On Friday, December 18, 2020, at 1:30 pm (PST). the CA Franchise Tax Board will be having its Annual Taxpayer Bill of Rights Meeting, where they accept suggestions from the public on how to improve “the system.” More information is here: https://www.ftb.ca.gov/your-rights/your-taxpayer-rights.html
Details: The Franchise Tax Board will meet remotely on Thursday, December 18, 2020, at 1:30 p.m. The public may view the meeting at Franchise Tax Board’s Internet web site and may participate by telephone at 877-336-4440, access code: 6683081. Instructions for viewing and participating in the meeting can be found in the enclosed copy of the agenda.
During the meeting, the FTB will invite people one at a time to give their suggestions out loud to the FTB’s Board Members (who are currently Betty Yee, State Controller; Keely Bosler, Director of the Department of Finance; and Antonio Vasquez, Board of Equalization Chairman), as well as the FTB’s Executive Staff. FTB will be given time to respond. Here is are two examples of how the speeches go: 2018 and 2019.
If you cannot attend or don’t want to make a speech, you can still submit suggestions! Simply send an email before the meeting to FTBAdvocate@ftb.ca.gov. They would prefer to receive them by December 15, 2020, but they will accept suggestions up until the meeting day. Last year, it appeared that they stopped taking suggestions via email, but Susan Maples assured me that they will be taking email suggestions this year.
All Policy Change Suggestions will get a response, called a Formal Resolution, by February 1, 2021.
You may be wondering why you’ve never heard about this meeting before? I mean, if they do it every year, you should have heard about it at some point, right?
This ability to make requests at the Annual Taxpayer Bill of Rights Meeting is a California State Right, pursuant to Revenue and Taxation Code section 21006(b)(2). Up until last year, FTB effectively hid this right from the public.
In 2017, 2018 (see 3:46) and 2019 (see 3:54), I requested that FTB do a better job of disclosing this right to the public. After my third request, they added a page to their website about it! So I can attest that the requests do work, you just have to be persistent. And if several people make the same requests, it has more power.
I am trying to spread the word about this State Right. Please share this information with other California taxpayers. Let’s flood the meeting with suggestions on how to improve the FTB! Let’s band together in a positive, constructive and legal way to demand that their broken system be fixed!