California Supreme Court Declined to Take The Accusation

No explanation was given for why the judges refused to take the Accusation where I documented that FTB employee Eric Yadao conspired to cover up his employer’s criminal activities by improperly redacting documents to hide evidence. I am disappointed, but not surprised. It seems to me that if my case was weak, the CA Supreme Court would have taken it in order to clear FTB of all allegations of criminal activity. I believe the fact that the judges chose to pass on my case indicates that I would have won.

In good news, though, I got a letter from the California Auditor’s Office indicating that they have opened an investigation into the Franchise Tax Board. No word back from the FBI as of yet.

September 4, 2020December 22, 2022

CA Supreme Court Accusation Filed Against Franchise Tax Board Employee for Covering Up That FTB is Overcharging Taxpayers

I have caught California’s income tax agency, the Franchise Tax Board (FTB), running multiple schemes where they embezzle taxpayer’s money, then impose penalties which would not had been imposed had the money not been embezzled. The false imposition of fees is the crime of racketeering. I’ve also caught them overcharging interest.

I have filed an Accusation in the California Supreme Court in which I detail how the schemes work, show the relevant legal codes that proves they are illegal, and then detail how FTB falsely makes these unlawful practices appear to be legitimate. I also call out the administrative court judges at the Office of Tax Appeals, as well as the California Bar Association, for their roles in covering up the criminal activities.

September 4, 2020December 22, 2022

Why The OTA Opinion in My Case Was Blatantly Corrupt

When a taxpayer believes that they have had penalties, fees and interest improperly imposed on them by the Franchise Tax Board, the first step is to request a refund. Refund requests are almost always denied.

The next step is to file an appeal in the Office of Tax Appeals, which is an administrative (specialty) court that deals solely with tax issues.

If OTA denies your refund request, you can then file a trial del novo in Superior Court. In English, that means that the Superior Court judge will look at this as a new case altogether, not simply as an appeal of the lower court’s decision. (More info on the process in FAQs)

I had been warned by two different tax attorneys that OTA usually sides with FTB, so hiring an attorney would be a waste of money.

I thought I had made a strong case for why I should get my money back with my Brief and Oral Arguments, so I was disappointed, but not surprised, when I lost. The Opinion (aka verdict) for my case was so blatantly corrupt that it was shocking.

August 26, 2020December 22, 2022

CA Supreme Court Accusation Filed Against Franchise Tax Board Employee for Covering Up FTB’S Criminal Activities: Embezzling Estimated Tax Payments, Racketeering Taxpayers & Overcharging Interest

I have filed an Accusation with the California Supreme Court against Eric Yadao, who is employed by the Franchise Tax Board as an attorney (part 1, part 2).

An Accusation is basically a request to revoke Mr. Yadao’s license to practice law because of unethical and/or unlawful behavior.

In this Accusation, I clearly detail that FTB is running multiple embezzlement and racketeering schemes, and that they are also overcharging interest. On pages 5 – 20, I detailed how the schemes work. On pages 4 – 16, I listed the legal codes that these schemes violate and why. On pages 23 – 38, I showed exactly how Mr. Yadao covered up FTB’s unlawful activities via improper redactions, improper omissions, false arguments and false statements..

August 17, 2020December 22, 2022

Demurrer Filed in Superior Court Case

As I stated in my last post, FTB’s Answer to my Superior Court Complaint was of poor quality. I did some research and found out that I could file something called a Demurrer, which is basically me asking the judge to throw out FTB’s Answer and make them file a new Answer.

I had to explain why FTB’s answer was a pile of nonsense, and I think that I did a good job! I am proud of myself! Here is my Demurrer.

My understanding is that if their new Answer is also of poor quality, I can then file a request for a Summary Judgment based on my written brief and their replacement Answer brief, and thus skip the whole trial part.

May 19, 2020December 22, 2022

FTB’s Answer — They Didn’t Deny Anything!

The FTB’s lawyer for my case against them is Anna Barsegyan, Deputy Attorney General under Xavier Becerra, the Attorney General of California. Yes, I know… most of us believe that the Attorney’s General’s office is supposed to protect the public from corruption. But that is only partly true — while the Attorney General’s office does prosecute criminal activity committed by individuals and private businesses, one of it’s job duties is to defend the State Government’s criminal activity. So basically, the Attorney General’s job is to eliminate the competition so that the government has a monopoly on exploitation.

I know I should be grateful that Ms. Barsegyan did such a terrible job on the Answer that she submitted to the Court in response to my Complaint, but quite frankly, I am disappointed at how our tax dollars are spent. For as much money as she makes, she could have made some kind of effort to do her job.

February 17, 2020December 22, 2022

Summary of FTB Crimes and Update on My Efforts To Stop Them

Summary: I have been trying to get the Franchise Tax Board to end some blatantly illegal business practices. The basics are:

1. The FTB is illegally putting your estimated tax payments into a general slush fund instead of into your account. The money isn’t put into your account until you file your return for that year; basically, the State of CA is temporarily embezzling your money. If you file late, they harass you for payments that would not be owed/impose penalties that would not have been assessed had the money been applied to your account in accordance with the law.

February 17, 2020December 22, 2022

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.

November 20, 2019October 6, 2025

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.

November 19, 2019September 28, 2023

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.