124. Taking On The IRS

00:01
Welcome to The Practice Podcast, a show created by lawyers to help lawyers in life and business without all the complicated lawyer language. Let’s welcome Bass Amron founders and your hosts, Jeff Bass and Brett Amron.

00:18
Hi, Brett.

00:19
Hi, Jeff. Are we on? Are we recording? Is this on? Is this thing on? So Brett just got back from Whistler, huh? You knew it. Yeah, he’s already shaking his head. I just want you to tell the audience what you did in Whistler, please.

00:32
I participated in an endurance event called 29-029. You can look it up online. It’s a very cool event. You basically have to hike the elevation of Mount Everest within 36 hours. So at Whistler, the trail is 3 .9 miles long from the bottom to the top to ski a ski resort. So you hike up the ski mountain, 3 .9 miles, 30 to 100 feet of elevation. So I had to do it eight times in 36 hours. You hike up and then you take the gondola down. You can take your time. You can get food, change, whatever, and keep going, whatever.

01:08
How many hours did you do it?

01:10
So the first day, Friday we did, started at 6 a .m. with, stopped for some lunch and dinner in there like quick meals, finished at 11 p .m. on Friday, got a few hours of sleep, and then I did the last two ascents on Saturday morning and finished before lunch. So I don’t remember, is that 17, maybe 20, 22 hours, something like that.

01:33
Pretty solid. Pretty solid. And how are you feeling? Are you tired at all? I’m feeling a little tired. You finished today’s Tuesday and you finished on Saturday.

01:42
On Saturday. And then the travel back is just long, you know? So the legs are, you know, recovering and I’ll get back to it and find my next adventure. Yeah, you want to start, our guest wants to jump in.

01:51
And we were in Whistler, the gondola also went up, so I guess they changed.

01:55
It did go up, and so spectators, if they want, can go to the top of the mountain. And yeah, he pays for this abuse. So very impressive.

02:04
Just yet another example of how my partner is just a bad -ass. But we’re here today too.

02:10
I can’t, I can’t agree more.

02:12
We’re here to welcome a very nice, very special guest.

02:15
Yeah, change that nice. Yeah, I said nice, but I don’t, yeah, nice.

02:18
I feel like we could do better. Yeah, he’s special. Now, now me being here though, you’re officially out of guests. You’re not basically telling the audience that. Right, this might be our final. All right, if it even airs.

02:31
You know, you’re not supposed to speak until the interview. Right, I’m not speaking until spoken too. I won’t say a word. Our guest today, if you don’t recognize the voice, is Steven Klitzner. Steve is a Miami attorney who has practiced is exclusively in the area of IRS problem resolution.

02:47
So he is a tax attorney, but not just any tax attorney. In 2021, Steve was appointed to a three -year term with the IRS’s Service Advisory Council. It’s the Internal Revenue Service Advisory Council.

03:00
So I guess it’s the IRS’s Advisory Council. Correct.

03:04
How many more ways can we say that?

03:05
The IRSAC, can we call it IRSAC? The IRSAC presents- No, we should not. An annual report of recommendations to the commissioner of the IRS, and it proposes enhancement to IRS operations and recommends administrative and policy changes to improve taxpayer service, compliance and tax administration. He serves as the chair of the Small Business Self -Employed Subgroup. He’s also a charter member of the American Society of Tax Problem Solvers. He’s a member of its Continuing Professional Education Committee and a recipient of the organization’s Top Practitioner Award. He’s a member of the Advisory Board and a consulting member of the Tax Freedom Institute and Association of Tax Professionals in the Defense of Taxpayer Rights. And he frequently lectures around the country teaching attorneys, CPAs, and even enrolled IRS agents in the areas of collections, audits, and appeals. So this is a tax attorney who sometimes teaches the IRS how to do their job. So welcome, Steve.

04:07
Well, thanks. Boy, chat cheapy tea really can do a good job on anybody. Yeah, hun. Yeah. That’s great to be here. I listen to you guys. And- You listen to us on podcasts, or you just- You listen to the podcast. You guys are entertaining and funny and you have great dynamics together. Those stories you tell about your days on Saturday Night Live, priceless. I love it.

04:29
Wrong podcast. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, right. That’s a good right. I like that. That is good. Steve, so tell us, how’d you become a tax attorney? First, how’d you become an attorney? I know you went to law school, but was that always a part of your journey?

04:44
No, you know what? When I was a junior in college, where’d you go to school? Way back, UM. University of Miami. I was just getting along. I didn’t care about my grades. I didn’t know. I was actually wanting to be a sportscaster because I was the sports director of WVUM and I would do baseball games and football games on the radio.

05:03
And this was a time ESPN was starting. So it was kind of a good time to get into the business, but I had met my future wife and I really didn’t want to go around the country working on a little TV and radio stations.

05:16
So one day in my junior year, I just decided I am gonna become a lawyer, which meant I had to get my grades up. So from that moment on, I got all A’s. I was able to get my grades up to the point where incredibly the University of Miami let me in.

05:32
So you were gonna be a sportscaster and then you just decided, instead I’ll be a lawyer, like were there other options or are you just?

05:38
No, that was about it. Or I could just stay in school forever, I guess.

05:42
But I just decided I wasn’t gonna do the sports case. I wasn’t gonna go around the country, like some other guys I know and work at these little stations and I was gonna stay here. So I just decided I must go to law school, that’ll kill another three years.

05:57
Okay, so it was a delay tactic. Yeah, yeah, excellent. And then at some point, well, when you graduated law school, did you immediately go into the tax practice or did you do something else?

06:07
No, no, I ran into somebody at the courthouse. I was in law school and it was a friend of mine, I said, I’m looking for a job because what kind of law do you wanna do? And I remember saying, I heard personal injury work is easy and just then a guy comes by, grabs him, introduces me and that’s why I worked for the next 14 years doing personal injury work.

06:27
So you said personal injury and a lawyer was walking by and hired you from that. Well, no, I had to go in for the interview. Right, but it ended up hiring you from that interaction.

06:37
Yeah, and he said three things to me at the interview.

06:39
I was going in for a law clerk right then, I was still in school. And I remember he said three things to me that stuck with me. First he said, I don’t know why, but I’m hiring you. And that for the next 14 years always resonated with me.

06:51
It wasn’t necessarily a positive thing. And then he said, I like that you said, when I said about pay, you said $10 an hour, I’ll give you four. And I thought to myself, oh, I was offering them $10 an hour.

07:03
I thought they’re paying me, this is even better. And then he said something else. He said, every day we wear a suit. We don’t necessarily wear the jacket. We have the jacket, we wear a tie every day.

07:13
And he said, can you start tomorrow? And the next day was a Saturday. So I said, sure, I come in, I’m wearing my three -piece suit. I only had two suits, I was wearing my other suit. And they’re wearing jeans and shorts and t -shirts. I said, no, you idiot, on the weekdays. So from that point, even when I left the firm, I never went to my office without a tie until the pandemic. And now it’s still weird for me when I go in, I usually work out of the house, my staff goes in. But even today I’m not wearing a tie and it’s strange for me during a work day, not wearing a tie, but I do like it a lot.

07:47
So this casual look is for us.

07:49
Well, now I’m doing, I’m actually going the lawyer things and I’m having lunch without wearing a tie since COVID. Cause if it hadn’t been for that, I never would have gotten out of that. How do you feel?

07:58
You said a little awkward. How do you feel? You feel a little bit more comfortable?

08:02
Yeah, yeah. I like this better. Now you guys are wearing jeans and I could have gone that route. You just gave away our secret. But you’re wearing it with the tux. Exactly, exact tux on top. I might’ve done that. It would have been still a little tough for me, but I never know.

08:16
Jeff’s always like sporty. You never know when he’s wearing a cool jacket and like a dark shirt.

08:21
He is always wearing cool stuff.

08:22
But anyway, so that’s my story. I’m sticking to it. And that’s why I ended up with it.

08:26
I decided a little. There’s a lot in there. So yeah, that’s a good story. I liked the idea that, so he told you at the beginning of the interview that you were getting the job basically, right? He said, I’m going to hire you.

08:36
No, right? Or no? It was at the end. He said, I don’t know why, but I’m going to hire you. I know. And after I did all my, after I did all the best of the things I could do. I don’t know why, but I’m going to hire you.

08:46
You said that always stuck with you. That always stuck with me. Not necessarily in a positive way. It’s like, I don’t know why part. So for the next 14 years in the back of my head, it’s like, why did they don’t even want me here?

08:57
So you start out as a personal injury attorney and then you become a tax attorney. That’s not a natural progression, is it? I thought it was. How’d you make that change? You tell us. Well, I answered an ad.

09:07
You answered an ad. Yeah. Elaborate, please. Oh, okay. Thank you for that. See, I wanted to do that back and forth thing where you asked me to laugh. Say more. Okay. So what happened was I’m doing personal injury work.

09:18
I’m on my own and I’m doing quite well for myself. It’s not one of those things where I was struggling and things were horrible. My overhead was really low. You’re with this firm? No, I left. Oh, you left and started.

09:29
They changed the deal on me and I finally got the guts not to think too hard and say, why would I leave? But this is still great. And I said, I’m out of here and I left. So we’re going to put a pin in that.

09:40
All right. We’ll come back to that decision and some facts around that. Let’s keep going. So I’m doing PI and I’m doing the favorite part of my day. I’m reading junk mail. So when you do personal injury, you know, you see the law, you get the letters, you get these bad motions.

09:54
You don’t want to read those and discovery. And sometimes you get a letter from an insurance company. It’s got a number. You just go to the end to see if they’re offering you any money, but junk mail really was the best.

10:04
And I got this letter from a CPA in Colorado to lawyers. And it said, do you want, to work less, make more, have your clients be happy with you, less pressure, phone rings off the hook, everything a lawyer would do.

10:20
So I said, I’m in, and I called and I said, what is this? It says it’s representing people against the IRS. And something happened then, I don’t know what it was, and I just decided to do it. Sometimes you make some big decisions in your life, and looking back, it’s like, why would I do that?

10:38
But for something told me to do it, but I even called my brother, who’s a personal injury lawyer in Fort Lauderdale, I said, Jay, I’m gonna start representing people against the IRS, and he said, do you even know what IRS stands for?

10:50
International Resource Society, I don’t know, but I’ve decided to do this. So I decided, this is in 2001. And how long had you been practicing at that point? I had been practicing 22 years. Wow, 22 years into a career, you make a complete seismic shift based on junk mail, effectively on a phone call.

11:10
It sounds like it, yeah, yeah. So I decided to do this, and at that point, this is in 2001, I plunked down like, I think it was about $6 ,500, non -refundable. And if I’m gonna pay that much money, I’m gonna make sure I do it, not just put it on the desk.

11:27
And I decided, if I’m going to do this, I’m going all in. I went to every seminar, I read everything they gave us, everything they told us about accountability, and this plan and that plan, you should do this.

11:38
I did everything they said. And I just decided, as I said, if I’m going to do it, I’m gonna do it right. And slowly, I got rid of the personal injury work. It was a little like my lobby at my office.

11:51
It was like those episodes of My Three Sons when Robbie had two dates to the prom, you have to go back and forth. All right, a little before your time. So I would have to change my waiting room, depending on who’s come in, a personal injury client comes in, that’d be a personal injury.

12:06
The tax clients come in, I change everything with the tax materials. And the two of them at the same time at the office, I go back. back and forth, I have to remember which. But slowly and surely I got rid of the personal injury and I just did the IRS stuff, just representing people with IRS problems.

12:20
So you learned enough to one, start practicing right away, but then two, start transitioning out of personal injury? Yeah, and it was hard in the beginning. People would come in and they’d talk about their tax case.

12:32
And I’m back to being like a young lawyer where everything’s, they knew more about tax stuff than I did. I’d have to excuse myself and go read the material in the back and then come back in. And they would ask me, because people can sense things.

12:46
Have you done this before? Yeah, they say, how long have you been doing this? Well, I’ve been a lawyer 22 years. I know this particularly, you know? What time is it? I think it’s gonna rain. What time is it?

12:55
It’s gonna rain, we gotta get cooking here. It’s gonna be a downpour. And people could kinda sense it. But I just decided to just go all in. And when I was doing, I’d go to every seminar. And after a while, the people that I’d go to the seminars for were like, listen, we can’t just keep taking your money.

13:12
Maybe you should just speak. Maybe we should pay you. You go up there and start talking. So for the last, I guess about 15, 16 years, I don’t go to seminars. I teach at them. And that’s a lot of fun.

13:23
Really amazing. So what did we hang a lantern on again? We were gonna come back. Hang a lantern. I said put a pin. Why don’t we put a pin in? The decision to leave the firm you’re at and open your own firm based on the change in the deal, whatever, I mean, what did that tell us about that sort of decision process for you?

13:41
How far were you in at that point? Well, I’d been there 14 years. And every time they did something I didn’t like, my name was on the door, but I wasn’t really a partner. But they did that really for them.

13:52
And every time something happened at the office I didn’t like, it would be like I’d knock down, I’d get up, I’d brush myself off. I was like, thank you, sir, can I have another? And it’s like, okay, I still got a good deal, I’m staying.

14:04
And I found out that they were gonna change my deal. See, here at this old law firm, and I’m going down a little rabbit hole here. But back then, the secretaries called the bosses Mr. And everything was very formal.

14:18
And they always had secrets in the office, which there were no secrets because the bosses secretaries would tell everyone. So when they’d call us in to tell us a secret, everyone would go, oh, and then everyone would leave and go, yeah, we knew that.

14:31
So I said, if I ever went out on my own, I’m not gonna do that. I’m gonna have an office where there’s no secrets, we talk to people, it’s on a first name basis, it’s not formal, and that’s what I did.

14:43
And I always felt good about that, that I didn’t have that old stuffiness with that. They used to pit the lawyers against each other, it was horrible. I didn’t realize it was horrible till I left. So I found out that they were changing the deal through my secretary found out from their secretaries.

14:58
It’s like high school. Yeah, it’s the worst, it was the worst. I always remember trying to get a raise. Now the senior partner could make decisions. million dollar decisions like this. When I asked them for a raise of a few thousand, well, I gotta sit down, we gotta talk about it, we gotta have a meeting, and I’d go to the meeting, and one would be in front of me and the other behind me, and it was just so bizarre and so horrible, but that was the life I chose.

15:23
But anyway, so they changed the deal, because I had made too much money that year, so they decided to change the deal of how much money we were getting on cases we brought in, and instead of my usual, okay, that’s horrible, well, I still have it great, it’s like I’m out, I’m done, I’m outta here, and I made the decision and never looked back, I went out on my own with someone else in the firm, the other junior partner, and after three days, his nerves were getting to him and he went back.

15:49
It actually was better for me because all of a sudden, I could just make all the decisions, and things became clear, so I set up shop, I moved from Coconut Grove near where I live in the Aventur area, and I shared space, I kept my own expenses down, and I just started doing it on my own, and I survived, even though they thought no one ever leaving that firm could survive, I did.

16:11
Nice, congratulations. I have a question, so you mentioned how you kept getting knocked down and then you dust yourself off, so without getting into the specifics of what those knockdowns were, when you felt that way, did you communicate that with the managing partners?

16:25
Did you go to them and say, hey, this issue, this isn’t right, I don’t feel like this was fair, or whatever it was, or do you just keep it? But it didn’t matter, but they made their minds up. Something happened once where I was getting a certain percentage on cases given to me by one partner, but when the other partner found out, and this was a couple years later, he cut it back, and I was there when he asked the other guy, did you know they were getting this money?

16:50
This is how the associates were getting money? He goes, no, it’s like, come on. So your compensation structure was not approved by everybody, so. Well, it was, but it wasn’t, and of course, all of a sudden, it was a no, and it was a yes.

17:02
So it was difficult to communicate, and you know, better. but then you’re afraid and I think I was always afraid I’d get fired, but always hoping I’d get fired deep down. It would have made things easier, but I just couldn’t screw up enough.

17:16
I tried, I just couldn’t be bad. Now I ask that because I think sometimes employees that have an issue don’t voice their concern. No, they just leave rather than voicing the concern. So I was curious if you felt unheard.

17:29
One year they changed the medical on us. So we went from a nice plan to like a HMO where you had to go to somebody that they didn’t have to have doctor in front of their name. It was the worst plan in the world.

17:40
So I voiced my concern and the partner says, well, you know, we all have to have the same coverage and I’m upgrading mine and it’s harder for me because I’m in a higher tax bracket. So I have to make more money in order to pay the premium.

17:51
And I said, yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. It just, that’s how bizarre it was. I just, you know, just whatever. Gotcha. It was a different time. You guys, people. It was the olden days. You talk to your people, you explain things to them.

18:07
Back then, it wasn’t like that. Right, gotcha. All right, so let’s talk about the tax practice. What does that mean? You’re a tax attorney. You represent individuals and businesses in disputes with the IRS.

18:18
Tell us, like, what does it mean? And that’s all I do. I don’t do any of the tax planning. That’s bad for my business. I don’t do the foreign stuff. When someone comes to me and says, should I be an LLC or an S Corp?

18:29
Should I do this for tax reasons? The answer basically is, I can’t tell you how to stay out of tax problems. If you get into one, I’ll get you out. But that’s not what I do. I don’t do that planning.

18:40
So from a tax lawyer’s standpoint, it’s different what I do. Is it that you can’t or that you won’t? It’s that I don’t need to, and I don’t want to. I don’t know the answers. I don’t know. Well, I mean, isn’t it like transactional work for us, right?

18:54
We can pick an agreement apart and litigate over it. We just don’t put the deals together, right? We can review an agreement and say, here’s a good way to avoid a problem in the future. So you could do that.

19:06
You just choose not to. It’s not your practice area. I’m not comfortable enough with it. I’d rather send them to a guy that does tax plans. CPA can very often answer the question. And is it any issue at the IRS, meaning it can be income tax, property tax, sales tax, whatever, it doesn’t matter.

19:22
Well, there’s no property tax, and sales tax is Florida. And I don’t do the Florida stuff. I can’t deal with Florida because they don’t have any rules. They just may, it’s like the old West. They make it up the way they know.

19:32
Anything with the federal government. The IRS. Federal government. No money, you get audited. You don’t file your returns. Those are good cases for me. And that’s what I do. And there’s, luckily here in Florida, we’re as big as anywhere in the country when it comes to people with IRS problems.

19:48
Why is that a practice area that is susceptible to that advertising campaign? Like, why can you just learn that practice? What was it, make more money? More glass. Why does it qualify for those? Well, you know, I think he was kinda right.

20:03
The phone does ring on. off the hook and my clients, unlike personal injury, are happy at the end. And personal injury, it’s always like $100 ,000. I wanted to net that and you’re only getting me 10 grand total and it’s like your case isn’t worth anything.

20:16
So people, it was hard to keep people happy and you had to deal with lawyers. Now I deal with lawyers, I represent them. They listen to me. Judges, insurance companies, I mean, no, yeah. But I mean, back then I’d have to deal and everything was adversarial.

20:32
With the IRS, it’s not as adversarial as you’d think because in the real world, if you can’t… come to a resolution with the other side, you go to a judge and jury. With the IRS, if I can’t come to a resolution, they’re the judge and jury.

20:46
I’ve gotta figure out how to make a deal and hold them to the law so that they do what they need to do. And then my client’s gotta be realistic too. They have to understand that if you make $150 ,000 and you’re a single guy, I can’t convince the IRS you have $500 a month left over to pay them.

21:05
It’s just, I can’t do that. So everybody’s gotta be reasonable and then we make a deal. Some people settle for a lot less. Other people, because they have money, they pay everything. So everything’s a little bit different.

21:16
But it’s just a different practice. You feel like you’re really helping people, unlike personal injury. Right, right. I guess the other thing is if people owe taxes, that means they made money, right?

21:26
I mean, generally your clients are making money so they’re enough that they owe taxes. Well, yeah, sometimes it’s kind of a phantom type income or for whatever reason, they didn’t really make it. But for the most part, they owe the money and they need to be somewhat accountable.

21:41
I understand the reasons, but they’ve gotta do, look, I owe it, let’s move on from here and then I can help them. Got it. And I guess the other feature that I like about your practice is the same adversary every time.

21:55
So that might be a different person, but you have the same adversary every time, it’s the IRS. Yeah, and it’s the same boss. I mean, the higher up I go, everyone’s got the same boss at the top if I have to elevate it.

22:06
So that does make it good. So you have a sense of, not only do you have a sense of the law and the guidelines, but you have a sense of how the person on the other side is gonna be looking at the dispute.

22:17
You have to understand how the other side thinks. Right. And you have to understand why they think things and you can’t just discount things and say, well, that’s ridiculous until you understand where they’re coming from and then you can attack that.

22:31
Right, yeah. And it’s been good. I’ve been really good at being very nice, not getting mad, not getting upset. That’s not the answer. I just try to get along as best I can. Sometimes I have to bite my lip.

22:42
It’s like bloody at the end of a conversation. But for the most part, I’ve got to find a way to get along with them. Well, I like how you said, but it’s not as adversarial as one might think, right? Typically, if you’re in a tax situation, the IRS is coming after you for taxes that are owed.

22:59
Some people just think, oh my God, they’re attacking me. They’re, oh, it’s going to be adversarial. But it seems like you, obviously over the number of years you’ve been doing this, you have the credibility of those on the other side, the IRS to go in and say, okay, here’s what we’re going to present to you.

23:12
Here are the issues. Here’s where I think my clients are right and where they’re going to pay, right? I mean, there has to be some give and take there. Yeah, and you know, if we have somebody new and most of the new people I know because when they’ve hired new people, they bring me downtown to kind of train them for like an hour and tell them things from our standpoint.

23:30
But when I’m dealing with someone that doesn’t know me at the IRS, I disarm them right away. I’ll say, for instance, if it’s a collection case, I’ll say, okay, look, and he’s gotta file these returns.

23:39
There’s nothing we can do if he doesn’t get these returns filed. We gotta get up to date. I’ll get you the financials, I’m gonna get you this, I’m gonna get you that. And then we’ll figure out a way to get this resolved.

23:49
And when they know you’re on board and you know what needs to be done, then they can sit back and go bother somebody else. They can be bullies. And if somebody pushes back a little bit or shows them they know what they’re doing, they just pick on somebody else.

24:04
They never run out of clients. They have like the best business in the world. They don’t get enough money from one guy. They got another guy standing by. Right, yeah. Yeah, I like that. Because to me, what you’re doing, you said you disarm them, but really what you’re doing is identifying common ground.

24:19
Like I know that this is what you need and I’m gonna work to get you that. Because I imagine that they know that in cases where you’re not on the other side, it’s difficult. It’s the same reason why we like to have sophisticated counsel on the other side who understands, especially in like the bankruptcy practice, which is a smaller community, to have someone who knows the law on the other side is actually helpful to us because we both know where it ends up, most likely within some parameters.

24:47
Yeah, there’s no question. You don’t wanna deal with somebody dumb that doesn’t know what they’re doing, that can’t make decisions. You want somebody that’s seasoned and know what they wanna do, then you can cut to the chase and resolve it because they know what needs to be done.

25:00
Are you getting involved in any of the PPP or ERC issues? Yeah, and the ERC now is a big thing with the audits because now you have these companies, the IRS is onto it, they’ve stopped processing it.

25:13
Yeah, just the article came out that they froze the program. Should we say what those things are for anyone that doesn’t know? Yeah, they earned retention credit. What happened is people go to their CPAs, businesses go to their CPAs.

25:24
Their CPAs look at it and sometimes they’re wrong, but often they’ll say, look, you don’t really qualify. So now you see companies advertising on TV. You have Ty Burrell from My of the modern family on their go.

25:37
And if someone turned you down and said, you can’t do ERC, call us. Well, first of all, I would have gotten at O ‘Neill for some fee of regards, right? He’s all right, but he’s not the best there. Julie Bowen would have been terrible.

25:48
But he’s basically saying, if you are not qualified, we will scam and do it. So the IRS stopped in the last several months, and this program has been going on for a few years. They’ve gotten, of all of the submissions they’ve gotten, and 15% of them have come in the last few months since these companies came into existence.

26:10
So basically, are they scams? Well, I don’t know that they’ve ever said anyone doesn’t qualify. Right, so they’re just freezing the program right now to sort of figure out what’s going on. The article I read said that they had budgeted about 85 billion for the program, for the ERC program, and they’ve already had like over 220 billion requests.

26:30
Wow. Listen, if you can scam. And this is terrible. Not that it’s all a scam. Not that it’s all a scam. But some of these companies are. Like the PPP, right? I mean, there was definitely some fraud. There’s a lot of prosecutions going on.

26:43
There’s a lot of criminal complaints. The IRS have now sent a lot of criminal complaints over to, I guess, DOJ is prosecuting it. And so, yeah. And I guess the answer is, go to a CPA and let them look at it and they’ll tell you whether they really think you can qualify.

26:58
And they may be wrong. They may say you can’t and you can, but you just have to be a little bit careful out there because what happens is these companies will get you $100 ,000. The IRS pays $100 ,000.

27:10
You give them 10 or 20 ,000. And now when you get audited to see whether you’re really entitled to it, these companies are gone. They’re out doing some other scam work. So now you’re gonna be out the 80 ,000 you got, the 20 ,000 you gave away plus penalty and interest.

27:25
It could put a business out of business if they get audited on this. So now we’re seeing these audits where the IRS is taking a look at them. And we’ll see how it plays out. It’s still a little early.

27:35
Are you defending on those audits? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so far, so good. You still have to have the right facts. There’s gonna be people I’m sure that come to me and it’s like, teachers just don’t qualify.

27:46
That’s like the PPP with, you know. So I bought a Ferrari, a mansion, took some vacations. Was that not what I was supposed to spend the money on? Was I even supposed to have a business before that? But in large part, a successful program and it’s roll up.

28:02
But there’s always gonna be something. Always gonna be something that gets rolled out that quickly. I remember that thing every day, you were learning something new about the interpretation of it and how it worked, et cetera.

28:13
It was crazy times for sure. It sure was. You know, during that, but yeah. So what about the increase in allocation of resources to the IRS? Is this good for business, bad for business? Oh yeah, this is wonderful.

28:25
You know, they first got 80 billion and they’re not getting it all at once and they’re not hiring the 87 ,000 new people all at once. and they have to make up for people retiring and the people they’re hiring don’t have guns and badges, all of them, very few do.

28:39
People are answering the phone, they’re technicians, they’re computer people, they’re not all collecting, they’re not all auditing. And the 80 billion’s been cut to 60, but the IRS is still happy about that.

28:51
And they’re gonna try to modernize, they’re gonna try to do things so that you can do things with them that you could do with regular businesses. You can go online, you can do things. They have barcodes you can scan, and they’re really trying to step it up a bit.

29:08
They’re actually introducing a new letter that really, I think for the first time ever, doesn’t threaten that we’re gonna levy you if you don’t answer, and it doesn’t give you a time period. It basically says, look, we know you owe the money, we’re here.

29:22
scan this code, scan that. You may be able to do this, you may be able to do that. It’ll be interesting to see how many people react without being threatened. That a lot. So you support the increased resources to the IRS.

29:35
That’s good for business. It’s good for your business, but as a taxpayer, are you in support of it as well? Objection, reading. No, I think it’s better. I think having an antiquated internal revenue service is not beneficial to us as a country or as a taxpayer.

29:53
And if you’re a politician, it’s great when you come in and say, we’re gonna get rid of the IRS. It’s like, well, then who’s gonna collect? Well, we’ll have an agency that, isn’t that the IRS that’s gonna get, somebody’s gotta collect.

30:03
Well, you just need one person, right? Yeah, one dude. That’s true. Manage the bank account, right? That’s it. And they can’t really just start over. They can’t just give everyone freedom. You hear about the Fresh Start program on the radio ads and TV ads, but they haven’t changed the Fresh Start program since 2012.

30:21
It’s been around, it’s not a limited time only, but it doesn’t allow you to come out of your office and say, I want a fresh start and you don’t owe any money. It doesn’t work that way. But behind closed doors, I’m told, that Congress doesn’t have as much problems with the IRS as they do when they’re being interviewed.

30:38
They get it, they talk to them, they know what they need to do, but then they get out there and for the soundbite, it’s like, we gotta get rid of these people, they’re the worst, vote for me. Sure, and a lot of voters would say, yeah, yeah, get rid of the IRS, they’re terrible, because they collect money from me and I don’t want to pay them.

30:53
But they’re the only agency that collects money for the government. And for every dollar that they spend, and we always hear different numbers on this, whether it’s $7, $12, $4, that’s how much they get back.

31:06
So why not give them more money to collect more money from people who actually owe them money? And if you don’t like the way the tax code is written, then Congress has to revise the tax code. Those are two separate things.

31:20
Correct. when they did the thing trying to simplify things a few years ago with the returns and all, that wasn’t really tax reform per se, they just really tried to make things a little different. And they did help people out tax -wise.

31:37
I mean, there was a candidate, right? Or every few years there was a candidate in an election that has, I’m gonna do the one -page return. That’s right. Yeah, and they tried it, they did it for one year.

31:46
But because it was one page, they have all these schedules attached to it explaining what was on the one page. It doesn’t work, you can’t just fill out a postcard and all of a sudden people are like, well, I wasn’t gonna pay before.

31:57
But if I just have to fill out this postcard and pay, I’m all in, where do I sign up? It doesn’t work that way. Well, this is good. Wait, are we talking about how we met? Yeah, you wanna tell us? Tell us how we met.

32:10
I wanna hear that. Tell us how we met. Because you were wrong and I remember it was part two of the podcast. I think we may split these two. So we might just cut it off, we might. It’ll happen. So our good friend, Dave Lorenzo, introduced us.

32:24
You were going out on your own. So it was what year was that? Oh, eight. Oh, was it that long ago? Because he does an eight, yeah. And I didn’t realize the real reason he was introducing, not because you’re doing bankruptcy and I’m doing tax work, it’s because you guys are both in BNI and then you can get your one -on -one to report and you can report your referral.

32:40
And it looked real good. You mean Colt. I didn’t know it at the time. BNI slash Colt. That’s right, yeah. So we get together, of course that’s not why. That’s exactly. That was why he did it. You were interested in meeting people.

32:52
Because if you’re in BNI, if that’s your purpose in BNI, you’re never going to be successful. So good. Well, that’s true. That’s true. Because the giver’s gain is really the truth. That is the truth.

33:00
The people who are selfish. I’m going to leave, I’ll see you guys later. The people who get it really do well. When you go to a chapter and everyone’s there telling them about them and they don’t want to know anything about you, that’s a bad chapter.

33:11
If you join a networking organization, whether it’s BNI or anything else, and your purpose is only just to satisfy their criteria, you’re not going to benefit. But if you use it as a vehicle for building relationships, then that takes us for anything, right?

33:24
Anything you do. I mean, if you’re just pushing paper around on the desk, it’s not going to happen. And you have to do a little more than just show. Anyway, so then he gets introduced to us, and I think you had just gone out.

33:34
You had left that big firm. You’re starting a little boutique firm, which by the way, I was very surprised. I know you have a boutique firm. When I came here in the lobby, I expected like a rack of women’s clothes.

33:46
I was going to get my wife a hat. Boutique, boutique. But I, I, nothing. Very well done. They’re better than this. Good bridge. The best I got. You are better than that. We don’t have, wait, where’s the sound check?

33:56
No, I don’t get the boutique law firm thing. I don’t get the boutique law firm. Anyway, anyway, so we’re there and I hear your story and it was going out and I was very impressed. I remember thinking when I left, this guy’s never going to make it.

34:09
He’s going to crash and burn. But you know what? Let me say something. I was wrong. I’m not afraid to admit it. You really became a big shot. of a very well -respected firm. It’s people all in South Florida.

34:21
Well, that’s a big thing. Right, but go ahead. But tell me about that. Do we have a minute for that, the partnership thing? I tried it for a year. It was horrible. Before you go down that path, can I go back for a second?

34:32
Yes. Why did you think he was gonna crash? Yeah, no. What? What gave you that? I was very impressed with him, but I did sense a little bit of nervousness. Sure. Was there, because you seem confident, you seem very knowledgeable, you’re going on your own, and I kind of just remember sensing a little, I knew you were gonna make it, but I just sensed that, I mean, this was uncharted territory for you.

34:55
Yeah, sure. I mean, was I nervous? Of course. I never felt like failure was even part of the calculus. I really never was afraid of failure, which is maybe that’s naive of me or was naive of me, but…

35:07
I was nervous, I’m nervous today. I think to me, we’ve heard this, the time to be nervous is when you’re not nervous. You’re always nervous about the next steps, I think. So yes, I was nervous. But you’re saying I came across in our lunch, and I seem nervous in our lunch?

35:21
No, no, no, I sensed, you were confident. I knew you knew your stuff. I knew you were gonna make it. I always root for lawyers going out on their own and make it especially starting a firm and really building it up.

35:31
But I did detect, I mean, you were, I could see this was uncharted territory for you. Completely, I mean, you were, this is a big step. When you grow up in big law, you never have to do so many things.

35:43
It’s one of the luxuries of big law. You just sit at your desk and the phone rings and there’s a client on the other side, you know? And just, that’s how it works. And at a good firm, it’s, you know, you have a constant stream of clients and you don’t have to worry about who’s paying the bills and hiring and firing, all, you know, it’s just, you practice law and it’s, it couldn’t be, not that it’s easy, but the logistics are completely out of the picture.

36:05
I remember. And so starting your own expenses, all I knew is I got paid every week and I got more money if I brought it. Exactly. Starting my own practice, I, you know, I didn’t appreciate until I was starting into it that, wow, I have to do all of this.

36:17
You know, there’s a lot, there’s a lot to it that more than just practicing law or getting a client and collecting the money. I mean, that’s just one little piece of it. So. But what was the plan? Was the plan to be small, get big?

36:28
Was there a plan in the beginning? I don’t think I had a plan in terms of getting big or small. I just thought I could start my own shop and I thought I could have some fun and build something. I just didn’t know what I was building.

36:40
And then I met this guy. Well, we had met before I started, but then we started talking and, you know, working through issues as we were, you know, we were both going along on our solo practices and started collaborating a little bit more.

36:52
And then we realized, hey, together, this is, you know, we’re so much better. Still risk it. One on one and one is three. I had a partner for a year and it was, we had a great time. We just didn’t make any money and he was doing real estate.

37:03
I was doing personal injuries. Just didn’t gel. We spent way too much money. we had a great time for a year. And when we broke up, a friend of mine who has a partner, he says, see, this was your problem.

37:13
You should have gotten in with a partner who was your friend, like me and my close friend, and we’re partners, and then two years later, they had a horrible breakup. So that’s the big thing. I mean, it’s that partnership thing, which can be that dynamic.

37:27
You just don’t know until you get into it, but in your case, it’s worked great, right? Yeah, I mean, if you go deep enough into the practice archive, you’ll hear, we’ve had some episodes where we talk about the benefits of partnership and the strength of, what makes a good partnership?

37:42
But I think it boils down to the number one factor is trust. If you have a partner, you have to just trust him or her. And if you don’t have that, I think that’s the basis for any relationship, marriages, partnerships, friendships, whatever.

37:56
If you don’t have trust, you have nothing. And so, I just have complete trust in Brett, and I think he has trust in me. And… And if you have that comfort, it’s like you don’t have to sleep with one eye open.

38:08
You can do this thing, build this thing, and just know somebody’s got your back. It’s not even that someone’s got your back, it’s that they’re not gonna stab you in the back. If you’re always worried about a knife in the back, then you can’t do anything full scale.

38:20
That’s great. And that’s been really the secret of the success. But you’re at 14 lawyers now. Is that the plan or is it gonna get bigger? We’re gonna keep going, man. Our growth’s been organic in large part.

38:33
It’s never like, oh, we wanna be at a certain number. It’s always been, do we have a need? Are we anticipating growth? We try to think about our future, what’s happening in our practice, what’s on the horizon, what are our needs?

38:44
And we never wanna be hiring out of desperation. You don’t wanna hire when you, because you need 12 people, is that’s how mistakes happen. That’s good. Yeah, you have something to be proud of. People in South Florida know the Bass Tamron name.

38:58
And like I told you beforehand, I’ll talk to a bankrupt story. I go, you know Bass Tamron? Oh yeah, I work with them all the time. I guess it’s something you might give them that’s too small or they refer something to you that they can’t handle.

39:09
I mean, the thing with that practice is it’s not like a typical litigation case is plaintiff defendant, two parties, two lawyers. And in a chapter 11 bankruptcy, there’s lawyers for the creditors, there’s lawyers for committee, someone who’s buying assets, litigation targets.

39:25
It’s just a big case can employ tons of attorneys. So there’s lots of opportunities for us to refer work. And that’s why it’s important to be not only competent, but likeable and out there and return the favor whenever you can.

39:37
So yeah, it’s been fun. Podcasts talk about, well, listen, you guys have been great today. It’s been a great show. Thanks for coming, Steve. If you enjoyed this podcast as much as we did, or even if you just enjoyed it a little, leave us a five -star review, share the show with your friends and family and colleagues, because it helps other people find the show.

39:53
And we will see you next time. Thanks, Steve. All right, it was great. It was a lot of fun. Thanks, Nelson. Thanks, guys. We’re at Jeffrey. I love the interview at the end there. We’re gonna bring Steve back to co -host.

40:03
Yeah, that’s a good idea. For more information on this show and other resources, visit fastamron .com and connect with us on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram at Fastamron.