I Have Filed Suit Against FTB in Superior Court of CA!

I lost my Office of Tax Appeal case. While I was disappointed, I was not surprised. Two different attorneys had told me that the OTA almost always sides with the FTB and that hiring an attorney would probably be a waste of money. That is why I originally went with the free attorney from the TAAP program. However, as soon as the TAAP program was moved from the Department of Fee and Tax Administration to the FTB, TAAP withdrew representation. What a surprise. So, I represented myself for the rest of the case.

The OTA verdict that was so blatantly corrupt that it was shocking. I just could not let the FTB/OTA get away with their criminal activities. The OTA is an administrative court, and Californians have the right to appeal administrative court rulings in Superior Court of CA. I went lawyer shopping and found that it would cost a minimum of $30,000 to get my $15,000 in penalties, fees and interest back. The lawyers I spoke with also told me that the FTB is retaliatory and will deliberately run up attorney costs with unnecessary extra legal work. And since I have pissed off the FTB in a big way, it would likely cost me as much as $100,000.

So I decided to act as my own attorney. Here is the brief. In my humble opinion, it is really good. It clearly lays out the FTB’s three racketeering schemes, as well as the unethical and underhanded tactics that the OTA uses to cover up FTB’s criminal activities. I am SO PROUD of myself!!!!! 🙂

I have forwarded this brief to the FBI, CA Auditors office, the FTB’s Board of Directors, Governor Newsom, GovOps, and everyone on the Senate and Assembly Tax Committees . Hopefully, it gets some traction.

Systemic Erosion of Our California Taxpayer Rights

Summary:

*The Franchise Tax Board has some unlawful policies that lead to them charging penalties, fees and interest that never should have been charged in the first place.

*Governor Brown, FTB Board of Directors (Betty Yee, State Controller; Keely Bosler, Director of Department of Finance, and Malia Cohen, BOE Chairperson, and the FTB Taxpayer Advocate Susan Maples are all aware of these unlawful collection practices and have not put an end to them.

*Governor Brown and State Controller Betty Yee have recently re-structured the Appeals process to make it more expensive and/or difficult to recover these unfairly applied penalties, fees and interest.

*It looks to me like the State Government is sanctioning these unlawful collection practices and rigging the system to ensure that taxpayers can’t get this unlawfully collected money back.

I. Restructuring the Appeal Process:

Up until January 2018, if a Taxpayer believed they were unfairly charged penalties, fees and interest by the Franchise Tax Board, they could file an appeal with the Board of Equalization.

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California’s Unlawful Schemes to Collect Extra Income Taxes From Taxpayers

Summary: I have caught the Franchise Tax Board, California’s Income Tax Collection Agency, utilizing an assortment of unlawful practices to scam extra tax money out of people (Section 1). I have been trying to put a stop to this government corruption (section 2). If you’d like to help me, I have suggestions at the bottom (section 3).

Both former Governor Brown and current Governor Newsom are actively protecting these schemes, as are State Controller Betty Yee and an assortment of other legislators.

Here is a video of me giving an 8-minute speech to legislators in December 2018, asking them to end some of these schemes. Since I was limited to only eight minutes, I couldn’t address all of the schemes that I’ve found. In the video, I flat out accused them of racketeering, along with other assorted violations. Even though they had more time to speak, the FTB only gave a 2-minute response. Susan Maples only responded to two of the eight items that I brought up, and Jozel Brunett gave a blanket statement that FTB is not doing anything unlawful.

The FTB’s written response to my speech is here: https://www.ftb.ca.gov/about-ftb/meetings/taxpayer-bill-of-rights/2018_Grab_Response.pdf. This response is full of legal improprieties – so much so that the Taxpayer Advocate refused to sign it when I pointed out that her signature was missing.

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