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..

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Rebuttal to FTB’s Response to My Annual Taxpayer Bill of Rights Request

FTB’s response to the 13 policy change requests that I made is short, terse and riddled with problems.

Item 1: End Policy of withholding estimated tax payments made via credit elects

FTB wrote: The Franchise Tax Board previously addressed this issue in the 2018 Taxpayer Bill of Rights response to you, dated January 25, 2019.

Rebuttal: In my written submission, I clearly detailed how they had committed one count of collusion to cover up racketeering by misrepresenting what the law said in Commissioner V Lundy. I also re-sent them a copy of the 2018 letter to Governor Brown in which I cited several more times that the FTB committed the crime of collusion to cover up racketeering on this topic. In this response, FTB did not dispute my interpretation of the assorted laws they falsely cited, nor offer any valid laws.

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Written Submission for the FTB’s 2019 Annual Taxpayers Bill of Rights Meeting

2019 Annual Taxpayer Bill of Rights Requests

1. End the policy of withholding estimated tax payments made via credit elects.

This policy violates R&TC 19363, which says “Any amount paid as estimated tax for any taxable year shall be deemed to have been paid on the last day prescribed for filing the return for the taxable year (determined without regard to any extension of time for filing the return),” which in simple English means that no matter what date you filed the previous year’s return, the credit elect payment must be credited on tax day, which is usually April 15 or 16. 

However, the FTB does not apply these payments in accordance with the law; instead, the FTB puts the credit elect money into “suspense,” which is a fancy word for the general slush fund. The credit elect money does not get moved from the slush fund until the taxpayer files that year’s return. The FTB claims this policy is in line with federal practices, but that is a lie; the IRS does not withhold payments made via credit elects. 

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Video of Speech I Made to State Controller Betty Yee on Dec. 3, 2019

FTB Meeting Dec 2019 – Christi Section

State Controller Betty Yee is the Chair of the Franchise Tax Board’s Board of Directors. She is the woman on the stage who calls me to the podium before I speak, and thanks me at the end of my speech. The women seated at the table with her are (from left to right): Gayle Miller, who was there on behalf of Keely Bosler, who is the Director of the Department of Finance and the second FTB Board Member, Yvette Stowers, who is Betty Yee’s Deputy that normally attends the meetings in lieu of Betty, and Malia Cohen, who was at the time Chairman of the Board of Equalization and the third Board Member.

At the FTB table on the other side of the state are (from left to right): Dawn Casey, who works in the legal department; Shane Hofeling; Jozel Brunett, who is Chief, Legal Counsel; Selvi Stanislaus, who is Executive Officer; and Susan Maples, who Taxpayer Advocate. Notice that the FTB waived their right to offer a rebuttal/response to my speech — not denying what I said to be true is a tacit admission of guilt.

The text of my speech is here. Please note that the speech had a time limit, thus was shorter and less detailed than the written submission that I provided prior to the speech. The written submission is here. The video of the entire FTB meeting is here.

Text of Speech I Made at the 2019 Annual Taxpayer Bill of Rights Meeting on December 3, 2019

My name is Christine Grab. I have 13 requests. 

1. End the Policy of Withholding Estimated Tax Payments Made Via Credit Elects Until the Taxpayer Files a Return. 

This policy violates R&TC 19363, which in simple English says that no matter what date you filed the previous year’s return, the credit elect payment must be applied on tax day, which is usually April 15th.

The FTB does not apply these payments in accordance with the law. Instead, the FTB puts the credit elect money into “suspense,” which is a fancy word for the general slush fund. The credit elect money does not get moved from the slush fund until the taxpayer files that year’s return. The FTB claims this policy is in line with federal practices, but that is a lie; the IRS does not withhold payments made via credit elects. 

Demand Notices are only sent to taxpayers whom the FTB believes have underpaid their tax liability. The accompanying Demand Penalty is a crippling 25% of extra additional taxes beyond what the taxpayer actually owed. 

By withholding the credit elect payment, it appears that the account was underfunded and thus a Demand Penalty is assessed. However, had the credit elect payment been applied in accordance with the law, the account would not have been underfunded and the Demand Penalties would not have been imposed.

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My 2017 My Annual Taxpayer Bill of Rights Request and FTB’s Resolution — FTB Misrepresented What the Law Says and Denied State Taxpayer Rights

2017 was the first year that I participated in the Annual Taxpayer Bill of Rights Meeting. At the time, FTB hid this meeting from the public; I found out about the meeting from a tax lobbyist that I had contacted. When I submitted the first request, FTB told me that only tax professionals were allowed to submit, which is a lie. I complained to the governor and board members about being denied my taxpayer rights and was allowed to participate.

Rather than sending one letter, I sent several emails with requests as I thought of them. There were eight requests in total. The first one addressed the policy of withholding payments made via credit elect. I will work on digging up and redacting the rest of the email requests.

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Response to FTB July 2017 Letter Where I Point Out the Misrepresentation of the Law.

December 13, 2017

Christopher Calhoun

Franchise Tax Board

Via Fax

Dear Mr. Calhoun, 

First of all, I would like to apologize for the delay in responding to your letter dated July 28, 2017. As you know, I needed to get my BOE appeal filed, get my 2016 tax returns filed, get my suggestions in for the FTB Bill of Rights Hearing, get my requests to my assembly people for law changes, and my request to remove Mr. Cohen from the FTB Board all done by certain deadlines, so this letter had to wait. 

I am only writing the first half of my response letter today. I’ll complete the second half soon. And once these letters are completed, my next FTB project will be to try to find the $XX,XXX of my money that the FTB seems to have misplaced. I am sure that will be a nightmare. 

Before I get into the letter itself, I want to share with you that I have spent the last two days calling assorted government agencies to try to get a criminal investigation launched. What I have learned is that I could request a Special Grand Jury Inquisition of a county or city government agency, but Special Grand Jury Inquisitions (or any kind of equivalent) do not exist for State level agencies. It seems that there is only administrative oversight for the FTB, with no legal oversight at all. 

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July 2017 Letter From FTB in Which They Misrepresented What The Law Says

Letter is here

I decided to upload the version that I had written on so you could see my notes. First of all, the FTB misrepresented what the law says regarding the withholding policies, trying to make them appear legitimate when they are not. This is collusion to cover up racketeering. Second of all, he admitted that he denied my 2011 Abatement Request without reviewing any of the documentation that I submitted — this is denial of due process. And finally, he claimed there was nothing the FTB could do about changing policies, which is a complete lie. By law, he should have disclosed my right to address this policy issue at the Annual Taxpayers Bill of Rights Meeting. Here is my response letter, which was copied to the Governor and the FTB’s Board Members.

Letter to Governor Brown Detailing Why FTB Withholding Practices Violates Law

April 9, 2018

Governor Gerry Brown

c/o State Capitol 

Suite 1173

Sacramento, CA 95814

Re: Proof of More Illegal Activity By the FTB

Dear Governor Brown: 

I am writing to alert you to the fact that the FTB has committed two more counts of colluding to cover up racketeering. I am also alerting you to the fact that, in their effort to cover up one racketeering scheme – the “rollover” money issue that I have been writing to you about for a year and a half now – they have inadvertently exposed a second racketeering scheme: withholding estimated tax payments made from married couples.Furthermore, in trying to cover up the “rollover” scheme, the FTB also flagrantly violated my State’s Rights. 

I made several Formal Requests for a Policy Change to be addressed at the Annual Bill of Rights Meeting in December 2017. One of the things that I asked was to change was the policy of withholding estimated tax payments made via credit elects, or money that rolls over from one year to the next per line item 95 of the 540. 

Enclosed is Ms. Maples, the Taxpayer Advocate, Formal Resolution to my requests. Please note that in the response, at no point in time did Ms. Maples address the topic that I asked about. Instead, she chose to address a different topic altogether: married couples.

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