My name is Christine Grab, but I go by Christi. Between the years 2008 and 2016, the Franchise Tax Board, California’s Income Tax Agency, “lost” 14 of the 20 payments that my husband and I had made. When I say “lost,” I mean that they cashed our checks right away, but didn’t apply the money to our account, and couldn’t identify where our money had gone. With each “lost” payment, I became more and more suspicious that these weren’t mere mistakes; that there may be some kind of scheme going on to get more than the required amount of money from lawful taxpayers.
It turned into a fight in 2012. We had not only timely paid our 2010 tax liability in full, we’d overpaid!. But FTB didn’t credit any of the five estimated tax payments that we’d made for tax year 2010, and by 2012 they were aggressively harassing me and my husband to send them money that was never owed, along with late fees, penalties and interest for “paying late.”
FTB had misapplied two of our estimated tax payments to previous years and refunded them. The other three estimated tax payments that we’d made for 2010 simply vanished. Those 3 payments were enough money in and of themselves to satisfy 2010’s liability in full.
To get them off my back, I sent them yet another payment to replace one of the payments that had been “misapplied and refunded.” This payment was also enough to satisfy the year’s tax liability. FTB “lost” that payment, too!
Even though we’d sent FTB proof of payments many times, FTB could not locate any of the “lost” monies. FTB’s harassment was so aggressive that they went as far as filing a wage garnishment against us for money that was NEVER DUE!
With each year that passed, more and more of our payments vanished, and FTB progressively harassed us for bigger and bigger dollar amounts. I want to clarify that we’d overpaid our tax liability for every year in question, and even FTB themselves has never denied that no money would have been due had FTB located the “lost” payments.
2012 through 2016 were far and away the hardest years in my and my husband’s lives. I had a baby in early 2012. Shortly after his birth, I developed a rare kidney disease that had no viable treatment in western medicine. By 2014, I was very sick, with a 93% chance of going into total renal failure at any moment. My cholesterol level peaked out at 630, which meant I could have dropped dead of a stroke or heart attack at any moment. Meanwhile, all three of our elderly parents became ill and needed a lot of time and physical help from us. And that is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of all the personal hardships we endured during that time-frame. We were juggling so many big, heavy balls that it felt impossible to keep them all in the air. Looking back on it, my husband and I are amazed that we survived.
And the Franchise Tax Board significantly added to our personal hardships. I cannot tell you how stressful it was to get the constant threatening phone calls from FTB, where they demanded that I send them a five-figure amount money RIGHT NOW OR ELSE, while staunchly refusing to locate the tens of thousands of dollars that they already had in their possession that hadn’t been applied to our account.
At the end of 2016, I finally contacted all our state level legislators and begged them to intervene on our behalf. After my Assemblyman and Governor Brown both contacted the FTB, the FTB magically located all the of lost money and the harassment stopped. That is when I went on the offensive.
It took me years to figure out exactly what the schemes were that we’d been ensnared in. I have confirmed that they are indeed bona fide embezzlement and racketeering schemes.
As I was digging for information, I also inadvertently stumbled upon more schemes along the way, including four schemes to overcharge interest.
I also met a man named James Lovett, who has uncovered three more schemes.
The reason it took so long to figure the schemes out is because government bureaucracy is difficult, time consuming, and a bit expensive to navigate. This is by design, of course. They know that most people will give up and go away.
Once I understood what the schemes were and how they were executed, I actively started trying to get the system changed by 1. Fighting the FTB directly via the CA bureaucratic and legal systems, 2. Trying to get legislation passed to make it harder for the assorted agencies to evade accountability for unlawful behavior, and 3. Filing Federal Criminal Complaints.
I am certain that lots of people get ensnared in FTB’s schemes, and most people are incapable of fighting back. Since I am one of the lucky few who can fight back, I feel like it is my duty to society to do so. I believe that I need to do my part to make California better for everyone.
I have had some successes and I am very proud of my successes! However, there is still a long way to go to achieve my goals. Seeing how far I have gotten all by myself, I now realize that it will only take a few more people to pressure FTB enough that the whole system will be changed for the better.
I believe that every government agency is as susceptible to pressure as the FTB, and that the whole state can be changed for the better with a little coordination of efforts.
The purpose of this website is to share all of the information that I have learned about navigating the California bureaucracy, especially within the FTB. While my knowledge is limited, I am hoping it helps others to fight back, too. I believe it won’t take all that many people pushing back to force the State of CA to end all of its unlawful practices.