Fla, United States – 28 August, 2026 – One man spent two decades decoding the American tax code so smaller businesses could use the same tools as the country’s largest companies. The other spent more than 16 years behind bars, then walked out with a pardon and a vow that his second chance would not stop with him.
Together, Julio Gonzalez and Charles “Duke” Tanner are building something the market rarely sees: a national tax firm that treats access, redemption, and community power as part of the same business.
This is not a conventional executive pairing. Gonzalez, Founder, CEO, and Chairman of Engineered Tax Services, is the strategist — the operator who launched ETS in 2001 to take engineering-based tax planning out of the Fortune 500 playbook and put it in front of accounting firms, entrepreneurs, real estate investors, nonprofits, and cities. Tanner, Vice President of Community Affairs & Outreach and National Ambassador, is the translator — the man who carries that expertise into rooms that policy memos never reach.
One works the system. The other walks the street. The result is a leadership model built on a blunt idea: opportunity that stays in the boardroom is not opportunity.
Two Lives, One Thesis
Gonzalez’s thesis has always been structural. The tax code already contains incentives, credits, and grant pathways designed to reward building, hiring, and investment. The problem is not the absence of tools. It is the absence of access. For years, those strategies were largely reserved for public companies and the largest national accounting firms.
He founded Engineered Tax Services to close that gap. Headquartered in West Palm Beach, Florida, and now operating through a national footprint of 26 offices, ETS has grown into one of the country’s leading specialty tax advisory firms. The company focuses on cost segregation, research and development tax credits, energy incentives, grant advisory services, and other engineering-based tax solutions. Across more than two decades, ETS has generated more than $2 billion in client tax savings while helping businesses preserve cash, create jobs, and reinvest in growth.
Gonzalez is widely known as a national tax reform expert and has been called “The Most Interesting Man in Tax.” He works regularly in Washington, D.C., advising on tax policy, and has expanded ETS through strategic acquisitions that strengthened its reach across the accounting community, including The Growth Partnership, ABLE CRM, and Inside Public Accounting. Beyond the firm, he also leads related family-office and investment platforms focused on real estate, private equity, and long-term capital.
His public argument has remained consistent: Fortune 500 companies should not be the only ones with access to sophisticated tax strategy. Small and mid-sized businesses, developers, nonprofits, and municipalities should be able to use the same code — with the same level of expertise.
Tanner’s thesis is personal. A former professional boxer with an undefeated 19–0 record and author of Duke Got Life, he is a national advocate for second chances, economic empowerment, prison reform, public policy, reentry, and fatherhood. After commutation and a full presidential pardon, he did not return to tell a survival story. He returned to put the story to work — for people still waiting on a door that never opened.
He now works alongside organizations such as the Jack Brewer Foundation, REFORM Alliance, and the Aleph Institute to strengthen families and create opportunities for individuals and communities impacted by incarceration. Tanner is also Co-Founder of Legacy Impact Technologies and the Legacy Impact Foundation, extending the mission through technology, advocacy, and community engagement.
Their alliance is the point where those two theses meet. Gonzalez supplies the architecture. Tanner supplies the reach. ETS supplies the platform.
ETS Cares: From Vision to Presence
Gonzalez has now put that standard into a company-wide initiative: ETS Cares. The program is built on a simple charge. If we’ve been blessed, we have a responsibility to give back. Not only with money. With presence.
ETS Cares is designed to get the firm into communities, support organizations already doing the work, and give employees a way to serve where they live. It includes hands-on local service, nonprofit support, second-chance partnerships, workforce pathways, mentorship, and the practical tools people need to move forward.
The launch reflects the same philosophy that built ETS itself. Gonzalez did not start the firm to keep expertise inside a closed circle. He started it to distribute that expertise. ETS Cares extends that idea from tax strategy into community responsibility — food drives, cleanups, paid employee service days, nonprofit support, and partnerships that help people rebuild after incarceration.
That is where Tanner’s role becomes operational. He is not attached to the initiative as a symbol. He is the one taking the work into churches, policy rooms, reentry networks, and local communities — opening doors that tax strategy alone cannot open.
Where Strategy Becomes Access
The work they are pushing is deliberately practical.
Gonzalez continues expanding ETS as a national specialty tax and grant firm. The company’s core work includes:
Cost segregation and accelerated depreciation strategies
Research and development tax credits
Energy incentives, including 179D and 45L
Federal and state grant advisory
Real estate and municipal incentive planning
Capital strategy for businesses that were never supposed to have that kind of counsel
Tanner continues turning that machinery toward communities, second-chance entrepreneurs, families impacted by incarceration, and local leaders who need more than a press mention. They need a path.
The language around their work is simple on purpose. Show up. Open the door. Do not judge people only by where they have been. Invest in redemption, and you do not change one life. You change the lives connected to it.
That is the difference in this partnership. The story is not that a tax firm hired a motivational speaker. The story is that a national advisory firm — built by Gonzalez to democratize the tax code — is now pairing technical expertise with lived redemption and treating community access as a growth strategy.
What Comes Next
Gonzalez and Tanner are not positioning themselves as a campaign. They are positioning ETS as a model: sophisticated financial infrastructure on one side, street-level trust on the other. As the firm continues its national expansion, ETS Cares and Tanner’s outreach will be measured by a harder test than messaging.
How many businesses get access.How many families get stronger.How many returning citizens get a real future.
Two leaders. Two histories. One standard.
If the system only works for those who already know how to use it, it is incomplete. Their work is an attempt to finish the sentence.
About Julio Gonzalez
Julio Gonzalez is Founder, CEO, and Chairman of Engineered Tax Services and the force behind ETS Cares. A national tax reform expert, he founded ETS in 2001 to bring engineering-based tax strategies to mainstream America. Under his leadership, the firm has grown into a national specialty tax practice with 26 offices, a record of more than $2 billion in client tax savings, and a mission to expand access to incentives, grants, and community-centered economic opportunity.
About Charles “Duke” Tanner
Vice President of Community Affairs & Outreach and National Ambassador for Engineered Tax Services. A former professional boxer with an undefeated 19–0 record and author of Duke Got Life, Tanner is a national advocate for second chances, economic empowerment, prison reform, public policy, reentry, and fatherhood. He works with organizations such as the Jack Brewer Foundation, REFORM Alliance, and the Aleph Institute, and is Co-Founder of Legacy Impact Technologies and the Legacy Impact Foundation.
About Engineered Tax Services
Engineered Tax Services is a national specialty tax advisory firm headquartered in West Palm Beach, Florida. ETS provides cost segregation, research and development tax credits, energy incentives, grant advisory services, and related solutions for accounting firms, businesses, investors, nonprofits, and municipalities. Through ETS Cares, the company is formalizing its commitment to service, second chances, and stronger communities.
Credits: The KR Media Group.
Media ContactCompany Name: Engineered Tax ServicesContact Person: Julio GonzalezEmail: Send EmailCity: West Palm BeachState: Florida Country: United StatesWebsite: https://engineeredtaxservices.com
