America's Most Responsive Tax Firm · Two partners · Three new clients a month

One rule. You get the partners, not the associates.

Look — most tax firms hire associates and rotate them through your account. Intake here is capped at three new full-service clients per month so it never has to. The person you talked to on Discovery is the person who builds your strategy and the person who picks up the phone in March. Just so you know — we're really big on being available, we're super thorough, and we don't do surprises.

Book the 15-min Discovery → See the Tax Analysis →

Partners

New clients / mo cap

5.0

Google stars · 44 reviews

1–3

Day response SLA

Why we exist

We were the people our friends called after their CPA stopped picking up.

Before ETS, we worked in tax. We watched the same story play out at every firm: capable practitioners doing decent compliance work, none of them building real planning relationships. Owners would call us privately: "Can I ask you a question my preparer never answers?"

The questions were always the same. Should I be an S-corp by now? What can I do about my W-2 taxes? My books are a mess, where do I start? The IRS sent me a letter and I don't know what to do.

Most of those questions had answers worth $10K, $25K, sometimes $100K. Nobody was answering them. So we built a firm where answering them is the entire point. The compliance work is table stakes. The planning is the product.

How the firm is structured

Two partners. Two ends of the work. One firm.

Most boutique tax firms are one practitioner with admin support. We're built around a clean role split — one partner runs the front of the house, one runs the tax-side back. The split is what makes the responsiveness possible.

Front of the house

Ramon Liriano Jr.

Partner · Client engagement and operations

Discovery calls + engagement onboarding
Client experience and Basecamp portals
Bookkeeping team leadership
Sales, marketing, brand, content
Partnerships (Kick, Bluevine, Relay)
Operations, SOPs, internal systems

Back of the house

Our Managing Partner

Managing Partner · Tax practice and advisory

Tax positions, S-corp election decisions
Multi-entity structure work
Round N preparer review on every return
ProConnect data entry and review
IRS representation and POA work
Tax-position memos and audit defense

The team

Small by design. Big enough to do the work right.

No 50 associates. No billing partner. Every person knows every client. That's the model. It's why we cap intake at three full-service clients per month.

Portrait · pending shoot

Ramon Liriano Jr.

Partner · Discovery + engagement

Runs your Discovery call. Onboards your engagement. The person you'll talk to most often. Built ETS to be the firm clients call back to — not the one they leave when something goes wrong.

Outside the firm: husband, dad, San Antonio resident. Lifts heavy. Reads obsessively about operations and how good teams actually work.

Owns: sales · operations · bookkeeping team · partnerships · brand · content
Best at: finding the actual problem behind the problem you brought us

Team photo · pending shoot

Operations team

Bookkeeping · phone · onboarding

A small team behind the front-of-house work. Phone operations, bookkeeping review, intake coordination, and client communication support. They're the reason your messages get answered the same day.

Hiring philosophy: we grow the team slowly. Every hire has to fit the culture before the role. That's part of why the team cap on clients per month is what it is.

Owns: bookkeeping execution · phone ops · client onboarding
Best at: being a real human voice on the other end of the line

Live from the room

Two moments that capture how this firm actually feels.

Verbatim quotes from a check-in call and an advisory session. The first is a referral-chain commitment. The second is the reaction when we caught a prior firm's negligence the IRS hadn't even surfaced yet.

My brother told me it was good. And you guys saved him a lot of money. So then you know the value. We're gonna save you money. You needed us to tell you again?

Came to ETS based on her brother's experience — committing to start the engagement on that referral's strength alone.

That's unbelievable.

Said three times in a row after we revealed his prior firm had filed zero payroll for him in 2025 — caught by calling the IRS directly.

Verified Google reviews

5.0 / 44 reviews. Verbatim.

Pulled directly from our Google Business Profile — no editing, no paid placements. Names as Google displays them.

When I found myself facing an IRS audit, I was understandably anxious about the situation. However, Joel stepped in and provided exceptional guidance and support. His expertise saved me over $100,000, an incredible result that I never imagined possible.

These guys are amazing. Super responsive. Super knowledgeable. Super effective at crafting a tax strategy that solves existing problems and proactively plans to account for expected future conditions. Best accountants/tax consultants I've used by a wide margin.

I'm a small business owner who has several businesses but knows little about taxes. This can be a scary position. Elevated Tax Strategies took the time to educate me and walk me through every step. A trusted partner for small business owners.

I hired Elevated Tax Strategies when I needed my tax returns fast — and they nailed it, delivering well before the ETA. Their process was super organized and easy to follow, turning a mountain of paperwork into simple, manageable steps.

Joel is an incredible CPA! Not only does he take the time to educate his clients, he's always thorough, has amazing attention to detail and is extremely knowledgeable. We've referred Joel not only to our clients in real estate but also family and friends.

I can't recommend them enough. We had a major project on our hands that was overwhelming. Elevated Tax Strategies not only took our project head-on but made it manageable and gave us peace of mind. Ray has been professional, attentive and warm our entire experience.

Read all 44 reviews →

How we operate

Six principles. We hire for these, we fire for these.

These aren't marketing values. They're the operating principles we enforce internally. If we ever drift from them, our clients will be the first to notice.

Communication is the product. Tax work is what it carries.

If you can't reach your tax firm, the tax work doesn't matter. We respond in 1–3 business days. We use a private Basecamp portal. We never let messages sit.

Pricing is public. Always.

Every tier price is on the website. Every retainer is on the website. We don't do "request a quote." If we can't price you on the call, we tell you why and quote within 24 hours.

We tell you when we're not the fit.

If your situation is simpler than what we charge for, we say so. Sometimes we route you to a Tax Review instead of a Tax Analysis. Sometimes we say "your current preparer is doing this right, you don't need us." The honest answer always wins long-term.

The deliverable is yours. Forever.

Every analysis, every recap, every meeting note lives permanently in your Basecamp portal. If you stop being a client tomorrow, you keep the entire history. We don't hold anyone's records hostage.

Three new clients per month. That's the cap.

We intentionally limit intake so every client gets real attention. Not artificial scarcity — the actual capacity of two partners and a small team. If the month is full, you book into next month.

The team learns out loud.

We write internal memos on every tax decision and every position. We share what we learn with clients (quarterly check-ins) and with the team (weekly huddles). The teaching-firm mindset isn't a slogan, it's how we operate.

Honest disqualifier

This firm isn't for everyone. Skip the Discovery if any of this is you.

We turn away ~30% of prospects. Not because we couldn't do the work — but because the math doesn't justify the engagement on either side. Here's where we say no first.

Household AGI under $150K with no business or rentals. Standard tax software handles your return. We'd be a $2,500 spend on a $5,000 tax bill — bad ROI for you, bad fit for us.
You want an aggressive position you can't defend in an audit. Every position we take is documented and IRS-defensible. We don't run TikTok loopholes. Wrong door.
You're shopping for the lowest price. Our W-2 return is $750. Standard Tax Analysis is $2,500. If those numbers are dealbreakers, an enrolled-agent generalist will serve you better.
You want to keep your current preparer involved. We coordinate with attorneys, advisors, and bookkeepers. We don't co-prepare returns with another firm — too many fingers, too many liabilities.
You need same-week filing in mid-April. We file extensions free for active clients but we don't onboard rush jobs. Engagement intake closes 21 days before the deadline.

Next step

If you're still here, book a Discovery.

15 minutes. Real conversation. By the end you'll know which tier fits — or that we're not your fit and where to go instead. Free advice either way. We're more committed to the honest answer than to the close.

Book the 15-min Discovery →

No payment until after the Discovery call · Calendar shows your local time