Crazy California Assesses Tax For Whimiscal and Frivolous Reasons

California:  We Know We Should Leave But She's Just Too Darned Pretty

I live in crazy California.  If California were a person instead of a bastion of liberal bombast and baloney, it would be assessed as insane and locked in a padded cell for its own protection.

Of course, California is amazingly beautiful.  So if it were a crazy person, it would be a beautiful woman in a bikini, perhaps one who hides a meat cleaver under the bed so after making love to you, she then executes you with a couple of hard whacks.

Let me explain why I think that.

As a tax accountant, I and my associates have witnessed some shockingly despotic behavior on the part of the Franchise Tax Board (California's version of the Gestapo IRS).  Let me give you a real life example.

A client didn't file a California individual tax return a couple of years back.  He wasn't required to file, because he had no income.  However, he did have a mortgage, which he continued to pay from his savings.  The FTB traced his mortgage statement and found that he didn't file a return.  So, putting two and two together and getting fourteen, the FTB figured he must have had income in order to pay the mortgage.  So they divided their license plate by their address and multiplied the result by their telephone number, and voila!  They came up with a theoretical number of income that this man must have earned in order to pay the mortgage.  They assessed a big tax, and proceeded to levy his wages (since he did gain employment in the years after the tax year in question).

My associate called the Franchise Tax Board and asked them why they levied the man's wages for a tax he didn't owe.  They explained their wild imaginings to my associate.  She asked, "So you just made up a number??"  The FTB representative said, "Well yes, that's about it."

My associate has prepared the missing tax return to prove that the man didn't owe any money in the first place.  The Franchise Tax Board then promised to refund his money.

The moral of this story is to always check under the bed for meat cleavers before making love to beautiful women.  They can be insane.  Like California.