This article is two years old, and after this article was published, what wound up shaking out from the BOE transfer of duties was insidious.

One of the duties that was taken away from the Board of Equalization was hearing appeals from the Franchise Tax Board (California's income tax agency), where taxpayers asked that unfair penalties and fees be refunded. Apparently, it was a casual hearing where the taxpayers explained their side + proof to the BOE. The BOE often sided with the taxpayers.

The appeals were moved to a brand new department, called the Office of Tax Appeals, which is a real court where you need a real attorney. Since attorneys start at $5k, for most people, the attorney cost more than the taxpayers were trying to recoup. The OTA has a reputation for almost always siding with the FTB, so even if you fork out the money for a lawyer, you'll probably lose anyway. Here is a detailed article that I wrote about it: https://gwsandiego.net/blog/?p=6

So here's where it gets really corrupt: In 2016, I caught the Franchise Tax Board red-handed doing an assortment of illegal stuff (https://gwsandiego.net/blog/?p=8), such as improperly assessing fees (https://gwsandiego.net/blog/?p=82) and overcharging interest (https://gwsandiego.net/blog/?p=120). I wrote Governor Brown a bunch of letters about it, along with documentation.

In addition to letters, I also made a speech in Sacramento to legislators about it in December 2018: https://vimeo.com/311228307?utm_source=email&utm_medium=vimeo-cliptranscode-201504&utm_campaign=29220. I made another speech on December 3, 2019. Here is the text (the FTB hasn't posted the video yet): https://gwsandiego.net/blog/?p=151

So Governor Brown knew damn well that the FTB was doing a bunch of stuff to unlawfully rake in extra money from taxpayers, then deliberately made it harder for taxpayers to get that money back. Nothing has happened to the FTB... they are still doing all the same unlawful stuff.

Brown and Newsom are corrupt AF.