Lower Court’s $5,000 Sanctions Order Reversed.
Egyptian taxpayers seized for non-payment of taxes. H.G. Wells, The Outline of History (1920). From Wikipedia article on Tax Resistance.
In Berjikian v. Franchise Tax Board, Case No. B252427 (2d Dist., Div. 7 Jan. 12, 2015) (unpublished), two taxpayers challenged the constitutionality of a Business and Professions Code section that automatically suspended their driver’s license and pharmacist’s license when their names appeared on the Franchise Tax Board’s list of the state’s 500 most delinquent taxpayers. The lower court sustained a demurrer without leave as to taxpayers’ complaint, a ruling reversed on appeal with respect to certain state and procedural due process rights arising out of enforcement of the statutory section. However, because it believed the action was frivolous, the lower court imposed $5,000 in sanctions under Revenue and Taxation Code section 19714, which allows a mandatory sanctions to be imposed where a taxpayer’s position is frivolous in nature.
The sanctions award, too, was reversed. Given the merits reversal that certain due process violations were adequately pled, the sanctions had to go POOF! also.
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