When advocating for taxpayers, “size does not matter!”
While working as the “Taxpayers Rights’s Advocate” at the California Franchise Tax Board, I was contacted by a tax practitioner representing a client who had been assessed a penalty. After hearing them out, I explained that I would talk with our legal department to determine the conditions for penalty abatement. The representative asked if I wanted to know the dollar amount of the penalty, to which I responded no. After receiving the conditions for abatement from FTB Legal I passed the information on to the representative, who made the exact argument on behalf of their client. FTB legal agreed to abate the penalty. I was later contacted by someone in Legal asking me why I didn’t tell them the dollar amount of the penalty. I stated that I didn’t ask. Apparently, the amount of the abated penalty was close to 3 million dollars. When told I should have asked, I responded “hey, size doesn’t matter .” Coming from me, knowing my sense of humor, we had a good laugh. Props to FTB Legal for agreeing, that size didn’t matter. Moral of the story “Don’t show your size (amount) until you know what they will take!”
Specializing in California Tax Controversy