City/County Business Tax (CCBT) Program Background

Under the authority of R&TC 19551.1 participating cities/counties will provide local business license data to Franchise Tax Board (FTB). FTB will provide cities/counties data from our records, indicating business activity in the city’s/county’s name. This data exchange helps FTB find businesses not filing required tax returns and helps cities/counties find unlicensed businesses in their jurisdiction.

Effective January 2009 as a result of the enactment of Senate Bill 1146 (Cedillo) (Chapter 345, Statutes of 2008), FTB began exchanging data through a reciprocal agreement with cities. There is no charge to either party.

What’s New

Effective January 2016 as a result of Assembly Bill 279, counties in California became eligible to participate in the CCBT program. The program helps identify self-employed individuals who are not reporting required income and paying local business taxes.

R&TC 19542-19552 and California Civil Code 1798.29

Data Exchanged

Types of data exchanged between cities and the Franchise Tax Board.
Cities/Counties provide FTB: FTB provides Cities/Counties:
  • Business and owner's name
  • Business or residence address
  • FEIN or SSN
  • North American Industry Classification Code or Standard Industry Classification Code
  • Taxpayer name
  • Taxpayer address
  • Taxpayer SSN or FEIN
  • Entity type
  • Principal Business Activity (PBA) Code

How Do We Exchange Information?

We transmit data using Secure Web Internet File Transfer (SWIFT) to ensure data is secure while electronically transmitting data to and from FTB.

Due Dates

  • Cities/Counties must transmit their data by June 30 of each year in which the Standard Agreement is in effect.
  • FTB will transmit limited state tax data by December 31 of each year to participating cities/counties while the Standard Agreement is in effect and after the city/county submits the Safeguard Questionnaire. FTB data will cover the prior tax year. For example, we will send tax year 2015 data in December 2016.

Sending City Data

  1. Prepare the city/county business tax data per the record layout specifications (FTB 909).
  2. Cities/counties must follow these specifications when transmitting their data to us.
  3. Log in to your SWIFT account.
  4. Transfer the data using the acceptable file format (.txt), ASCII fixed length format.
  5. Use the "ToFTB" mailbox to transmit the file to FTB.
  6. Retrieve your receipt using the "FromFTB" mailbox.

Retrieving FTB Data

  1. Log in to your SWIFT account.
  2. Open "FromFTB" mailbox.
  3. Select file and save to designated folder.

References

Safeguarding FTB Data

Since the data we provide to a city/county tax official is confidential tax information, any improper use or disclosure of information carries certain civil and criminal liabilities. Provisions are made within the Standard Agreements to ensure taxpayer data is safeguarded:

  • The city/county must complete and submit a Safeguard Questionnaire prior to FTB sending data (R&TC 19542).
  • Only city/county employees that signed the City/County Business Tax Program Confidentiality Statement and have taken the annual City/County Business Tax Disclosure Training have access to FTB data. This statement acknowledges employees understand the consequences of unauthorized access, use, and disclosure of FTB data.
  • City/county employees who have access to FTB data must annually complete City/County Business Tax Disclosure Training.
  • City/county will only use FTB data for tax administration purposes.
  • The city/county maintains the security and confidentiality of the data as outlined in the exchange agreement. Mandatory data destruction is after 3 years.
  • The city/county employees are aware that FTB disclosure staff will conduct safeguard reviews. This review includes inspection of the confidentiality and the security of the data.