What even is a "franchise board"? I would assume something like a Gewerbeamt (entity to register businesses with)? Why do they have bank account data of you? How can they repossess property without a court order?
Background: I'm about to make the jump from academia to industry and in case I overestimated the value of my soul may end up in California. So low-key evaluating whether this could affect me too I guess.
But either way, it's still much better than crypto: There are recourses against state actions. At least in functional judicial states (which I guess is also a tautology xD)
Unless the police harass you on the street and ~~steal~~confiscate all cash you have on hand aka "civil forfeiture" [1]. There are entire small towns that have set themselves up as essentially legal highway robbers [2], and federal agencies also like to rob people [3].
There's also a Last Week Tonight episode around it [4], it's a bit dated but still relevant.
Here in Germany, we can at least contest seizure orders because we are named the owners of, say, a couple grands in cash... but in the US, the cash itself can be named defendant, which is ridiculous but entirely legal [5].
[1] https://www.aclu.org/issues/criminal-law-reform/reforming-po...
[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2014/09/08/t...
[3] https://ij.org/press-release/highway-robbery-in-reno-nevada-...
[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kEpZWGgJks
[5] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-f-will-the-he...
Franchise board is the California tax agency. Yes, they have bank account tied to a person since that's where they deposit any refunds (or extract any payments they see fit if you don't pay by other mechanism). They'll certainly take money without any court order, they are the tax man and do whatever they want.
The story is very plausible, that's how they operate.
I can relate to your confusion a tiny bit, especially since you want to move here. When I was in Vietnam, a lot of people I interacted with have the dream of moving to America. Unfortunately, they just know what they see in the movies. They don't realize the harsh realities of things like the complexity of paying taxes. In Vietnam, it comes directly from your paycheck and there is VAT. There is no concept of State and Federal level taxes. Even better, you don't need to hire an accountant to do these things for you because if you mess up (and the system is designed to mess you up), it can get a lot more costly. Even with an accountant, it seems I'm not immune.
When I came back to America (not by choice, I got stuck here at the start of covid and VN shut its borders), this is also why I established residency in an income tax free state. I had to get a physical address, drivers license, car registration, etc... it was a lot of work.
My suggestion? If you're going to come here, do more research first.
Nor did they contact my accountant, who I've had for 20 years now and who's address is on file as my primary address for tax related issues.
It is also odd that they pulled the funds from one of my unused accounts that I just kept around for transferring money between the US and Vietnam (Citibank is in both countries and has free < 24 hour transfers) and left my primary bank account (which had the majority of my funds in it) alone.
The taxes they say I owe were during when I was living full time in Vietnam. I was still paying my US taxes during this time as well. This isn't the IRS, it is the FTB. I didn't own a business and I wasn't in California. None of this makes any sense to me.
You should be able to sort this out by filing nonresident returns for the years you were absent. If the state wants to contest the return, then you see them in court. Otherwise they have to refund you.
On the advice of my tax advisors, I've made a point of filing nonresident returns for multiple years after moving out of a state (and out of the USA), even if the earned amount is $0 and the owed amount is $0.
This starts the statute of limitations (where applicable) and it puts you into the bucket of "people who have filed tax returns, which we may or may not audit" versus "people who have not filed tax returns, who we may or may not think should have filed a return".
At the point where you stop filing nonresident returns, you ought to make sure you have essentially zero ties to the state. The nonresident returns you filed should have had a mailing address in a different state. Your drivers license should be from a different state (or expired). You should not be registered to vote in the state. You should not have any bank, brokerage, or other financial accounts with an address in the state. If you own a business, it should not be registered as doing business in the state. No one should be 1099'ing you at an address in that state. Anything that the state's tax board can access in their databases should point to you living elsewhere.
[Obligatory disclaimer that I am not a tax attorney and this is not legal advice. Consult your accountant or a competent attorney as your case may dictate.]
All of this rigamarole is probably necessary because there have been people in the past that were (tax) residents but tried to argue they were not to get out of paying what they owed. So now all the honest people have to jump through extra hoops because some yahoos in the past tried to 'work' the system.