Dionne Cheshier, Enrolled Agent and CTRS Member Spotlight
Collecting $200,000 in fees in your first 18 months of tax resolution is a huge success story. However, this success was largely enjoyed by someone else because Dionne Cheshier was outsourcing this work to another person. Like many tax professionals, Dionne saw the value in doing tax resolution but lacked the knowledge and confidence to do it herself. “I saw Michael’s program and ordered it,” Dionne recalls. “It was overwhelming to me, so I decided to outsource it for about a year and a half to a third party, and after watching them charge over $200,000 to my clients, I decided I needed to figure out how to do this.” Dionne Cheshier is an Enrolled Agent, Certified Tax Resolution Specialist, and CEO of C&A Associates and Cheshier Tax Resolution, Inc. in Irving, Texas. She has been in practice for 23 years, and when she began looking into tax resolution five years ago, she discovered there were many things she didn’t know about this niche market. “The biggest challenge was lack of knowledge,” she says. “For example, the word abatement was foreign to me.” Dionne was unfamiliar with the IRS’s Fresh Start program, how to make an offer in compromise, and the many other programs available to help taxpayers resolve their debts. But when she saw the potential of bringing tax resolution in-house, she acted quickly to build her knowledge base. She has attended specialized training classes and is a member of ASTPS and Tax Freedom Institute. Dionne is also a big fan of our Tax Resolution Success Summit. After attending her first one in 2017, she brought her entire staff to the 2018 Success Summit held in Austin, Texas. “Last year when I went [to the Success Summit] in Nashville, I was blown away,” she says. “This year, I took my entire staff because I wanted everyone to pick one or two things [to implement]. It’s not enough for me to pick one or two things; I want 10 things, and I want each person to have one or two things!” One of Dionne’s staff members came back from the Success Summit and immediately created an attractive binder filled with client success stories. “She took what we had ‘behind
the door’ and created
something that’s flashy for the client to see,” Dionne says. “We’ve got everything in there from million-dollar audits to $2 million representation settlements for 25 percent of their debt — things they said couldn’t be done, but we did it.” Dionne’s success stories include
an S Corp partner who hadn’t paid $1.8 million in taxes. She settled the case for 25 percent of the amount owed. This extremely satisfied client has referred another case for which Dionne is working to resolve a $3.6 million tax debt. When she isn’t busy working cases for her clients, Dionne enjoys traveling and seeing new places. She also loves trying new foods from all over the world. Although, when Dionne leaves town, she doesn’t leave her business completely behind. Finding new tax clients in cities she’s never been to is a unique hobby of hers. In addition to traveling and discovering new cuisines, Dionne is a mom to three sons — sadly, one passed away last year — and has an Australian Shepherd and an African grey parrot. Her children’s friends also think of Dionne as a second mom. “They just flock to me,” she says. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
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