Calling tax resolution a game is not cynicism - it is accuracy. The IRS moves by procedure: notices on schedules, deadlines that bound your responses, standards its employees must apply. Your position is knowable from the record it keeps. And the outcome turns less on how scared or hopeful you feel than on whether the right counter-move got played in the right format inside the right window. People lose winnable positions every day because nobody told them a move existed.
My route here taught the frame early: years as a public defender, where the government held every material advantage except the rules - and the rules, played properly, were enough. Three decades of tax practice since has been the same game on a different board: read the position from the transcripts, find the move the facts support, play it on time, convert. Some moves you can play yourself, and these pages are written to make that possible. For the rest, you hire a player.
Credentials: licensed in Florida, Colorado, and Texas, admitted to practice before the United States Tax Court, principal office in Tampa, Florida. The IRS is federal, so the board is the same in all 50 states. The first conversation is free, privileged from the first minute, and ends with you knowing your position and your move.