What is ftb

The Newborn Supplement and Newborn Upfront Payment aim to help families care for their newborn baby, recently adopted child or child aged under one year who has been entrusted into their care for a continuous period of at least 13 weeks. Families with at least three children born during the same multiple birth may be eligible for Multiple Birth Allowance until the children are 16 years of age, or if at least three of the children are in full-time study, until the end of the calendar year in which they turn Last updated: 8 September - am.

Families and Children. For more information, please visit the links below:. You are welcome to continue browsing this site with this browser. Some features, tools or interaction may not work correctly. There is a total of 5 error s on this form, details are below. Please enter your name Please enter your email Your email is invalid.

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A message has been sent to your recipient's email address with a link to the content webpage. Your name: is required Error: This is required. Your email: is required Error: This is required Error: Not a valid value. Send to: is required Error: This is required Error: Not a valid value. Who is eligible? An FTB child must be aged 0 to 15 years, or be aged 16 to 19 and in full-time secondary education. Meet residency requirements.

You must be living in Australia and either be an Australian citizen, hold a permanent visa, hold a Special Category visa, or hold a temporary visa such as a Partner Provisional or Temporary Protection visa.

The child must meet these residency requirements or be living with you. Meet an income test. You must lodge a tax return at the end of the financial year or notify Services Australia if you are not required to lodge a tax return within the 12 months following the end of the financial year.

If FTB members do not approve or disapprove within the day time period, then such recommendation is automatically approved. Such statement is a public record and contains following information:.

Except for the public record statement above, all other settlement information is considered confidential. To ensure confidentiality, the FTB and taxpayer sign a non-disclosure agreement prior to negotiations and all information other than what is in the public record statement generally cannot be used in subsequent legal proceedings in any administrative agency or court, and cannot be disclosed to third persons unless law requires to disclose it in limited circumstances.

All settlement agreements between the FTB and a taxpayer are final and cannot be appealed, unless it can be shown that one side defrauded the other regarding facts material important to settlement. A taxpayer who wants to settle must submit a written request, which must include the following information:.

All settlement requests by taxpayers are reviewed by FTB Settlement Bureau staff who determine if the case is a good candidate for the settlement program. Then staff notifies the taxpayer of their decision — to begin settlement negations or not. The FTB usually negotiates if the dispute is real, but the FTB is not required to accept it into the settlement program.

Usually the FTB is more willing to negotiate if there is a higher risk of litigation or the taxpayer presents well-developed facts. The settlement program provides an expedited method of resolving civil tax disputes. Usually a tentative settlement is reached within nine months after a taxpayer's settlement request and when settlement is reached, the taxpayer must sign a written agreement with terms of settlement. Settlements become final after approval by the FTB for larger settlements and by the Executive Officer for small settlements.

If settlement is not reached within nine months, then the case is removed back into original pre-settlement status protest, appeal or claim for refund. CONTACTS: Taxpayers seeking additional information or desiring to initiate settlement of their civil tax matters in dispute should call or write providing the required information set forth above to:.

Patrick J. Franchise Tax Board. Box Rancho Cordova, CA Telephone: Fax: General Settlement Message Line: Generally, an offer in compromise is something of a last resort. If you owe money to the State of California, the one kernel of good news is that you can also make an offer in compromise as you would with the IRS.

It is a problem that many individuals or business owners in California have faced. You may have had a difficult year financially, and when tax time rolls around you discover that you owe more to the California Franchise Tax Board FTB than you can afford to pay. If this is your situation, there is light at the end of the tunnel. The FTB is willing to work with cooperative delinquent taxpayers to come up with a solution that works for both parties.

One of these solutions is the offer in compromise OIC. Could it be the right choice for you? You need to understand what is involved, how it can help your situation, whether you are eligible and how to apply before you can make a decision. The FTB will expect you to exhaust most other avenues for paying off your tax debt.

The most common way to pay off outstanding taxes is an installment agreement , but you will also need to consider taking out a loan or selling off assets. If you absolutely cannot find a way to pay and have no prospect of being able to pay the full amount within five years, you will have to look at making an offer in compromise. The main benefit to the OIC, aside from having to ultimately pay less money to the FTB, is that in most cases it will halt the collections process.

The FTB will usually release any state tax liens on your property and stop the actions of any third-party collection agencies. Making an offer in compromise is not without its drawbacks, however. It is a financially invasive process, and the standards for acceptance are stringent.

You may need to sell assets and forfeit tax credits and refunds. There is no guarantee that your offer will be accepted, and even if it is, you will need to be perfect in your tax dealings for the foreseeable future. One missed payment or late filing could jeopardize the agreement. You will likely be waiving some tax benefits such as the statutes of limitations on investigation and collections.

An OIC will likely stop the clock and leave you open to future scrutiny. You may also be asked to enter into a collateral agreement with the FTB. In a collateral agreement, you must promise to pay the FTB a percentage of any future income over a certain threshold for a period of five years. To apply for an offer in compromise, you must have filed all your tax returns to date. To be eligible, your financial situation must be fairly dire, and it is up to you to prove your inability to pay the total debt.

Each case is decided individually, and the FTB gives specific consideration to the following factors:. The taxpayer can apply for a California State Tax Offer in Compromise only if they filed tax returns or are not required to file tax returns. The taxpayer also must fully complete the Offer in Compromise application, and provide all supporting documentation. If the Franchise Tax Board thinks the taxpayer has a potential for a future increase in earnings, it may, after approval of the application, require that the taxpayer enter into a so-called collateral agreement with the FTB.

The agreement is for a duration of five years and will require the taxpayer to pay the FTB a percentage of future earnings if earnings become higher than certain threshold established by the FTB and agreed to by the taxpayer.

The FTB usually does not require collateral agreement if the taxpayer is on fixed income or has limited potential for increase in income. Unfortunately, collection activity by the FTB does not stop even if it enters into an agreement with the taxpayer. Interest also continues to accrue. The taxpayer submits an agreed-upon payment amount only when the Franchise Tax Board requests payment according to the Offer in Compromise Agreement.

The Franchise Tax Board requires lump sum payment under this program. The FTB can also work with an installment agreement if the taxpayer has the ability to make monthly payments that in total will exceed the amount initially offered by the taxpayer and accepted by the Franchise Tax Board.

To fill out a California State Tax Offer in Compromise application, the taxpayer will need to provide a significant volume of information. That includes verification of income, documents, such as pay stubs for the previous three months, or financial statements for the previous two years, if self-employed. Any investment or ownership in the business or trust will have to be disclosed. For expenses, the taxpayer can provide billing statements for the previous three months.

The Franchise Tax Board will require complete bank information, including statements for all accounts for the last six months for those who are employed, and for the previous two years for self-employed taxpayers. Information submitted must also include closed bank accounts.

The FTB also requires information about securities owned, interest in real estate, information from the IRS, legal documents such as divorce decrees or marital settlement agreements, medical information such as any medical condition that should be considered by the Franchise Tax Board and any powers of attorney.

On the application, the taxpayer will be required to provide information about any court proceedings, bankruptcies, repossessions, recent transfers of assets, assets owned like vehicles , life insurance, other assets, including anticipated assets and anticipated increase in income. Business taxpayers will have to provide additional information, including complete information about ownership and management of business, all bank accounts and credit cards, all assets and liabilities of a business, life insurance, receivables, pending litigation or pending judgments.

Also, information about machinery, equipment, vehicles, trucks, aircraft and securities must be provided. Because every case is unique, it is impossible to say what the chances are that the FTB will accept your offer. It is worth noting that even if the IRS has accepted your offer in compromise, the FTB will not automatically also accept your offer on the state level. They will review your case themselves.

The first step towards making an offer in compromise is to fill out the appropriate form. You have three choices. Each agency will consider the offers individually, but it will save you some time in your application process. You will be required to submit substantial documentation with your application form, such as pay stubs and statements from all of your bank accounts for the last six months to two years, including any bank accounts which you have closed.

The forms ask for highly detailed information about assets, investments debts, insurance, court proceedings and pending litigation and even medical information if you have a condition which the FTB should take into account. Legal documents to include are:.

If you are making an OIC for a business, you will probably have to include all of the above along with business references and comprehensive information about ownership, management, salaries and more. The most challenging part of any OIC application is usually determining the amount to offer. At this point, it may be worth speaking with an experienced tax attorney. While representation is not required, it can help.

If your offer is accepted, you will have to pay the OIC in full. The FTB does not accept installments for offers in compromise. If they do not accept your offer, they will contact you to discuss your case. They may counter with a higher sum, or it may be that they have determined that you can afford to pay off the debt within five years.

In that case they will help you set up an installment agreement. This is another area where a tax attorney can help. The appeals process for an FTB OIC is fairly casual, but negotiations are best handled with a professional by your side.

A huge tax bill can be devastating, especially when you do not have the means to pay it. For many people, the natural first reaction is avoidance and denial, which can quickly make a tough situation much worse. Consequences for delinquent unpaid taxes are severe, and the longer you take to respond, the more trouble you can cause for yourself or your business. Remember that there are always options. If you are willing to work with the FTB, they will be willing to work with you.

At my firm, Brotman Law, we have seen and negotiated many deals with the FTB and can help you review your specific situation to arrive at a reasonable dollar amount with the highest likelihood of acceptance. Just like before, taxpayers can apply for an offer in compromise program when they are unable to pay their full tax liabilities to the state.

The program allows taxpayers to negotiate a reduced amount of their non-disputed tax liabilities. The state will consider an Offer In Compromise when it is unlikely that the tax liability can be collected in full and the amount offered reasonably reflects collection potential. However, previously California taxpayers had to submit a separate form to each of the three agencies.

Now, they can submit a single interagency application with the state, and all three agencies will coordinate the offer in compromise process among themselves. The form is available online at the California Tax Service Center www. The individual agencies must still negotiate each Offer in Compromise separately for their respective taxes. Main requirements for application have not changed.

The taxpayer will have to agree with the amount due and the amount due is final, and the CTFA determines you do not have, and will not have in the foreseeable future, the income, means or assets to pay the amount due in full. Generally, respective agency rules regarding offer in compromise programs did not change significantly.

However, some recent changes have been made. Certain conditions apply, however, like signing a collateral agreement prior to approval of an offer and agreeing to remain current on all tax returns filed during the succeeding five-year period. Like before, these three agencies will not initiate tax collection activity while the offer is pending. If the offer is approved, then all tax liens will be released.

Therefore, a single application for all three agencies is a positive development, but the fact that three agencies still negotiate separately is probably a drawback. Sometimes your financial fortunes take a turn for the worse, and you find yourself owing back taxes to the Franchise Tax Board. You can not afford to make installment payments, yet you would like an alternative to filing for bankruptcy. An Offer in Compromise may be off the table if you can not afford to pay a lump sum.

It will be reviewed at a later date for possible collections. You may receive a periodic statement showing your balance owed but no demands for payment.

However, the tax agencies may file a lien on your property to secure their interests. Other important considerations:. Also, the clock continues to run on the statute of limitations. There is the potential that the time the tax agencies have to collect will expire while your account is CNC. In that case, collections actions stop. You may make voluntary payments without fear the Currently Not Collectible status will be rescinded because of them.

Filing for Currently Not Collectible status requires close attention to the paperwork. Knowledge of the California state rules and regulations on taxes is also a requirement. A tax attorney has the knowledge and ability to help you with the process. If the FTB believes that in the future their collection efforts will be successful, a state lien will be filed against you before your account is officially declared CNC. To obtain CNC status, you must be able to prove financial hardship.

What you feel is a financial hardship may not match the requirements of the tax agencies. For example, when your financial picture is reviewed for CNC, you are budgeted a certain amount per week for groceries. In California, groceries are more expensive than the same groceries would be in Nebraska. However, the agency depends on the grocery price averaged across the country. Even though the California prices are higher, it will not make a difference in your designation for economic hardship.

Currently Not Collectible status is meant for severe economic hardship; it is not easily granted. Once it is, your financial status must change significantly for it to be revoked. For this reason, you must keep your tax status and filings up-to-date throughout your time on CNC status.

If your account is placed on CNC status, it is taken temporarily out of collections. Wage garnishments, asset seizures, and bank levies will end or never be started. CNC is a time for the taxpayer to focus on meeting personal expenses without being placed in further hardship.

Periodically, the IRS and FTB will re-evaluate your situation to see if your financial status has changed enough to begin collections again. Although collection attempts will cease during CNC status, the Franchise Tax Board will place a lien on any property you have to secure their interests.

A Notice of Tax Lien places a negative impact on your credit score and can make it difficult to sell the property, even though your intent is to use the proceeds to pay your tax bill. While receiving a Currently Not Collectible status can relieve the necessity to pay money you do not have, it is not a situation that benefits anyone, you or the tax agencies.

If your financial situation is such that you qualify as an extreme hardship case, you are already in bad shape. Nobody would want to remain in that position for long, even if improving your financial picture means you must pay taxes again. Do not forget, interest and penalties continue to accrue on the unpaid balance, and you must continue to file your tax returns every year to avoid additional penalties for failure to file. Leaving yourself and your family in such limbo means you still have all the stress of paying for your personal expenses with nothing to cushion further economic blows.

If you hope to wait out the statute of limitations for collections in the State of California, you must remain in extreme financial hardship for up to 20 years, double the statute of limitations for IRS collections. Obviously, the inability to collect taxes does not benefit the state or the federal government because that means less money is available for government services. Clearly, CNC status is meant for those in the very worst of financial circumstances and it is not a permanent remedy.

Currently Not Collectible status merely delays the requirement to pay taxes and does not settle your back taxes. Interest and penalties continue to swell the tax burden. If you can, instead, arrange an installment payment agreement, the interest accrual only impacts the remaining balance.

Each time an installment is paid, the balance is lower, meaning less interest will be charged. An Offer in Compromise allows you to settle your tax bill for less than you owe. Your account will no longer accrue interest and penalties because your tax debt is considered to be paid off. Both of these remedies do far more for your situation than CNC status because they eliminate your tax burden and allow you see the light at the end of the tunnel.

First, I want to state that I do not believe everyone needs a franchise tax board lawyer to handle their California state tax issues. One of the main reasons that I started blogging was to help people. Indeed, if you take the time to read much of what I have written on the blog, you can almost become as knowledgeable as I am on many of these same subjects although I have an experience edge dealing with this stuff in practice. However, I am cognizant of the fact that there are some situations where it is beneficial to hire a franchise tax board lawyer to handle your California state tax issues.

I am not talking about routine collection issues, where most people with some basic financial knowledge can work their way through. Rather, I am talking about more complicated matters where having a franchise tax board lawyer can really make the difference.

Although I am certainly available to help you with any Franchise Tax Board matter see my California state tax attorney services page , I realize that not everyone is comfortable with the virtual law office model and I wanted to take the opportunity to provide you with the things that I think are really important in hiring a good franchise tax board lawyer.

I think many of these factors are applicable to hiring attorneys in general as well, but specifically I wanted to give you some practical advice on hiring someone to handle your California state tax matter.

Dealing with a lawyer is like any business relationship in that you need comfort and harmony to affect things efficiently. Trust and rapport is something that can be gauged in the first meeting or contact with the attorney. Does this person sound like they know what they are talking about and do they give complete and full answers to the questions being asked?

Do I believe the answers that this person is giving me? Do I feel comfortable with this person and do I believe I am being treated honestly, fairly, and ethically? These are all factors that go into whether or not you have a rapport with your franchise tax board lawyer.

If you can answer each of these questions in the affirmative, then I believe you are more than 50 percent of the way to finding a franchise tax board lawyer you can trust. Second to rapport, experience is one of the main factors that I feel separates franchise tax board attorneys from one another.

It is important to retain the services of someone who has experience dealing with the FTB and who is generally familiar with the rules and procedures of California tax law. In addition, your Franchise Tax Board Attorney should have specific experience with the types of matter that you are retaining them for. This can be delineated from asking the attorney specific questions about their background and looking at the representative matters section of their website.

For example, if someone asked me about FTB collection matters, I could rattle off four or five that immediately came to mind. This is because I have worked on Franchise Tax Board issues recently and deal with them frequently in my own practice. Likewise, if the attorney that you hire deals frequently with California state tax issues then this someone that you are going to want to consider hiring.

There is simply no substitute for practical experience. One of the greatest ways to evaluate an attorney is through what other people have said about the person. With the advent of the internet, information on professional service providers is often readily available and easily accessed. As such, many people have often posted reviews about attorneys that you can read and evaluate for yourself.

When evaluating reviews though, I tend to take what the reviewer is saying with a grain of salt. Reviews that are too over-the-top should be met with some degree of skepticism. I do an excellent job for my clients and a great many of them have thanked me online through some third-party review sites. Although I am often flattered by the things that they have to say, I also know that I am by no means perfect, percent, all of the time.

I feel as though sometimes people will embellish things because they want the person being reviewed to know that they wrote this big glowing review. Rather, I look for reviews that tell it like it is and that list both positive and negative characteristics about the person being reviewed. One final tip on reviews, I tend to be wary of review sites like Yelp and tend to look more favorably on professional sites and the recommendations on those sites. As a result, when hiring a Franchise Tax Board attorney, I would encourage you to review sites like Avvo and LinkedIn to check what other people say about the person you are contemplating hiring.

Oftentimes those sites will provide more accurate metrics than sites such as Yelp. I hope this article has been helpful in giving you some criteria that I would look for when hiring a Franchise Tax Board attorney. For further assistance, or if you have any questions, please feel free to contact me using the information contained on this site. The first thing to note about setting up a payment plan for delinquent tax liability is that California is aggressive in their pursuit to collect; perhaps more aggressive in their collection efforts than the IRS.

California is a cash-strapped state, so the dollar amount that a liability becomes a serious matter crosses that threshold sooner than an amount considered by the IRS. Resources are finite, and the IRS has bigger fish to fry. The point is, California takes smaller liability amounts more seriously than the feds do.

Not only is California more quick than the IRS in their assessment of liability; but they are also more likely to take collection action earlier than the IRS. Lastly, bear in mind that California also takes more aggressive measures than the IRS in their efforts to collect.

Since we are drawing comparisons to the IRS, another drawback is the lack of consistency you may encounter in an FTB matter. IRS matters are generally formulaic; matters are more or less predictable because the process is closely dictated by a detailed internal revenue manual. The need to fill in the gaps requires more discretion being given to frontline collection agents and managers in order to resolve the ambiguities in the law.

What typically happens as a result is that California taxpayers get squeezed a lot harder. To add insult to injury, the FTB is also more stringent in their negotiation of payment terms in comparison to the IRS.

When we have a client who has both an IRS liability and a franchise tax board liability; we will generally prioritize resolution of the state matter first.

This is because we recognize that the FTB is more aggressive in their pursuit of outstanding liability. If we can settle with the state and allow them to move on with their pound of flesh,we can more efficiently use our resources to negotiate better terms with the IRS.

How you choose to handle your case may depend on the facts and circumstances of your matters; but be sure to keep in mind the challenges that accompany a matter pending resolution with the state. The State is going to evaluate your case under a tougher financial standard. The payment plan timelines that they are requesting are going to be a lot shorter, and they are not going to be as flexible with their deadlines. A decision is made and documents are usually returned within a week; in some cases this process may even take as little as a few days.

Of course, the level of involvement required in short amounts of time may add pressure to the situation. Particularly if you have a family or business to tend to. Even though people have liabilities with the IRS that are far greater in liability, there is more pain involved in matters dealt with at the state level. In fact, this is why we have centered our practice around California tax issues. The systems that I have talked about in the past and the lack of a judicial check on the administrative tax agencies in California, creates a lot of problems for people and it is very difficult setting up collections resolutions with them.

Any time that you have a business liability with California it is very difficult to get those negotiated. My recommendation is that you speak with an expert on the subject, get an attorney involved, and work on protecting the cash flow of the business so that California does not come in and just drain everything out of the business's operating account. From an individual perspective, you do not want to commit to a payment plan that is going to be too aggressive and that you are going to struggle to keep up with.

Again, take into consideration your own situation, take into consideration your family situation, how much you need, and then negotiate collections resolutions that satisfy the interest of the government, but still protect you, your personal cash flow and what you need to live. It depends. Innocent spouse relief is a highly factual situation. What I will tell you is, much like everything with California, it is a little bit more difficult to deal with California and to get determinations versus on a federal level.

When it comes to innocent spouse relief, you really have to jump through a few hoops with California in order for them to make that determination. A lot of our innocent spouse cases in California will end up in appeals or they will end up with some hearing officer.

The important thing is, number one, you want to get all of your facts straight at the beginning of your innocent spouse application. You want to make sure that you have a sequence of events, that you have a timeline, and you state a good case for why you deserve getting innocent spouse relief. You want to put a package together with as much information as you can. The more comprehensive you are at the beginning, the more likely your innocent spouse claim will go through.

Once you put that together, the franchise tax board will usually issue you some sort of response. Having this put together and really being comprehensive, is important because it limits the avenues for any attack that the CDTFA would have.