I. People have interviewed me!
- My interview with Haley Heathman of What Can We Do, where I summarized my ordeal with FTB and talked about how the system is set up to protect the schemes.
- My interview with Audra Morgan of Eye of the Storm, where I talked about the different avenues that I have utilized to try to put a stop to the corruption, and how well each of those avenues have worked (or not).
II. Book: The Colossal Criminal Conspiracy Behind the IRS – The Penalty Scam by Roger (Buck) Knipp
“IRS” and “FTB” fraudulently “assess” $5,000 penalties in response to almost any return or document that they disfavor or don’t understand, and more if the target is married or tries to explain. Ironically, there are no enacted code sections or regulations permitting “frivolous submission” penalties on the average American. With the help of professional researchers and 6 years in law school, the author was ultimately able to penetrate the corruption and expose the Grand Conspiracy. The 75-page Verified Criminal Complaint in the book explains the actual written law and condemns bureau employees who unlawfully impose the penalty scam. Discover how victims are pushing back against the California FTB. Keep your liberty, rights, and property by fighting back with the words of the government’s own laws. Don’t read this book if penalty notices are welcome in your mailbox. There is a large new section on the FTB and a California criminal complaint added.
III. Hyatt vs. Franchise Tax Board:
Summary of the cases: Mr. Gilbert Hilton moved from California to Nevada. The FTB didn’t believe the Nevada home was his “real” primary residence, so they send a private investigator out to break into his house, watch him, dig though his trash, etc. They also harassed him in other ways, like contacting various doctors to ask if Mr. Hilton was their client, and sending letters to friends that made it sound like Mr. Hyatt was under criminal investigation. The letters contained private information such as social security numbers. He sued for harassment in Nevada court and won. Here is an excellent 7-minute video summary:
The FTB sued in the Supreme Court to vacate this judgment, claiming that it shouldn’t be legal to sue one state from another state. Unfortunately, the FTB won, so now the FTB is once again free to harass people who live out of state for money that is not owed.
IV. Book: The Evil California Franchise Tax Board by Adrian Vance
V. Arizona Attorney General’s Office Files Lawsuit in U.S. Supreme Court Challenging California’s Unconstitutional Business Tax
Summary of the 2019 case: Every year, California assesses an $800 “doing business” taxes against Arizona businesses that conduct no actual business in California. California continues to assess these “doing business” taxes even though both its state courts and tax appeals agency have held that the taxes are illegal under California law. The Supreme Court has also recognized four requirements for states to impose taxes on out-of-state businesses under the Commerce Clause. California’s “doing business” assessments brazenly violate all four. Arizona estimates that its citizens pay over $10 million in these unconstitutional taxes to the State of California every year. Since the “doing business” taxes are deductible expenses, Arizona loses an estimated $484,000 in tax revenue each year due to California’s illegal taxation.
If California’s tax assessments are not paid voluntarily, California frequently further tramples on the sovereignty of other states by issuing orders to interstate banks, demanding that they transfer funds in Arizona-based accounts for back payment. The lawsuit alleges that these seizure orders violate both the Due Process Clause (by exercising jurisdiction over out-of-state funds without the requisite “minimum contacts”); and, the Fourth Amendment (by effectuating seizures without a warrant, probable cause, or involvement of any court). Those seizure orders further preclude the banks from filing any court challenge.
At the bottom of this article, there are links to the court filing brief and several Briefs for Amicus Curaie.
2020 Update: The Supreme Court did not choose to hear the case.
VI. OpentheBooks.com, a government watchdog organization, sued Controller Betty Yee to open the accounting ledgers to show where our tax dollars are being spent. This was relevant to my case because if Yee did open the books, we would have found out exactly how many people have been unlawfully snared in the “misapply payments to a previous tax year and refund the money” racketeering scheme. We may have also been able to look for evidence to support my belief that FTB’s account that they put the embezzled funds into– called “no payment” — is actually an off-the-books spending account.
From the article: “…Controller Betty Yee rejected our sunshine request for the state checkbook. Oddly, the rejection didn’t argue the law, but instead claimed that the controller couldn’t locate a single one of the 49 million bills she paid last year. This admission provides a troubling clue to California taxpayers who are wondering how and where their money is being spent. The answer is the people spending it literally don’t know. Or they at least say that don’t.”
In January 2022, the judge agreed with Yee that the burden on the state OUTWEIGHTED the public interest in transparency.
Open the Books found another way to collect some public spending information for 2021, and in August 2022, Open the Books published the information they collected in a line-by-line spending report. They have updated it to include 2022. Here is the FTB section. There are several odd transactions that should probably be investigated further. Unfortunately, they did not collect the type of information that I am primarily interested in.
VII. CBS Sacramento Investigation Proves Franchise Tax Board Deliberately Sending Collection Notices to Addresses That FTB Knows Are Old and No Longer Valid
Article Summary (December 2017): The Franchise Tax Board has a policy in which they deliberately send collection notices to addresses that they know are invalid, thus denying people the opportunity to dispute bogus notices or pay accurate bills timely. One day these people wake up with their bank account drained, and they have no recourse. In the article, the FTB claimed that sending collection notices to invalid addresses was required by federal law.
In June 2019, I got the FTB’s Disclosure Department to admit that it has never been their policy to deliberately send notices to invalid addresses, so the FTB’s Media Department lied to CBS.
VIII. CBS Sacramento exposed another FTB scandal: The State Stole My Money: Is Your Tax Refund Safe?
Article Summary: The State of CA is still sending collection notices to bad addresses, denying people the right to dispute or take care of it timely, then seizing money. However, they are frequently seizing the wrong person’s money!!!!
FTB’s response to this was to temporarily suspend the intercept program until August 2021. Key quote from the bottom of the article: “We asked the FTB what they are going to do to fix the flaws we exposed while the program is suspended through August. They did not answer…”
IX. Franchise Tax Board requested an additional $2 million in taxpayer funds for increasing litigation costs. The FTB’s Board of Directors (who at the time were Betty Yee, Keely Bosler, and Antonio Vasquez) approved the request on March 4, 2021.
“…to defend against increasing tax refund lawsuits…FTB has continued to see increased litigation efforts”
“In addition to seeking a refund of tax, many of these lawsuits also seek to recover attorney’s fees under the Revenue and Taxation Code or the Private Attorney General doctrine. If FTB were to lose a case, and attorney’s fees are awarded against FTB, the court can award fees in excess of $1 million or more, dependent on the facts and circumstances.”
“Alternative #2 – Do not provide additional resources: …If FTB is unsuccessful (in getting the additional $2 million), such litigation could cost California’s General Fund millions of dollars and may provide precedence for other taxpayers to challenge California’s authority and methods for determining and collecting taxes.”
X. Franchise Tax Board Requests additional $25.23 million more dollars so they can hire more customer service agents and give raises to existing agents.
In order to justify this request, FTB disclosed that penalties are being falsely imposed as a result of customer service failures.