"What's it going to cost me? Can you send me your price list?" 

That's usually the whole email. No context, no details, just that question, sitting in my inbox before we've ever talked.

I get it constantly.

Someone finds us online, sees the phone number and the consultation button, and before they'll pick up the phone they want a number in writing first.

Makes sense. Nobody likes calling a stranger blind.

But I don't answer that question over email. Here's exactly why.

Calling a hospital and asking for their full price list doesn't work.

"Give me the cost for everything you do."

They can't answer that honestly. Depends what's wrong with you. An X-ray costs different than surgery. Surgery costs different depending on what they find once they're in there.

Tax debt works the same way.

I've had people convinced they need an Offer in Compromise before we've even spoken.

Full negotiation with The Collector (the IRS), pennies on the dollar, the whole production. Get them on the phone and turns out they just had unfiled returns.

That's it. A filing problem wearing a tax problem's clothes.

If I'd quoted Offer in Compromise pricing in that first email reply, I'd have charged them for a fight they never needed.

I've watched that mistake happen hundreds of times. Usually at some other firm. Usually after someone already paid for it.

Here's the other cost nobody asks me about.
 

The cost of waiting. 

Picture the person who feels a sharp pain and decides to wait it out. See if it passes. A trip to urgent care that day would have cost a few hundred dollars and a couple hours. Instead they wait.

Three days later they're in an ambulance headed to the emergency room, and now it's not a few hundred dollars. It's thousands.

Because the problem didn't go away while they waited. It got worse, quietly, the whole time.

Tax debt does the same thing.

Every month you wait to find out what this actually costs is a month

The Collector adds penalties and interest to a balance you're already avoiding. The delay isn't free. It just doesn't send you a bill for it yet.

So here's what actually happens with us.

Free consultation first.  

I listen to what's really going on, not what you assume is going on from the notices you've been reading.

Once I know that, I give you a straight number for the real path forward, while it's still the urgent care version of your problem and not the emergency room version.

Then here's the part most places won't tell you.

After that call, I send you my notes.

In writing. Exactly what we talked about and exactly how to get started if you decide to move forward with us. 

Then I go quiet.

I don't call you back three times over the next two weeks.

I don't send a countdown timer.

We only work with people who are ready to solve their own problem now, not people we have to talk into it. So I won't chase you. 

What I will do is keep you on our email list.

You'll keep hearing from me. And when you're ready, you'll know exactly who to call.

I've had people reach back out two, three years after that first consultation.

Life got in the way. Money got tight.

Whatever the reason, when they were finally ready, we were still right where they left us.

No pressure while you wait. No radio silence when you're ready.

Go toTaxDebtTriage.com and tell me what's going on. Or call 909-570-1103 or book your own appointment at CallTaxEA.com 

I'll take it from there.

To your survival.

Carlos Samaniego, EA,
TaxDebtConsultant.com
909-570-1103

P.S. The firms that hand you a price list on the first email are usually the same ones calling you five times a week after it. Ask me how I know.