Administrative Channels – Page 5

February 16, 2020December 22, 2022

Written Submission for the FTB’s 2019 Annual Taxpayers Bill of Rights Meeting

2019 Annual Taxpayer Bill of Rights Requests

1. End the policy of withholding estimated tax payments made via credit elects.

This policy violates R&TC 19363, which says “Any amount paid as estimated tax for any taxable year shall be deemed to have been paid on the last day prescribed for filing the return for the taxable year (determined without regard to any extension of time for filing the return),” which in simple English means that no matter what date you filed the previous year’s return, the credit elect payment must be credited on tax day, which is usually April 15 or 16.

However, the FTB does not apply these payments in accordance with the law; instead, the FTB puts the credit elect money into “suspense,” which is a fancy word for the general slush fund. The credit elect money does not get moved from the slush fund until the taxpayer files that year’s return. The FTB claims this policy is in line with federal practices, but that is a lie; the IRS does not withhold payments made via credit elects.

February 1, 2020December 22, 2022

Video of Speech I Made to State Controller Betty Yee on Dec. 3, 2019

FTB Meeting Dec 2019 – Christi Section

State Controller Betty Yee is the Chair of the Franchise Tax Board’s Board of Directors. She is the woman on the stage who calls me to the podium before I speak, and thanks me at the end of my speech. The women seated at the table with her are (from left to right): Gayle Miller, who was there on behalf of Keely Bosler, who is the Director of the Department of Finance and the second FTB Board Member, Yvette Stowers, who is Betty Yee’s Deputy that normally attends the meetings in lieu of Betty, and Malia Cohen, who was at the time Chairman of the Board of Equalization and the third Board Member.

At the FTB table on the other side of the state are (from left to right): Dawn Casey, who works in the legal department; Shane Hofeling; Jozel Brunett, who is Chief, Legal Counsel; Selvi Stanislaus, who is Executive Officer; and Susan Maples, who Taxpayer Advocate. Notice that the FTB waived their right to offer a rebuttal/response to my speech — not denying what I said to be true is a tacit admission of guilt.

The text of my speech is here. Please note that the speech had a time limit, thus was shorter and less detailed than the written submission that I provided prior to the speech. The written submission is here. The video of the entire FTB meeting is here.

December 4, 2019December 22, 2022

Text of Speech I Made at the 2019 Annual Taxpayer Bill of Rights Meeting on December 3, 2019

My name is Christine Grab. I have 13 requests.

1. End the Policy of Withholding Estimated Tax Payments Made Via Credit Elects Until the Taxpayer Files a Return.

This policy violates R&TC 19363, which in simple English says that no matter what date you filed the previous year’s return, the credit elect payment must be applied on tax day, which is usually April 15th.

The FTB does not apply these payments in accordance with the law. Instead, the FTB puts the credit elect money into “suspense,” which is a fancy word for the general slush fund. The credit elect money does not get moved from the slush fund until the taxpayer files that year’s return. The FTB claims this policy is in line with federal practices, but that is a lie; the IRS does not withhold payments made via credit elects.

Demand Notices are only sent to taxpayers whom the FTB believes have underpaid their tax liability. The accompanying Demand Penalty is a crippling 25% of extra additional taxes beyond what the taxpayer actually owed.

By withholding the credit elect payment, it appears that the account was underfunded and thus a Demand Penalty is assessed. However, had the credit elect payment been applied in accordance with the law, the account would not have been underfunded and the Demand Penalties would not have been imposed.

November 21, 2019March 21, 2023

My 2017 My Annual Taxpayer Bill of Rights Request and FTB’s Resolution — FTB Misrepresented What the Law Says and Denied State Taxpayer Rights

2017 was the first year that I participated in the Annual Taxpayer Bill of Rights Meeting. At the time, FTB hid this meeting from the public; I found out about the meeting from a tax lobbyist that I had contacted. When I submitted the first request, FTB told me that only tax professionals were allowed to submit, which is a lie. I complained to the governor and board members about being denied my taxpayer rights and was allowed to participate.

Rather than sending one letter, I sent several emails with requests as I thought of them. There were eight requests in total. The first one addressed the policy of withholding payments made via credit elect. I will work on digging up and redacting the rest of the email requests.

November 21, 2019December 22, 2022

Response to FTB July 2017 Letter Where I Point Out the Misrepresentation of the Law.

December 13, 2017

Christopher Calhoun

Franchise Tax Board

Via Fax

Dear Mr. Calhoun,

First of all, I would like to apologize for the delay in responding to your letter dated July 28, 2017. As you know, I needed to get my BOE appeal filed, get my 2016 tax returns filed, get my suggestions in for the FTB Bill of Rights Hearing, get my requests to my assembly people for law changes, and my request to remove Mr. Cohen from the FTB Board all done by certain deadlines, so this letter had to wait.

I am only writing the first half of my response letter today. I’ll complete the second half soon. And once these letters are completed, my next FTB project will be to try to find the $XX,XXX of my money that the FTB seems to have misplaced. I am sure that will be a nightmare.

Before I get into the letter itself, I want to share with you that I have spent the last two days calling assorted government agencies to try to get a criminal investigation launched. What I have learned is that I could request a Special Grand Jury Inquisition of a county or city government agency, but Special Grand Jury Inquisitions (or any kind of equivalent) do not exist for State level agencies. It seems that there is only administrative oversight for the FTB, with no legal oversight at all.

November 19, 2019September 28, 2023

California’s Unlawful Schemes to Collect Extra Income Taxes From Taxpayers

Summary: I have caught the Franchise Tax Board, California’s Income Tax Collection Agency, utilizing an assortment of unlawful practices to scam extra tax money out of people (Section 1). I have been trying to put a stop to this government corruption (section 2). If you’d like to help me, I have suggestions at the bottom (section 3).

Both former Governor Brown and current Governor Newsom are actively protecting these schemes, as are State Controller Betty Yee and an assortment of other legislators.

Here is a video of me giving an 8-minute speech to legislators in December 2018, asking them to end some of these schemes. Since I was limited to only eight minutes, I couldn’t address all of the schemes that I’ve found. In the video, I flat out accused them of racketeering, along with other assorted violations. Even though they had more time to speak, the FTB only gave a 2-minute response. Susan Maples only responded to two of the eight items that I brought up, and Jozel Brunett gave a blanket statement that FTB is not doing anything unlawful.

The FTB’s written response to my speech is here: https://www.ftb.ca.gov/about-ftb/meetings/taxpayer-bill-of-rights/2018_Grab_Response.pdf. This response is full of legal improprieties – so much so that the Taxpayer Advocate refused to sign it when I pointed out that her signature was missing.

November 16, 2019December 22, 2022

PSA — Do You Have Any Ideas For New State Legislation? The 2020 Cycle Has Started — Now Is The Time To Talk To Your Legislators

In California, we each have two State Legislators that represent us on State matters — one is our State Senator and the other is our Assemblyman. If you don’t know who yours is, you can find them here

The State Legislative cycle goes like this: Mid-September through December, the legislators take suggestions from their constituents and mull them over. They take the ideas that they like best and they draft legislature that they introduce in January. Then from January through September, all the legislators debate the various bills that were introduced in January. At the beginning of September, all the bills get final votes. And then the cycle starts again!

So if you have any ideas about new legislature that you’d like to see enacted, or changes to be made to existing legislature, now is the time to contact your representatives.