Living The Red Life - From 17 Felonies to Tax Strategy Success

Episode Date: June 2, 2026

Manuel Aragon spends his days helping entrepreneurs keep more of what they earn, but his path to becoming a respected tax strategist was anything but conventional. After facing 17 felony charges as a teenager and navigating years of personal challenges, Manuel refused to let his past define his future. In this episode of Living The Red Life, he shares how resilience, financial education, and relentless self-improvement helped him build Aragon Tax Return Services into a growing tax planning and advisory firm. He discusses tax strategy, entrepreneurship, financial literacy, implementation versus information, and why many business owners unknowingly leave money on the table. Through powerful lessons from the streets, the boardroom, and his upcoming book, The Tax of Life, Manuel reveals the mindset shifts that changed everything.Key TakeawaysYour past mistakes do not have to determine your future success.Tax strategy can be one of the most powerful wealth-building tools for entrepreneurs.Information alone is not enough; implementation creates results.Financial literacy is a skill that can transform families for generations.Building assets and long-term wealth matters more than simply accumulating cash.Notable Quotes"Give me a corner and a calculator and I'll hide behind the scenes.""Taxes can make or break a company.""My goal is to make taxes fun, informational, and educational.""You made a bunch of money. Now let's shelter it, move it, or invest it.""We have the freedom to change this perception of how people look at taxes."Connect with Rudy Mawer:LinkedInInstagramFacebookTwitter

Taxes can make or break a company for one, but I just think that it's underserved, and my goal is to make taxes fun, informational, and educational for whoever wants to learn. Manuel Aragon is a resilient, community-minded entrepreneur and the founder of Aragon Tax Return Services. Drawing from his journey of personal growth and perseverance, he helps individuals and businesses gain financial clarity while inspiring others to embrace resilience, purpose, and continuous self-improvement. I have another book set to release called The Tax of Life, So it'll be a short story on, I guess, how I overcame the obstacles to get certified.

Some of the stuff I went through as a kid, where my mental state changed and how I just started to look at business differently. If I could get that and a lot of kids' hands at 14, I think it may help them look at life differently. I want to educate people on that says, hey, you made a bunch of money. Now let's shelter it or let's move it or let's invest it or, you know, buy equipment for the business. So it may not be cash sitting in the bank, but it's assets for you, your family and, you know, your legacy. That's cool. The flaw to that, though, is. My name's Rudy Moore, host of Living the Red Life podcast, and I'm here to change the way you see your life in your earpiece every single week.

If you're ready to start living the Red Life, ditch the Blue Pill, take the Red Pill, join me in Wonderland and change your life. Welcome back to another episode of the Living Your Legacy podcast, The Red Life Edition. Moments before filming his legacy maker's episode here with our General Lauren in Studio 1, we have Manuel Aragon. Manuel, how are you, my friend? I'm great. How about you? Fantastic. Thanks for asking a little bird that looks a lot like you told me that you are, you spent most of your time behind a computer. Yes. And this is a very few moments that you are in front of cameras.

How you say, give me a corner and a calculator and I'll hide behind the scenes. Dude, I love it. Give him a corner and a calculator, the double Cs. But now you are in front of our cameras, sir, and it's all about you. You are speaking to someone as a huge fan of tax that understands nothing about tax, but boy, do I understand how important it is. and so does the clan here, Rudy does as well. Can you tell us why it's so important to not just have a medium, a lawyer, but a tax strategist or someone that understands the numbers by their side when starting a company? I think taxes can make or break a company for one.

Oh, for sure. You've got to have a general understanding of where your profit and loss is going. And that's where I think my background is a lot deeper than taxes. You know, I started growing, working jobs, throwing the newspaper. So I've done everything you could imagine from childhood. it up to kind of reach where I'm at. This tax business started as a side hustle. Right on.

About 12 years ago. So I was fresh out of school trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life and moved into the tax space and just started to educate myself on, you know, trying to build my own finances. And so that real world experience has, as I've interacted with more clients over the years, it just shows me how knowledgeable the general public is. Oh, yeah. You know, we have this big fear of like, I always say men in black suits of the IRS, you know,

And that's not the case. They're people just like us. They're there to help you if you call. Yes, sir. With the exception of government shutdowns and stuff like that, you know, but a good space to be in. But I just think that it's underserved. And my goal is to make taxes fun, informational and educational for whoever wants to learn. Yeah, I completely a thousand billion percent agree.

It's absolutely underserved. There's all this loud attention with all the things that are flashy, like shoes and video games. But it's November, December, if you are an artist, looking for a client. Now is the time to look for CPAs, tax strategists, because tax season's around the corner. And there is quality money in tax services. This is people that will pay for your experiences,

because when it comes to taxes, you definitely do not want to mess around. And you want to have, you know, if you're the ones wearing the gloves, you want to have a coach that understands why those gloves are going to be made of a specific thing and why those gloves could be a write-off. Talk about, like, the science.

Like, every time I speak to a CPA, or a tax strategist, the numbers usually find them. You mentioned that it was a side hustle. I've naturally been a math guy, so I was in school for an accounting degree, and I had an assignment. I was like, you know, what are you going to do after school? I didn't really think about it. I was in my second year's school, and I was like, okay, what am I going to do? And I started to go to the drawing board, and I said, okay, what do I want to do?

And I was like, well, taxes is never going away. Yeah, death in taxes. Uncle Sam's always going to be there. So that's kind of why I moved into that space. I have, I guess, a good network of people back home, friends and family. So I started small. First year, I probably lost money. I got a story behind that where I have some childhood errors that we'll probably discuss.

And so I had to overcome a felony that I caught when I was 14. Yes, sir. So I had to educate myself when you know what was needed to, A, go back to school, better my life. It's quite funny. You mentioned that taxes by design are designed to be scary. You actually leaned on tax services as your last chance to make something out of yourself. And you actually, and you were denied. Right.

And then you actually wrote a letter to a human being that received it on the other side of the tax. And I didn't know if it went to anybody was the scary part. You know, I was like, it took six months for them to respond. And at that point, I was, you know, I've always kind of been working multiple jobs. It's just kind of how I'm built. But that was the biggest fear was like, okay, you know, I spent all this money invested in software education. And I couldn't get certified. So I was like, okay, do I take the turbo tax route?

And, you know, it's like, you know. And I actually did that the first year where I was just kind of coaching people through it. It's like, hey, I have an understanding of this stuff, but I can't sign your returns. Sure. If you have trouble, I can't help you. But it's if you figured out a way. Because most of 80% of it is education. It's just like, here's why this is this, this is why this form does this.

And if you sign here, it will actually be good for you. Oh, really? So why is it buried under these numbers and this and that's like, well, it's the government. It's my design. Right. I think the big misunderstanding too about taxes is the laws are really hard. black and white. If you do enough research, you know, you can, or if you have somebody who's educated in certain spaces, like the laws are the laws and there's loopholes and, and, and it's

legal stuff. So it ain't like you're doing anything wrong. I mean, you know, that's, it's the stuff that I want to educate people on that says, hey, you made a bunch of money. Now let's shelter it or let's move it or let's invest it or, you know, buy equipment for the business, expand. There's other ways where you're building assets. So it may not be cash sitting in the bank, but it's assets for you, your family, and, you know, your legacy. That's the goal. Yeah, yeah. It's funny.

My first, like, moment with taxes is, like, when I worked at PlayStation, we would have to do the quarterly seasons. Like, we got to spend more because we need a bigger budget. I'm like, but we're just doing fine. Like, don't ever say that. Spend more because we need it, like, X, Y, Z. And like, oh, okay. And then recently I just started, like, working with folks that are just within the tax

world. And then it's funny because the lawyers get all the fun stuff. They get the shows, the, the objection. But if they were somehow turned the pages and make it about tax, like folks that are in the corners in a calculator, you guys are the real magicians. You guys are just like, dumb, don't, don't, don't, tant, don't. And somehow folks are just like, wow, so much happier because their taxes have been resolved. Talk about that elation that you give folks when you're just like blessing them with the magic power of the corner and the calculator. I mean, I start as small where I think I have kind of three levels of clients.

You know, your everyday guy goes to work W-2's basic stuff. And then you got your medium to small-sized business where you could be a little more creative with the tax strategies and tax plans. So them are the people I hope to influence the most with all the stuff that I'm doing because they're like us. You know, we're entrepreneurs. We're trying to figure stuff out. We sometimes maybe make some money. We didn't see you come in or you take a big loss. You have you come in.

And that's where it's beneficial to have someone in your corner who can guide you down when those things happen. Oh, yeah. And lift you up when the bad things happen. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, and that's the piece that kind of just makes me smile behind it. You know, just saying, now, here's some good news. Hey, I saved you. Yeah, dude.

You know, a bunch of money or let's see how this plays out for the next 12 months. The flaw to that, though, is getting people to actually take the advice and implement it. Yeah. So that's something that we've kind of moved into the last year where we're trying to be a little more hands-on with newer clients, where we're kind of moving from advisory role to actual implementation. Yeah. Because you can give somebody a book, but they may not read it. Yeah, no, you're absolutely right.

Implementation is always key. Rudy, with the masterminds, and we always train our clients, but then it's like, all right, implement it. And it's always like a day, always drag. I'm like, the good things will lead if you just implement. And I'm also doing that with my financial advisor. I'm like, it's been a week or two. He's asking for all these documents. I'm going to get to it.

I promise. I'm still in this dopamine high. I'm still in it. But it does take time to implement it and execute because a lot of it is self-doubt. Like, I'm sure a lot of your clients have imposter syndrome, and that's sure, that's one of them now. Or whether it's like, really? Like, you can actually give me happiness because I work with you and I filed this correctly. And instead of doing yearly taxes, I do quarterly and da-da-da-da-da-da-da.

Like, these things are there to help. All right. Well, I mean, it's funny because I'm usually the guy they don't want to call. Yeah. I'm like, what? No one wants to see their tax guys. Oh, no, no. You're doing it all wrong.

But, you know, that's why I want to make it more fun. I think, you know, like to educate people. And that's why, like, you know, you know, You know, some of the approach with stuff I do, I try to be creative because I want the younger generation to understand. Like, we have the freedom to change this perception of how they look at taxes. For sure. So that's the primary goal. Yeah, some of my favorite Tick-Tock creators are the calculators and corners.

Like these folks that are just like tax advisors and they just turn into these characters. I'm not asking, I'm not saying everyone needs to do that. But there's clearly folks that are like trying to educate because once your tax person is definitely the biggest superhero. when it comes to being an entrepreneur. What are you doing today to essentially save the new version of you at 14? I'm sure there's a whole sleuth of Aragon's and Gutierrez is that are 14 going, shit. What do I do next?

I was in such a different space at 14 compared to now. I mean, mentally, I think I gravitated towards the stuff that was around me. It was just kind of not the best situation. I mean, my parents were hands-on when I was around them, but I was just kind of always the free thinker that I am today, but just in the wrong areas. Sure, sure. You're exploring, Bubba.

And so what I'm doing now is I have a book coming. So a follow-up. I participated in an anthology last summer called Success DNA. That's been pretty successful. And then I have another book set to release probably mid-February called The Tax of Life. So it'll be a short story on, I guess, how overcame the obstacles to get certified, you know, some of the stuff I went through as a kid, where my mental state changed and how I just started

to look at business differently. If I could get that in a lot of kids' hands at 14, I think it may help them look at life differently. I was just going to say, you mentioned the kids and I'm like, nah, dude, like, look at us and I just feel like we're still kids at heart. So it's almost like educating ourselves and it's a whole 360 loop. I only start speaking that way because it's a podcast and it's all about energy. But there is energy in the numbers and there is patterns. When you look at potential clients or prospects, is it the messier the better? Like, do you enjoy the challenge? What is your perfect client?

It's hard because I'm such a helpful person. You know, it's time consuming. Absolutely. When you have a problem client. But I think the goal is to educate them, though, so that they get better. So I'm open to really kind of all levels. I mean, there are some clients that are just bad for business. I think we all know that.

For sure. You know, but I say that with love, but I think if people want to learn, we may not have the scalability to be hands-on with them, but it's like, hey, I know somebody or let me give you some blogs or some information that's beneficial to you, but then that puts the onus on them to also do the work. Oh, for sure. So that's the piece where I'm still learning through that as my business skills now. So pick and choose, like, okay, is this something I want to be hands-on or, you know,

can I utilize the back office team and build more support around my team? Yeah, dude. so that we execute properly. Right on, man. How can folks find more about you and reach out to you for your services? What's a good website or social media? So www.Aragontaxreturnservices.com. You can find me on Facebook, Instagram, just manual Aragon,

Aragon Tax Return Services, so I'm sure we could drop some handles in there. But I mean, other than that, I mean, you'll see me air on the show, and then I'll try to make a decent marketing push when the book releases because I think that could influence a lot of people. Oh yeah, absolutely, a thousand percent. And I got to ask offline. H. You may not even have to use this question. Any Lord of the Rings reference?

Do you have Lord of the Rings stuff because of your Aragon? No, it's funny. I used to get teased. I looked like one of the little creatures on there when I was a kid. Oh, my God. No, why did you do that? Come on, man. I got tough skin.

No, no, good for you. But you, Gutierrez, Aragon. These Aragon's a powerful name, my friend. No, I think Aragon is, my understanding is Spain originally. imagination. So, very cool. I get that a lot. I don't, I haven't really done a lot of research on my name background. That's okay. Neither have I am Gutierrez. Apparently we're a big deal, Aragon, Gutierrez. Whatever. Anyways, here we are in the red life. Uh, joining me again, and we're wrapping up. This is Manuel Aragon, and I am Ray Gutierrez, and we are inside success.