposed to be the easy part. Liz and I flew…
September 24, 2026 · 2 min read
What I'm building
I've never been very good at staying in one lane. Tax resolution is a major part of my work, but it isn't the whole story. Over the years I've built businesses, written, published, taught, created media, told stories, and started projects simply because I thought they needed to exist. These are some of the things I'm building now.
Company · Redlands, California
The practice. IRS and California FTB resolution work for people with serious problems, run with Liz.
Local newsletter · Redlands, California
Stories from the place I call home. Redlands has been home since 1979 — the people, the businesses, the food, the history and the things happening around town that deserve to be noticed.
Publishing & media company
Where the stories and ideas become something real. The small publishing and media company I created to house the books, newsletters, comics and original projects I'm building outside the tax practice.
Creative property
The investigative side of the work: what the notices really say, and what the file actually shows.
Comic / framework
Issue #1, The Vulture Strikes at Night — a woman finishes a shift and finds her account frozen. The framework behind the method, drawn.
Publishing
Eight books and guides written for taxpayers and for the professionals who represent them.
Media
A Top 10 small business tax podcast, a YouTube channel, and a live show every Sunday at 6 PM Pacific.
Teaching
Keynotes, expert commentary and training on enforcement, resolution, and taxpayer protection.
Beyond the work
Liz. The kids and grandkids. Books stacked faster than they get read. Mexico and Baja. A camera. A sketchbook I'm still bad at. Coffee, wine, small towns, and long conversations with people who know something I don't.
Bruno
Some family members arrive differently. Bruno came from a kill shelter. What started as rescuing a German Shepherd became another lesson in loyalty, responsibility, companionship, and second chances.
Read the story →If you're here because of an IRS or California FTB problem, that work lives at my practice — not on this site.
Get Tax HelpField Notes from Carlos
Taxes. Business. Books. Travel. Dogs. People. Places. Mistakes. Lessons.