FTB Fighter – Page 8 – Fighting Corruption at the CA Franchise Tax Board (CA's income tax agency)

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

Rebuttal to FTB’s Response to My Annual Taxpayer Bill of Rights Request

FTB’s response to the 13 policy change requests that I made is short, terse and riddled with problems.

Item 1: End Policy of withholding estimated tax payments made via credit elects

FTB wrote: The Franchise Tax Board previously addressed this issue in the 2018 Taxpayer Bill of Rights response to you, dated January 25, 2019.

Rebuttal: In my written submission, I clearly detailed how they had committed one count of collusion to cover up racketeering by misrepresenting what the law said in Commissioner V Lundy. I also re-sent them a copy of the 2018 letter to Governor Brown in which I cited several more times that the FTB committed the crime of collusion to cover up racketeering on this topic. In this response, FTB did not dispute my interpretation of the assorted laws they falsely cited, nor offer any valid laws.

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.

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 26, 2019December 22, 2022

Proof of Overcharging Interest and Substantiation of Inaccurate Accounting Allegations

Overcharging Interest:

In the Unlawful Schemes post, I claimed that I caught the FTB overcharging interest. As proof, here is the bill they sent me in the mail showing we owed $3,852.02 by 7-15-14, the pay by phone payment that I made on 7-9-14 while talking with FTB rep Carrey who told me that was the correct total was $3854.74, and the FTB’s 2011 accounting ledger which makes it appear that the $3854.74 was the correct amount of money that was always owed. The overcharge was only $2.77, but if they tack on extra interest to everyone they are illegally raking in millions.

In the Unlawful Schemes post, I also stated that on two of their accounting ledgers, the FTB has a strange adjustment that look like attempts to overcharge interest.

In late 2017, I asked the FTB to send me a copy of my 2014 accounting ledger. In the version that they sent me, the line item says “FTB Adjustment: -$8.37.” When I asked the FTB’s representative what that meant, she said “Oh, it doesn’t really affect you.” In the version that the FTB submitted to the OTA court, they redacted the line completely. When I asked the FTB to send unreacted ledgers, their version says “Write Off.” All three versions of the ledger are here.

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.