Summary of video:
AB-1519 is currently pending. Its purpose is to change the definition of “tax liability” and extend the statute of limitations to 20 years
FTB has budgeted $11 million for their program where they pay NGOs to find low-income people and convince them to a file tax return, including undocumented migrants.
FTB’s customer service is still abysmal, so it’s likely they are still falsely imposing penalties and interest as a result of customer service “failures.”
FTB disclosed that there is a 20 to 1 return on investment for the Collections department. That means that for every dollar it spends on the collections department, they collect $20 in revenue from debtors
AB-1518 signed into law in January of 2026 and codified as Revenue and Tax Code 18537. The State of CA agrees to turn a blind eye to the exploitation of illegal aliens as long as the state gets a cut of the money; therefore, the state itself is involved in human trafficking.
Here is the text of the 10-minute video above:
This is Christi Grab. I’m here today to tell you about the latest news regarding the California Franchise Tax Board, also known as FTB. I know, I know, most people don’t want to hear about taxes because it’s a dry, boring subject. But I think most of you will find these tidbits of information to be not only relevant to your own life, but also very interesting — especially the last one, so stay to the end.
FTB just had a public meeting on Monday, June 22, 2026. I’m going to give you the meeting’s highlights. If you want more information on any of the items, complete information can be found on FTB’s website — but they make it hard to find, so at the end of this video, I’ll give you instructions on how to find it.
Here we go:
Starting with agenda item #5, titled “Legislative Update,” FTB stated that they are trying to get a new law passed, called AB-1519, that would change the definition of “tax liability” and extend the statute of limitations to 20 years. Currently, the IRS has a 7 year statute of limitations and California has an 11-year statute of limitations.
If this passes, FTB will probably expand what they consider to be taxable income, and they would have 20 years from the date a particular tax return was due to try to collect more money from you.
The next 2 agenda items I’m going to discuss are related to one another and I think they’re concerning.
Agenda item #6A2, the item titled Interagency Agreement with the California Department of Community Services and Development…
FTB stated that this year they have budgeted $11 million for their program where they pay Non-Governmental Organizations, or NGOs, to find low-income people and convince them to a file tax return. Last year, they also spent $11 million on this program, but in years prior, they’ve spent as much as $21 million. This program began in 2016 and was championed by then State Controller Betty Yee.
Mind you, the people the NGOs are looking for are not required to a file tax return because they don’t make enough money to meet the filing requirement. The carrot that is used to incentivize people to file a return is called the Earned Income Tax Credit, or EITC, and they basically send cash to people who qualify if they file a tax return.
The federal government offers some credits and so does the state. The NGOs are specifically looking for families with children, especially children under 6, as they qualify for the most cash back.
During the meeting, FTB stated that if people qualify on every level, they can get as much as $3,576 cash back. However, the average California filer only gets $300 cash back.
If the individuals are not legally residing in California, the NGOs are also required to help them get identification numbers and sign them up for benefits. This is a good time to remind people that the FTB does issue its own numbers, called FTB numbers, that are separate from the federally issued social security numbers that are given to citizens and tax identification numbers that are given to legal residents.
While FTB has not confirmed this, it appears that illegals are allowed to get the EITC cash by filing tax returns using FTB numbers. I believe this because at other meetings, they’ve implied that migrants get less because they can’t get the federal credits… so the illegals obviously aren’t using federally issued numbers to file their California tax returns.
In these public meetings, FTB normally does not state how much money is allocated to each NGO. However, I made a public records request for this data and found that in previous years, the lion’s share of the funds went to Golden State Opportunity Foundation, which is a lobbyist group.
So FTB pays Golden State Opportunity to lobby the legislature for more money for this outreach program.
Interestingly enough, in Agenda Item # 3, titled Community Related Tax Preference Items, FTB’s board of directors expressed disappointment in how few people claimed the EITC credits in tax year 2025. It seems that they view the results as poor value for the $11-million spent – yet they are still spending the same amount this year.
Ok, changing topics now to even more disturbing agenda items.
In Agenda item #2, which was titled the “2026 filing season update,” The Franchise Tax Board admitted that it only answers 42% of incoming calls and 60% of incoming live chats on its main customer service line. This admission is significant.
In the March 2023 public meeting, FTB had admitted that it was falsely imposing late fees, penalties and interest as a result of customer service failures. They also implied that involuntary collection tools, including wage garnishments, liens and levies, were also being falsely imposed due to these customer service failures.
At that point in time, they were answering 40% of calls and 46% of live chats. They’d asked for a $25-million budget increase to improve customer service, which was granted. Three years later, the service still has not improved, which means that penalties, late fees, interest and involuntary collection instruments are still being falsely imposed.
And FTB falsely putting people into collections ties into Agenda Item #4, titled Collections Overview.
In that segment, FTB disclosed that there is a 20 to 1 return on investment for the Collections department. That means that for every dollar it spends on collections, they collect $20 from debtors. They congratulated themselves on their great return for investment. I find it perverse that FTB is financially incentivized to falsely put people into collections in order to maximize their profitability.
That’s it for the meeting highlights.
Now I’m going highlight some horrifying news that flew under the radar. At the end of 2025, AB-1518 was passed. It was signed into law in January of 2026 and codified as Revenue and Tax Code 18537. It may be the most concerning piece of legislation that I’ve ever seen, and I feel like we need to get a spotlight on it.
It allows employers to file Group tax returns on behalf of their illegal alien employees.
The employers are only required to say how many illegal employees they have and the total amount of money was paid to the group as a whole.
So there’s no way for FTB to tell how much each individual made. In other words, the employers don’t have to prove that they’ve complied with the minimum wage laws.
In order to participate in this program, the illegals in the group are required to file as single, with no deductions or credits allowed.
The illegals are charged the highest state tax rate, which is 12.3%. They are also required to pay an extra 1% mental health fee, which is normally only imposed on those who make $1 million or more per year.
So basically, the California legislators voted to essentially turn a blind eye to employers that are exploiting illegals in exchange for a big piece of the pie.
I believe that not only does this bill facilitate human trafficking, it means the state itself is participating the in human trafficking.
Not one single legislator voted against this bill, though 13 legislators abstained from voting.
The very same legislators who claim to be all about protecting undocumented migrants voted for this bill to exploit those very same people.
It looks to me like when these legislators claim to be protecting the migrants, what they mean is that they are protecting the traffickers.
I believe that every legislator who voted for this bill should be prosecuted.
It is worth noting that many of the legislators who voted for this bill failed to sign an oath promising to uphold the constitution for the 2025 – 2026 legislative term.
That’s all for this video. If you want more information about the June 2026 or March 2023 meetings, go to FTB.ca.gov, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on the “meetings” link. Scroll down until you find the appropriate date. The “agenda” link to the right of the date has quite a bit of information, but for the full information, you can click on the video link to watch the full meetings. The meetings are usually somewhere between 1.5 – 4 hours long.
For the most up-to-date turn times on responses to notices, go to FTB.ca.gov, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on the “wait times” link.
If you’d like more information on FTB’s questionable business practices, check out my website: www.gwsandiego.net/blog.
Thank you for watching this video. I hope you found it worthwhile!