General Info:
I have caught the Franchise Tax Board running eight different schemes to collect more money from taxpayers than is legally owed: three racketeering/embezzlement, one racketeering, and four to overcharge interest.
This is my most current post, which summarizes all 8 schemes.
Here is proof of the 4 schemes to overcharge interest. Here is how you can figure out if you were overcharged interest, too.
In the above link, I mentioned that I had previously caught FTB manually changing interest upward , but didn’t include the proof. This is the proof that I referenced. The info in this link also substantiates my claims of FTB’s accounting improprieties.
Here is the CA Supreme Court Accusation that I filed against FTB employee Eric Yadao, which details three of the racketeering schemes.
The fourth racketeering scheme: it looks like the FTB may also be unlawfully withholding estimated tax payments collected by taxpayer’s secondary employers.
James Lovett has uncovered a two more unlawful schemes. One is another racketeering scheme: non-filer penalties for people who did file a return, AKA frivolous filing penalty. The other is that the liens that FTB files are fake! Those fake liens can be easily removed.
This is a post from 2019. I still hadn’t figured out nearly as much as I know now, but there are some puzzle pieces in there that eventually helped me figure the 8 schemes out. These puzzle pieces may be useful for others.
Here is a chart of payments we made for tax years 2008 and 2016. Of 20 payments, only four were applied timely. Many of the payments took years for the FTB to apply. Of those four payments, FTB overcharged interest on two. So only 10% of payments made were problem-free.
In 2017 and then again in 2018, Governor Brown and State Controller Betty Yee made is much harder to get your unfairly collected penalties, fees and interest back.
2017
In December 2107, I Sent A Response to That July Letter Where I Call the FTB Out on Misrepresenting Laws. I copied Governor Brown and the FTB’s Board of Directors on it.
My 2017 Annual Taxpayer Bill of Rights Request to End the Policy of Withholding Credit Elect Payments (one of 8 requests made for 2017).
FTB’s Formal Resolution to My 2017 Annual Taxpayer Bill of Rights Requests. They again misrepresented what the law says regarding the withholding policies, and they also said that they have no problem hiding the Annual Taxpayer Bill of Rights Meeting from the general public, which is a violation of California’s State Rights. .
2018
In April 2018, I Sent a Letter to Governor Brown detailing exactly why the FTB’s withholding practices violate federal and state laws. I go through the tax code line by line and show how the FTB cherry-picked words out of context to justify these policies; but when read in context, the laws say the exact opposite of what the FTB claims. The FTB’s Board of Directors were also copied on it.
Video of a speech that I made to Legislators in December 2018 calling out some of the FTB’s unlawful/unfair practices (10 minutes). Note that in her response, Susan Maples, the Taxpayer Advocate, only addresses 2 of the 8 issues that I brought up, and she does not deny the allegations of racketeering. Text version of the 2018 speech.
Here is FTB’s written Response to my 2018 speech.
2019
Here is the Appellant’s Second Response Brief that I submitted to the OTA court. In it, I detail how the FTB used improper redactions to hide pertinent evidence, omission of pertinent evidence, and deceptive wording to create a false picture of what happened in my case.
In July 2019, FTB’s Disclosure Department denied that FTB has any withholding practices. Hmmm….. why the conflicting information from different departments?
Video of my Office of Tax Appeals hearing where I lay out the tactics that the FTB utilizes to execute their schemes (35 minutes). Note that the FTB does not deny that withholding the estimated tax payments was unlawful, nor did they deny that the Demand Notices (penalty assessment) would not have gone out had the payments been applied timely in accordance with the law. Written transcript of the OTA hearing
I lost my OTA case in a verdict that was so blatantly corrupt it was shocking.
I was harassed online by a FTB or OTA employee in November 2019.
Here is a 11-minute speech that I made to State Controller Betty Yee (who is chairman of the FTB’s Board of Directors) , the other FTB Board of Directors, and FTB Executive Staff on December 3, 2019. It explains clearly and concisely how the racketeering schemes work, and calls them out on other unethical practices that help to cover up the schemes. Here is the text. The speech was time limited, so I also submitted a written submission, which is longer and more detailed than the speech.
Here is FTB’s response to my requests. It is terse and riddled with problems. I wrote a rebuttal.
2020
The OTA is an administrative court, and Californians have the right to have administrative court rulings re-tried in Superior Court of CA. In January, I filed a lawsuit against FTB for a refund of penalties, fees and interest!
In their Answer, FTB did not deny any of the specific allegations that I made against them. FTB’s Answer was so ludicrous that I filed a Demurrer, which is a request with the judge to have their Answer thrown out. The judge sided with FTB on the Demurrer, but that is probably a blessing in disguise. Had I lost, FTB would have had the opportunity to come back with a stronger defense.
In July 2020, FTB’s Disclosure Department again denied that any withholding practices exist.
I had filed a complaint with the California Bar Association against Eric Yadao, the FTB lawyer who made all the improper redactions/omissions/deceitful wording in the OTA case. In a ruling that was also blatantly corrupt, the Bar Association deemed that he did nothing wrong. I requested a review, and in the request I even more clearly detailed how Mr. Yadao had broken the law.
The Bar Association again sided with Mr. Yadao, so in August, I filed an Accusation against him in the CA Supreme Court. Unsurprisingly, the CA Supreme Court decided not to hear the case, and gave no reason why.
In October, I requested some records from FTB for the court case. They gave me some of the items that I requested, but not all of them. In December, I filed a Motion to Compel Further Discovery for the missing items. I believe these items will prove FTB committed fraud.
I made another 11 requests at this year’s 2020 Annual Taxpayer Bill of Rights Meeting, which was held via webinar this year. Here is the video of the full speech that I tried to make (12 minutes). For those that prefer reading over video, here is the written speech.
Unfortunately, State Controller Yee muted me after 5 minutes. Controller Yee did say that they had already received my written submission (which was longer and more detailed than the speech), and all of the requests I’d made would be addressed in their Response.
Here is FTB’s response. Just like last year, it is riddled with problems, including blatant collusion to cover up some of the criminal activities, and essentially admitting that other criminal activities are intentional. Here is my rebuttal.
2021
In response to the requests for documents that I had made in October 2020, FTB did provide amortization tables showing how they calculated the interest that they charged. I went through the ledgers line by line and caught FTB overcharging interest via four different mechanisms.
In March, James Lovett and I launched a documentary series exposing FTB corruption! More segments coming soon!
I intend to file two Federal Criminal Complaints against FTB later this year: one for the unlawful withholding of estimated tax payments and one for the overcharging of interest. My goal is to find others to join with me so we can make it a Class-Action Complaint. James has already filed Federal Criminal Complaints for the unlawful imposition of Non-Filing penalties (AKA Frivolous Filing Penalty) and wants to expand his to Class-Action. If you want to join in with us, please contact me at: FTBFighter at protonmail dot com (I did this on purpose to evade bots).