Inside Engineered Tax Services, a national tax architect and a pardoned champion are trying to close the distance between sophisticated funding systems and the people those systems were written to serve
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Julio Gonzalez did not found Engineered Tax Services to become another cost-segregation shop. He founded it so accounting firms could walk into a client meeting with engineers, tax attorneys, and scientists behind them — the same class of specialized firepower that used to sit only with the largest companies and wealthiest families.
Charles “Duke” Tanner did not come home from a double life sentence to become a symbol. He came home as a husband, father, grandfather, and man of faith who had already decided that surviving was not enough.
Together they are building what both now call an opportunity platform: tax incentives, grants, government contracts, government funding, community outreach, and second-chance economic access under one national firm. The argument is no longer abstract. Smaller operators are leaving money on the table. Returning citizens are being handed release papers without a path. Churches and grassroots nonprofits are competing against institutions that already have grant departments. Gonzalez and Tanner are trying to change who gets into the process.
“I’m someone who understands that surviving is not enough,” Tanner said. “You have to turn your pain into purpose and use your freedom to create opportunities for others.”
Gonzalez framed the same gap from the other side of the ledger. “Smaller businesses and nonprofits miss billions of dollars in tax credits, tax incentives, grants, government contracts, and other government funding — not because they do not qualify, but because they often do not know these opportunities exist or how to access them.”
The Architect and the Distance He Saw
Gonzalez founded ETS in 2001 with a structural complaint. Fortune 500 companies had teams whose only job was to find credits, incentives, and funding. Main Street operators had a CPA, a mission, and almost no map. He built a multidisciplinary model around that problem: engineers for cost segregation and energy incentives; tax attorneys for law, estates, trusts, asset protection, and structure; scientists for research and development credits and workforce-based incentives.
The firm was designed to sit beside accountants, not replace them. That remains the operating rule. ETS strengthens the CPA-client relationship by handing the accountant capabilities that used to live inside a closed professional circle.
Over time the mission widened. Reducing a tax burden, Gonzalez said, was only part of the opportunity. Grants and government funding can launch a program, expand a business, hire employees, support veterans, improve a community, or give someone a genuine second chance. “Our mission has grown from tax equality to tax and grant equality.”
ETS Cares sits under Engineered Impact, Gonzalez’s foundation, and its charge to “Engineer a Better World.” In practical terms, that means using the firm’s relationships and platform to support veterans, animal rescue organizations, second-chance initiatives, nonprofits, and underserved communities. It is how the company puts success back into circulation.
The standard he will not move is integrity. “We will never recommend a tax strategy, credit, study, grant opportunity, government contract, or funding position that we cannot support with the proper expertise, documentation, and professional judgment.”
The Champion and the Years Between the Titles
When people hear “undefeated boxer” and then “presidential pardon,” Tanner wants them to hear the years in between. He went from a 19–0 professional fighter to a double life sentence and 16 years, six months, and 21 days in federal prison. He left his son at two and came home when that son was 19.
Boxing had taught him discipline, patience, and how to keep fighting when he was tired. Prison tested whether those qualities were actually in him. “In the ring, a fight ends when the bell rings. In prison, I had to keep fighting mentally and spiritually without knowing when — or if — my bell would ever ring.”
Faith, family, and the belief that God had not finished with him kept him from disappearing. Commutation gave him physical freedom. The years after that taught him how to live with it. By the time the full pardon arrived in May 2025, Tanner said the moment was bigger than clearing his name. It was confirmation that redemption has to be demonstrated.
“Freedom without purpose can become another kind of prison,” he said. “I did not want to simply be home — I wanted to make being home mean something.”
Duke Got Life exists because a speech cannot hold the whole journey: the promise, the mistakes, the punishment, the pain, the faith, and the families pulled into a sentence they did not receive. The book is now doing work Tanner cannot do in every room at once.
Why the Partnership Holds
Gonzalez did not bring Tanner in as decoration. He brought him in because traditional institutions cannot reach every community they claim to serve. Tanner understands what it feels like to be overlooked, counted out, or denied access. He also knows how to move between a boardroom, a church, a prison, a government office, and a neighborhood that has stopped expecting anyone useful to show up.
“Julio saw more than my background,” Tanner said. “He recognized my relationships, my ability to connect with people, and my commitment to underserved communities. I trusted the partnership because we shared a belief that business can be profitable while still serving people.”
Day to day, Tanner does more than represent the company. He develops relationships, identifies opportunities, brings decision-makers together, helps qualify potential clients, and stays involved as the work moves. He also helps ETS understand communities that conventional tax firms do not know how to enter.
Grants are not a side ministry in that model. They are part of redemption because purpose needs resources. “We can tell people to rebuild their lives, open businesses, serve their neighborhoods, and create jobs — but those goals require capital,” Tanner said.
The people being left out, both men say, are not lacking vision. Small businesses, churches, grassroots nonprofits, minority- and women-owned operators, veterans, returning citizens, and leaders in underserved communities are left out because the system is fragmented and professionalized against them. They do not have grant departments, contracting teams, or the documentation culture that institutions take for granted.
What a Second Chance Has to Include
Tanner is blunt about the gap between a gate and a life. A real second chance includes housing, employment, healthcare, transportation, mentorship, financial education, and people willing to open doors. Release paperwork is not a plan.
Too many reentry programs, he said, offer short-term help without a long-term pathway. They complete forms and call it success. They do not connect a person to a career, capital, ownership, or a community that will still be there after the orientation ends. Fatherhood sits at the center of that argument because incarceration does not only remove a man from society. It can remove a father from his children. Tanner lived that loss. Restoring fathers, he said, strengthens children and neighborhoods — but those fathers need healing, accountability, work, and a chance to become present again.
“Redemption becomes policy when we remove unnecessary barriers to employment, housing, education, licensing, and capital,” Tanner said. “Redemption without action is only a word.”
Gonzalez’s version of the same test is institutional. Tax and grant equality is working when a small business gets the same quality of expertise as a Fortune 500 company, when a nonprofit can compete without a development department, and when veterans, women, minorities, and returning citizens know what exists and have qualified people helping them pursue it. Equality is not a guaranteed outcome. It is a genuine entry into the process.
Their work is focused on:
- Tax incentives, grants, government contracts, and funding access for businesses, nonprofits, churches, and municipalities
- Second-chance pathways through employment, capital, fatherhood work, mentorship, and community partnerships
What They Are Building Next
Gonzalez is building a national platform that pulls tax incentives, grants, government contracts, government funding, capital resources, and specialized expertise into one place. The next year, in his view, should change access. Opportunity should not belong only to people who already understand the system.
Tanner is building the human bridge inside that platform — through ETS, Legacy Impact Technologies, the Legacy Impact Foundation, advocacy, and partnerships with organizations such as the Jack Brewer Foundation, REFORM Alliance, and the Aleph Institute. Success in the next 12 months, he said, means more grant and economic-access work, stronger government and community partnerships, technology that can serve people inside and after prison, and serious attention for worthy clemency and second-chance cases. It also means remaining present for his family.
If the work disappeared tomorrow, Tanner said the system would lose a bridge that cannot be manufactured by a title. He can speak in rooms that do not usually share a language. Gonzalez said the firm would lose its claim that sophisticated resources can travel farther than they historically have.
The measure both men are willing to be held to is not the story. It is the aftermath.
Who gets into the process.
Who gets the funding.
Who gets work, family, and a path that lasts after the speech ends.
Two leaders. Two histories. One standard.
About Julio Gonzalez
Julio Gonzalez is Founder, CEO, and Chairman of Engineered Tax Services and the force behind ETS Cares and Engineered Impact. He founded ETS in 2001 to bring engineers, tax attorneys, scientists, and specialized funding expertise to accounting firms and their clients.
About Charles “Duke” Tanner
Charles “Duke” Tanner is Vice President of Community Affairs & Outreach and National Ambassador for Engineered Tax Services. A former 19–0 professional boxer, author of Duke Got Life, husband, father, and grandfather, he advocates for second chances, reentry, fatherhood, prison reform, and economic access. He is Co-Founder of Legacy Impact Technologies and the Legacy Impact Foundation.
About Engineered Tax Services
Engineered Tax Services is a national specialty tax, incentives, grants, government contracts, and government-funding firm headquartered in West Palm Beach, Florida. ETS works alongside CPAs rather than replacing them.
Credits: The KR Media Group.
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Company: Engineered Tax Services
(E) mail: info@engineeredtaxservices.com
Website: https://engineeredtaxservices.com
City: West Palm Beach
State: Florida
Country: USA
