Stories
Somewhere to Put the Pile
I have a finished chapter about my first real job. Long John Silver's in Redlands. It's sitting in Notion. I have four days of a road trip with Liz written up, our first real trip…
Read the story →
Carlos Samaniego
A life of solving problems.
A body of stories worth telling.
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 · Teacher
A personal code
01
Pay attention.
Most problems announce themselves long before they arrive. Look at the file. Look at the room. Look at the person.
02
Do the work.
Nothing gets fixed by wishing. The unglamorous, repetitive, uncomfortable part is the part that counts.
03
Tell the story.
What you learned is worth almost nothing if it stays with you. Write it down. Pass it along.
The origin story
I didn't become a tax professional because I loved taxes. I became one because I screwed up my own.
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
One life, read in sections.
01 / Fourteen years
The Medic
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
The Mortgage Years
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
The Taxpayer
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
The Practitioner
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
The Teacher
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
The Creator
Eight published books. A comic. Podcast episodes. Video. The Tax Debt Detective. The Tax Underworld. Ideas turned into things that exist.
Ongoing
The Explorer
Mexico. Baja. Small towns. Food, wine, history, buildings, people. Curiosity, not luxury travel.
Now
The Storyteller
At some point the stories started mattering as much as the work. This site is where they go.
Always
The Family Man
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
The Protector
Protect what has been entrusted to you. Patients. Clients. Family. A German Shepherd nobody else was coming for.
Field Notes
Stories, observations, and lessons.
Field Note
The first September 11th I was not on call
Twenty-five years ago this morning, 343 firefighters, 60 police officers, and 8 EMTs and paramedics walked into two buildings everyone else was running out of. Most of them knew. They went anyway. I want to tell you…
September 11, 2026 · 2 min read
Field Note
The IRS notice you got before Labor Day is now a week old
I meant to send this from Mexico last Frida. Liz and I had just crossed the border. First time I had really been back in about 30 years. We stopped in Playas de Tijuana, found a coffee shop, and watched Bella's college…
September 10, 2026 · 2 min read
Field Note
Free comic book about IRS inside (no form, no catch)
The first case file is open. Today, I'm giving you the complete digital edition of: THE TAX UNDERWORLD Issue #1: The Vulture Strikes at Night This is my first original tax resolution comic book. Credit where it's due.…
September 2, 2026 · 2 min read
Field Note
I made a comic book about the IRS
Tomorrow morning I am sending you a free comic book. No charge. No order form. No upsell buried at the bottom. Here is why you are getting it. This afternoon, Liz and I sat in the living room and watched our daughter…
September 2, 2026 · 2 min read
Field Note
What chorizo, a Martin Sheen movie, and your IRS problem have in common
Liz and I are eating chorizo and beans for breakfast this morning. Mexican-style. The good kind. In two years, I'll be eating something like it on the other side of the world, sitting on a stone bench somewhere outside…
August 30, 2026 · 3 min read
Field Note
I fell in the creek writing this email
Good Saturday morning. I was out walking Bruno by the creek this morning while talking this email into my phone. Bad idea. There are some big boulders along that creek, and I fell twice during the same walk. The second…
August 30, 2026 · 1 min read
What I'm building
The work, as it stands today.
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
Tax Debt Consultants
The practice. IRS and California FTB resolution work for people with serious problems, run with Liz.
Local newsletter · Redlands, California
RedlandsNow
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
Mill Creek Media
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 Tax Debt Detective
The investigative side of the work: what the notices really say, and what the file actually shows.
Comic / framework
The Tax Underworld
Issue #1, The Vulture Strikes at Night — a woman finishes a shift and finds her account frozen. The framework behind the method, drawn.
Publishing
Books
Eight books and guides written for taxpayers and for the professionals who represent them.
Media
Podcast, video & Tax Debt LIVE
A Top 10 small business tax podcast, a YouTube channel, and a live show every Sunday at 6 PM Pacific.
Teaching
Speaking & professional education
Keynotes, expert commentary and training on enforcement, resolution, and taxpayer protection.
Beyond the work
The rest of it.
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
Stories worth passing along.
Taxes. Business. Books. Travel. Dogs. People. Places. Mistakes. Lessons.