Category: Coercion

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Analyzing FTB’s Response to My 2025 Annual Taxpayer Bill of Rights Requests

The verbal Requests I made at the 2025 Annual Taxpayer Bill of Rights Meeting. The written Requests, which are more detailed, are linked below.

FTB responded to my Annual Taxpayer Bill of Rights (ATBOR) Requests on February 3, 2026, as promised. In the same meeting, I had made two public comments separate from the ATBOR requests. FTB included a response to one of the comments, about Protests, as if it were part of the ATBOR requests. 

I’ve learned that with FTB, what they don’t say is far more telling than what they do say. The first public comment that I’d made was asking FTB what they were going to do to correct their issues with the small business collections line. I pointed out long hold times and high hang up rates. FTB did not acknowledge the public comment at the time I made it; they responded with “Next speaker.” And they didn’t respond in writing to that comment, even though I’d sent two follow up emails stating that I expected a response. Per California law, failure to deny constitutes admission: Any material allegation in the complaint that is not effectively denied is deemed admitted. [CCP § 431.20(a); see Hennefer v. Butcher (1986) 182 CA3d 492, 504, 227 CR 318, 325]. This failure to acknowledge my comment is basically an admission that they are intentionally trying to destroy small businesses by making it impossible to resolve “issues.”

Issue 1: In the written version, I asked FTB’s board and executives to stop putting their employees at risk of federal prosecution by having FTB staff cite laws verbatim so that they can no longer deceive people about their unlawful and extra-lawful policies and procedures. In the verbal version, I asked FTB staff to protect themselves from federal prosecution by refusing to comply with unethical and unlawful behavior. 

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FTB’s 8 Schemes To Overcharge Taxpayers

For those that prefer video, here is a 12-minute speech that I made to State Controller Betty Yee via webinar in December 2020, which sums up the info below. We’re also working on a documentary series exposing the corruption.

The over-simplified explanation of the schemes that I got ensnared in is that the Franchise Tax Board does not apply the money that you send them to your account right away. Then they charge you penalties for “paying late.” Then they over-charge interest on these penalties. 

But you have to understand that the reason that they’ve been getting away with their criminal activities is because tax law is complicated, and they work the complex nature of the laws to deceive the public on what the laws actually say. 

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At the 2025 Board Meeting, I Gave More Details About How FTB’s Schemes Work

February 2025 Update: FTB did respond to the requests.

At the FTB Board Meeting on Monday, December 8, in addition to making my planned speech, I had the opportunity to make a couple of off-the-cuff public comments that helped to put the pieces together of how FTB uses “gross incompetence” as a cover for their bona-fide criminal schemes to overcharge taxpayers, particularly small businesses.

The first comment was in response to a presentation on how FTB was going to improve its customer service by modernizing its contact platform. In the presentation, Mr. Banuelos and Ms. SoRelle did not address the serious problem that FTB has with hanging up on callers, so I asked about it in an 80-second public comment. FTB did not even acknowledge that I had made the comment.

This is the letter from FTB’s Disclosure Department that I had referenced in the video. From page 2:

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How Will Betty Yee Govern, if Elected?

Betty Yee is currently running for governor of California. During her eight years as State Controller, she was also Chairman of the Board for the California Franchise Tax Board (FTB), which is California’s income tax agency. I followed the work she did regarding FTB very closely, and have kept an eye on her since she left office. 

I believe that Ms. Yee is genuinely committed to her ideology, which includes opacity about government spending, increasing government authoritarianism, eliminating constituent’s rights, increasing social welfare programs that are questionable in terms of being ethical and lawful, rewarding corruption and unlawfully overcharging taxpayers. Here are a few of the things she has done over the years that have caused me to form this opinion:

  • When Betty Yee was State Controller, she stated in court that she wasn’t tracking how she was spending California’s money.

OpentheBooks.com, a government watchdog organization, sued her to open the accounting ledgers to show where our tax dollars were being spent.  From the article: 

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At the September 2025 FTB Meeting, I Called Out FTB’s Culture of Corruption

Here is the speech that I made at the meeting.

Below is the text.

My name is Christine Grab. I would like to address FTB’s staffing problems. 

I sued FTB in San Diego Superior Court. I believe that in that case, Keith Swank committed Five Counts of Perjury, Five Counts of Collusion to Cover Up Racketeering, Five Counts of Collusion to Cover Up Embezzlement and Fifteen Counts of Obstruction of Justice. 

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Table of Contents of My FTB Fight

I know that my website can be difficult to navigate, so here is a “FTB Table of Contents”: a list of what I have done with links to more information on each item. I am still working on adding links, so if you need more information ASAP on a particular topic, post a comment and I will make digging that particular info up a priority.

The issue that started it all:

Between the years 2008 and 2016, the Franchise Tax Board, California’s Income Tax Agency, “lost” 16 of the 20 payments that my husband and I had made. When I say “lost,” I mean that they cashed our checks right away, but didn’t apply the money to our account. Instead of locating the “lost fund,” FTB aggressively harassed me to pay the “outstanding balance” and imposed penalties for “paying late.” Here is the list of payments.

The Bona Fide Criminal Schemes I’ve Uncovered:

The 8 schemes to overcharge taxpayers that were documented via court records.

  • The Legal Process (Statutory Law)
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FTB’s 2024 Annual Taxpayer Bill of Rights (ATBOR) Meeting

The speech was limited to 5 minutes, so it was short and succinct. This is the text of the speech. The written submission is long and detailed, and includes links to proof of the allegations made. FTB’s response is here*.

This year, I’ve also made three legislative change requests: 1 treat married couples as a single tax entity. This has more details on exactly how the married couple embezzlement/racketeering scheme works that I’d referred to in the speech. 2. Repeal 1917C2 as it violates our right to protest. 3: Remove the loophole that lets FTB evade our right to due process.

Summary: This year, I made 7 ATBOR requests:

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I Was Featured on the Uncensored Beat Podcast

Uncensored Beat had me on to talk about my campaign to have people call the State Senate daily to demand that the State Senate comply with state and federal laws. Since Wiener has been working unlawfully since 2019, they are required to immediately vacate Scott Wiener from office, void all his votes, and void all the legislation he authored, co-authored and sponsored.

Here are links to the various topics we discussed:

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The Judge’s Verdict in the SDSC Case Was Blatantly Corrupt

Last year, I posted a video of a legal scholar named Dave Myrland who talked about how the tax man owns the court. I also wrote an article about how the legal system has been hijacked by government agencies who are unlawfully extracting extra revenue for their agencies. In my first appeal of penalties, interest and fees, I saw that the Office of Tax Appeal judges covered up the Franchise Tax Board’s bona fide criminal activities with an extremely deceptive and evasive verdict. It was no surprise when it happened again in the San Diego Superior Court case.

The biggest red flag that the case was rigged against me was that the judge denied an extension of the final hearing date. On January 23, 2022, my father got sick with a MRSA staph infection. He died on February 7. On February 18, FTB and I filed a stipulation to continue the hearing until September. The judge denied the stipulation on March 1. Since I thought the extension was a done deal, I focused on burial arrangements, moving my father’s belongings out of his apartment, probate, etc. When I found out the extension was denied, I only had 10 days to complete and file the extensive paperwork that was due. A paralegal of 23 years told me that she has never before seen a judge deny a hearing extension when both sides stipulated. And the fact that the denial took so long was suspicious.

Here is the tentative ruling, which was issued the day before the trial. He threw out the majority of the documents/evidence that I had submitted on the grounds of technical violations. The Opposition to FTB’s Motion for Sanctions exceeded the page limit and my Opposition to Summary Judgment was missing a table of contents and an authentication. He could have ordered me to re-submit these items and extend the hearing date, but he chose not to.

Just like with The OTA case, the judge refused to acknowledge the existence of FTB’s questionable business practices and refused to address the laws that I cited that proved that these business practices were unlawful. He also refused to acknowledge that the arguments the DOJ made were based on lies and deception, and that FTB had committed multiple counts of perjury and had improperly withheld and redacted documents to hide evidence. Likewise, the judge refused to acknowledge that the DOJ had posted my husband’s and my social security numbers online. If I had done the things that FTB/DOJ had done, the judge would have thrown me in jail. And yet for FTB/DOJ, he just pretended as if none of it had happened.

In the oral arguments, I asked the judge to amend his ruling. Here is the summary of the oral arguments:

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