🎙️ The Lyon Share Podcast with Ed Lyon — Inside the IRS: Former Auditor Daveed Tuck Reveals What Really Happens

In this powerful episode of The Smart Money Edge with Ed Lyon, Ed sits down with Daveed Tuck, a former IRS auditor turned tax strategist, to explore what really happens inside the IRS—and how that insider knowledge helps taxpayers win.

Daveed shares his journey from growing up in Oregon’s farm country to working for the IRS, where he learned how the system truly operates through the Internal Revenue Manual (IRM)—the IRS’s secret playbook. Together, Ed and Daveed reveal how understanding that playbook can protect business owners, investors, and entrepreneurs from costly mistakes.

They also discuss the rise of AI in tax enforcement, why the IRS’s algorithms are getting smarter (and faster), and how advisors and business owners can stay ahead. From audits and artificial intelligence to cost segregation and the “lazy 1031,” this episode offers real, practical insights into tax defense and planning from both sides of the desk.

• The IRS Playbook Revealed: Learn how the Internal Revenue Manual (IRM) governs audits, collections, and procedures—and how to use it to your advantage.

• AI at the IRS: Artificial intelligence is changing audits—making them faster, broader, and more accurate, but also more prone to bias and drift.

• Red Lights & Green Lights: Taxes aren’t just about what you can’t do (red lights)—it’s about learning the “green lights” that let you reduce taxes legally.

• Low-Hanging Fruit Audits: The IRS still targets easy cases and disorganized taxpayers—organization and documentation are your first line of defense.

• From Bureaucracy to Freedom: Daveed explains how leaving the IRS led him to build Anvil Tax, a proactive firm focused on planning, AI-driven systems, and client education.

• Smart Tax Moves: Discover the “lazy 1031,” medical expense reimbursement plans, and how to eliminate “phantom tax” with smarter depreciation strategies.

• The Human Edge in an AI World: Why empathy, creativity, and client understanding will always outperform automation in tax planning.

00:00–02:30 — Introducing Daveed Tuck: from Africa to Oregon to the IRS
02:30–05:00 — Inside the IRS: understanding the Internal Revenue Manual
05:00–07:30 — When auditors drift off course: why procedures matter
07:30–10:00 — Enforcement and bias: AI, audits, and the IRS’s evolving tools
10:00–13:30 — The power and danger of AI in tax enforcement
13:30–17:00 — How the IRS identifies “large, unusual, and questionable” items
17:00–20:00 — Audit trends, staff cuts, and the rise of AI-driven tax review
20:00–24:00 — The reverse tax gap: how millions overpay every year
24:00–27:00 — Leaving the IRS: why Daveed became a tax planner
27:00–31:00 — The roadmap vs. the roadblock: how to turn the tax code into a guide
31:00–36:00 — The “lazy 1031” and cost segregation explained
36:00–42:00 — Phantom tax, ghost assets, and the power of depreciation
42:00–47:00 — Why AI won’t replace human advisors—only empower them
47:00–50:00 — Building smarter systems at Anvil Tax and the future of AI planning

• “The Internal Revenue Manual is public—it’s the IRS’s own playbook. Learn it and you can hold them accountable.”

• “AI doesn’t eliminate bias—it inherits it.”

• “The tax code isn’t a wall of red lights. It’s a roadmap full of green lights for those who know where to look.”

• “Phantom tax is a triple hit—missed deductions, recapture, and opportunity cost.”

• “AI won’t replace professionals. The people who master AI will.”

• “Those who know how to use the tax code use it. Those who don’t, get used by it.”

• Internal Revenue Manual awareness and taxpayer rights

• Audit readiness and documentation systems

• Medical Expense Reimbursement Plans (MERPs)

• Cost segregation and “lazy 1031” real estate exchanges

• Phantom asset identification and elimination

• AI-assisted tax system management and automation

• Proactive planning to eliminate the “reverse tax gap”