The State Controller and the Chair of the Board of Equalization are elected officials, while the Director of the Department of Finance is appointed by the Governor of California.

The four members of the State Board of Equalization typically take a one-year turn acting as Chair during their four-year elected term.

The agency's name was left unchanged even after the state created a personal income tax and added it to the FTB's responsibilities.

[2] Over the past decade, the FTB has collected an average of $9.5 billion per year in corporate income taxes.

The FTB also does financial audits of certain candidates for state office, ballot proposition committees, and lobbyists, according to a random selection process by the California Fair Political Practices Commission.