Auffie’s Random Thoughts

Saturday, April 14, 2007

Deadlock in Government Processes

When we have a complex government with a complex set of processes and dependencies, it is not unexpected that a deadlock would exist somewhere. Some months ago, I had expended quite some energy attempting to dissolve a nonprofit organization (nota bene: I am not speaking of the semiconductor company that I work for), dealing with three government entities: the Secretary of State of California, the Franchise Tax Board, and the California Attorney General. The last of these three was relatively easy to work with, but I ran into a snag with the first two. It turned out that the organization was not up-to-date in its filing of statement of information and was suspended by the Franchise Tax Board. Therefore, it needed to be revived before it could be dissolved. But what is even more amazing is the fact that the Secretary of State’s office informed me in a letter that they didn’t want to talk to me until I cleared with the Franchise Tax Board:


So I wrote to the Franchise Tax Board. Now comes the kicker: The Franchise Tax Board responded with the following letter, telling me that I could not proceed to dissolve the organization until I file the appropriate documents with the Secretary of State to revive it first:

Pray tell, O highly esteemed civil magistrates, how shall I get out of this dilemma?