Attorney General Lied to the Judge in Our Hearing!

The blog has been quiet lately because I’ve been so busy with the case that I haven’t had time to update the blog. On Monday, May 24, 2021, I filed another Motion to Compel Further Information, this time on Specially Prepared Interrogatories #001: Clarification of FTB’s Policies and Procedures. The Motion + exhibits was 495 pages. It’ll take me a long time to redact and upload them all, but I will get it uploaded eventually.

On May 28, 2021, there was a hearing on my first Motion to Compel Further Information for Additional Documents. In FTB’s Opposition to Motion that they filed with the court, Deputy Attorney General Anna Barsegyan made numerous deceptive and several outright false statements to the judge!

May 12, 2021December 22, 2022

Fraudulent Statement By FTB Regarding Demand Penalties

So much stuff has come out recently in my court case. A longer post will come next month, but I wanted to share something that I know is a fraud that is systemically perpetuated by FTB. Below is a copy/paste of an exchange of information with FTB that I submitted as part of my court case (the full document is here). I hope other people currently facing bogus Demand Penalties can use it to help them in their own fight against FTB’s corruption. Here is the list of laws that are referenced below.

SPECIAL INTERROGATORY NO 6A: The attached page 9 is a page from FTB’s standard operations manuals entitled Demand Penalty. It states “a penalty will not be imposed if any of the following are met:… We do not assess the penalty when the return has a zero total tax liability.” Could you please clarify whether this means the penalty won’t be imposed if there was never any tax owed for the tax year or whether this means that the penalty won’t be imposed if there is no outstanding balance on that year’s tax liability.

FTB RESPONSE TO SPECIAL INTERROGATORY NO. 6A: Under Revenue and Taxation Code section 19133, a demand penalty is imposed if a taxpayer fails to timely respond to demand notices in the manner required. Demand penalties are imposed as required by law before consideration of any payments or credits. The demand penalty is computed at 25- percent of the total tax liability before any prepayments or credits are applied to reduce the tax liability. Thus, any payments and/or credits made by Plaintiff are irrelevant in the determination of the imposition of demand penalties under California law.

ARGUMENT FOR COMPLELLING RESPONSE TO SPECIAL INTERROGATORY 6A: FTB has misrepresented what the law says by making two deceptive statements and one false statement in the section above. In the first sentence, Mr. Swank omitted pertinent portions of Revenue and Tax Code 19133. In the second and third sentences, he conflated two separate issues as if they were one and the same. The fourth sentence is false, and only appears to be true as a result of the deceptive and misleading statements that preceded it.

February 9, 2021December 26, 2022

Motion to Compel Further Response to Demand for Documents filed 12-15-2020

On December 15, 2020, I filed a Motion to Compel Further Response to Demand for Documents filed 12-15-2020 with San Diego Superior Court regarding the case that I have pending against FTB for a refund of penalties, fees and interest for tax years 2011, 2013 and 2014. Here are pages 1 – 21 and pages 22 – 42.

Key Points Contained in Motion:

There are 5 line items on FTB accounting ledgers that I believe are fraudulent: 2 payments that show up as refunded even though they were not refunded, and 3 bills that I believe never existed (see pages 9, 11, 12, 21, 25).

September 4, 2020December 22, 2022

Why The OTA Opinion in My Case Was Blatantly Corrupt

When a taxpayer believes that they have had penalties, fees and interest improperly imposed on them by the Franchise Tax Board, the first step is to request a refund. Refund requests are almost always denied.

The next step is to file an appeal in the Office of Tax Appeals, which is an administrative (specialty) court that deals solely with tax issues.

If OTA denies your refund request, you can then file a trial del novo in Superior Court. In English, that means that the Superior Court judge will look at this as a new case altogether, not simply as an appeal of the lower court’s decision. (More info on the process in FAQs)

I had been warned by two different tax attorneys that OTA usually sides with FTB, so hiring an attorney would be a waste of money.

I thought I had made a strong case for why I should get my money back with my Brief and Oral Arguments, so I was disappointed, but not surprised, when I lost. The Opinion (aka verdict) for my case was so blatantly corrupt that it was shocking.

August 17, 2020December 22, 2022

Demurrer Filed in Superior Court Case

As I stated in my last post, FTB’s Answer to my Superior Court Complaint was of poor quality. I did some research and found out that I could file something called a Demurrer, which is basically me asking the judge to throw out FTB’s Answer and make them file a new Answer.

I had to explain why FTB’s answer was a pile of nonsense, and I think that I did a good job! I am proud of myself! Here is my Demurrer.

My understanding is that if their new Answer is also of poor quality, I can then file a request for a Summary Judgment based on my written brief and their replacement Answer brief, and thus skip the whole trial part.

May 19, 2020December 22, 2022

FTB’s Answer — They Didn’t Deny Anything!

The FTB’s lawyer for my case against them is Anna Barsegyan, Deputy Attorney General under Xavier Becerra, the Attorney General of California. Yes, I know… most of us believe that the Attorney’s General’s office is supposed to protect the public from corruption. But that is only partly true — while the Attorney General’s office does prosecute criminal activity committed by individuals and private businesses, one of it’s job duties is to defend the State Government’s criminal activity. So basically, the Attorney General’s job is to eliminate the competition so that the government has a monopoly on exploitation.

I know I should be grateful that Ms. Barsegyan did such a terrible job on the Answer that she submitted to the Court in response to my Complaint, but quite frankly, I am disappointed at how our tax dollars are spent. For as much money as she makes, she could have made some kind of effort to do her job.

February 17, 2020December 22, 2022

Summary of FTB Crimes and Update on My Efforts To Stop Them

Summary: I have been trying to get the Franchise Tax Board to end some blatantly illegal business practices. The basics are:

1. The FTB is illegally putting your estimated tax payments into a general slush fund instead of into your account. The money isn’t put into your account until you file your return for that year; basically, the State of CA is temporarily embezzling your money. If you file late, they harass you for payments that would not be owed/impose penalties that would not have been assessed had the money been applied to your account in accordance with the law.

February 17, 2020December 22, 2022

I Have Filed Suit Against FTB in Superior Court of CA!

I lost my Office of Tax Appeal case. While I was disappointed, I was not surprised. Two different attorneys had told me that the OTA almost always sides with the FTB and that hiring an attorney would probably be a waste of money. That is why I originally went with the free attorney from the TAAP program. However, as soon as the TAAP program was moved from the Department of Fee and Tax Administration to the FTB, TAAP withdrew representation. What a surprise. So, I represented myself for the rest of the case.

The OTA verdict that was so blatantly corrupt that it was shocking. I just could not let the FTB/OTA get away with their criminal activities. The OTA is an administrative court, and Californians have the right to appeal administrative court rulings in Superior Court of CA. I went lawyer shopping and found that it would cost a minimum of $30,000 to get my $15,000 in penalties, fees and interest back. The lawyers I spoke with also told me that the FTB is retaliatory and will deliberately run up attorney costs with unnecessary extra legal work. And since I have pissed off the FTB in a big way, it would likely cost me as much as $100,000.

So I decided to act as my own attorney. Here is the brief. In my humble opinion, it is really good. It clearly lays out the FTB’s three racketeering schemes, as well as the unethical and underhanded tactics that the OTA uses to cover up FTB’s criminal activities. I am SO PROUD of myself!!!!! 🙂

I have forwarded this brief to the FBI, CA Auditors office, the FTB’s Board of Directors, Governor Newsom, GovOps, and everyone on the Senate and Assembly Tax Committees . Hopefully, it gets some traction.