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:
- The Withholding Practice was not addressed in the tentative ruling in any manner. The primary purpose of the lawsuit was to get a precedential ruling to decide if this practice was lawful.
2. FTB made a false argument by conflating Revenue and Tax Code Sections 19307 and 19087. Anna Barsegyan used deceptive wording to make it sound as if the two completely separate topics addressed in the two laws were one and the same. In doing so, Anna Barsegyan conflated a refund of overpayment of taxes with FTB not applying estimated tax payments to the taxpayer’s account.
3. Anna Barsegyan again falsely conflated the calculations for issuing a NPA with the calculations for how much a demand penalty should be.
4. Anna Barsegyan contradicted herself on the issuance of NPAs: In her Brief, Anna Barsegyan wrote “The demand also informed Plaintiff that the demand penalty is imposed as of the date of the Notice of Proposed Assessment.” In the next sentence, she made a false statement that directly contradicted the previous sentence. Continuing on line 14: “Thus, despite plaintiff’s arguments in her opposition, the issuance of the NPA is not a precursor to the imposition of the demand penalties.“
5. Anna Barsegyan conflated the liability to pay our taxes with the obligation to file returns.
6. I asked the judge to allow me to submit a table of contents and authentication, and accept my evidence and facts to make an amended ruling. Or alternatively, that he allow my facts to stand using the evidence that FTB submitted, since the majority of the evidence that I submitted was also submitted by FTB.
7. The judge said the penalty was proper because I had a filing requirement; I pointed out that a filing requirement has no correlation to a demand penalty.
8. The judge did not address why he denied my argument that the demand penalties were falsely imposed because the NPAs were issued in violation of Revenue and Tax Code 19087.
9. The judge stated that I did not establish reasonable cause for abatement of demand penalties. I believe that is only because he dismissed my evidence and facts.
10. The judge stated that my arguments were not adequately supported by citation to applicable legal authority, however, the judge did not address even one law that I’d cited.
11. The judge stated that he did not dismiss FTB’s Motion for Sanctions for violating the rule that FTB had to serve me 21-days before filing because he believed that Ms. Barsegyan was exempt from the requirement because I had already taken the alleged actions. However, Ms. Barsegyan stated repeatedly that the purpose of the Motion was to deter me from further similar actions.
12. The social security number exposure was not addressed. The judge overlooked it as if it had never happened.
13. The issue of FTB collections staff overcharging interest had no bearing on this case whatsoever. I believe that it was improper to sanction me for something that was beyond the scope of the case.
In that speech, I had basically called the judge out for covering up FTB’s criminal activities. When I pointed out the holes in his ruling, I used words such as “disappointed.” I closed with “Even if you rule against me on the issues, please address the matters instead of covering them up through evasion. I understand there is probably a lot of political pressure on you to not adversely affect your employer’s revenue stream. But please, please, take a stand and protect all the people who can’t afford to hire attorneys to fight back.”
After Anna Barsegyan made her closing remarks, I pointed out to the judge that she had lied to him. The judge literally waved his hand like it was no big deal and did not say a word about her closing. Instead, using an emphatic and exasperated tone, he said something that I believe was a threat to me and my family:
“…when I find that the tax court has imposed proper penalties, that means I’m disregarding all of your arguments, ma’am. I don’t find them credible. I don’t find them allowed, so I don’t have to go through each one because this Court finds that they’re not credible. They’re not under the law… I just responded to every one of your arguments. Not credible with this courtroom, okay? But this has got to stop, Ms. Grab. This has got to stop… listen to what I’m saying. Respectfully, listen to what I’m saying. This has got to stop…There’s consequences when you do this type of work. I feel like I know you; I really do. And your family is here; you always bring your family…But it’s time to let it go, Ms. Grab.”
The thing is, the judge is a good guy. I started watching hearings in his courtroom right after my case was filed, and over the 2 years and 3 months that the case lasted, I saw a lot of hearings. I have a good perspective on how he rules. I believe that he does try to do his best within the latitude that has been given to him, but he’d made it clear in several cases that he’s presided over that his is a “yes man” who will not make a ruling that he knows will displease the people above him, even if he personally wants to rule differently.
So that said, I want to believe that the judge’s words were more of a “warning” than a “threat.” I genuinely believe that he was trying to tell me that the Department of Justice and FTB were capable of far worse than just exposing social security numbers, and that if I filed an appeal, both agencies would go on the attack.