The Tax Trap: How a Florida Couple Declined Participation in a Government Ponzi Scheme and Ended Up in Prison
by Bill Sardi
Recently by Bill Sardi: Stocks, Bonds, Real Estate, Paper Money, Gold
"Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one’s taxes. Over and over again the Courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everyone does it, rich and poor alike and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands.”
~ Learned Hand, Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals 2nd Circuit (1872-1961) Gregory v. Helvering 69 F.2d 809, 810 (2d Cir. 1934), aff’d, 293 U.S. 465, 55 S.Ct. 266, 79 L.Ed. 596 (1935)
To write an article that casts the Internal Revenue Service in a bad light may have its obvious consequences – retaliation by the IRS. So this report is written anonymously.
Sadly, America is fast becoming a fascist country without recognition by its citizens. Public anger is misdirected and divides the nation, which insulates the government from public pressure. Division is how government keeps the pressure off of itself – rich vs. poor, black vs. white, immigrant vs. non-immigrant, union vs. non-union worker. In the following report, it’s tax-payer vs. tax evader.
Furthermore, government can even violate the Constitution with impunity because it picks off dissenters one by one, breaching the rights of one, not all. It was Martin Niemoller (1892-1984), born in Lippstadt, Germany, who wrote the following:
“In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;
And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;
And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;
And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up.”
The story of a tax evader versus the IRS is generally not sufficient to attract the attention of most Americans. Most Americans don’t side with tax evaders, feeling they are cheating others. Furthermore, most Americans cannot distinguish tax evasion from tax avoidance. Pay your fair share of taxes, just like all the rest of us! That is the common sentiment.
Even when Americans are asked if they know of any specific law which requires citizens to pay income taxes, most Americans look perplexed as to why a law would be needed in the first place. What is often heard is that every good American citizen should pay their taxes regardless of whether there is a law or not.
America has drastically changed from its earliest beginnings. America actually started out as a tax protest, the Boston Tea Party being the best specific example. Today, protest taxes and you are considered unpatriotic!
Onerous tax code
The IRS’ Taxpayer Ombudsman says the U.S. tax code has become so onerous, so complex, it costs Americans about $193 billion a year to fill out tax forms, and if improperly filed, the consequences could be forfeiture of property or garnishment of wages. As recently as the year 2000 almost half of U.S. wage earners filled out their own tax forms. Today 80% of tax filers must rely upon assistance in the form of software or a tax consultant. This means the tax code is beyond the comprehension of most citizens.
An estimated 7.6 billion hours a year are spent filling out tax forms for the IRS; and that figure does not even include millions of additional hours that taxpayers must spend when they are required to respond to an IRS notice or an audit (7.6 billion hours consume the equivalent of 3.8 million full-time workers).
The U.S. tax code is so complex that almost any tax filer could be found in violation of some rule and be subject to fines and penalties. Furthermore, the IRS can extend its reach beyond the Tax Code and employ laws intended to track down illicit drug dealers. In the case presented below, laws which require banks to report transactions of $10,000 or more.
Case in point
In the case presented below, laws require banks to report transactions of $10,000 or more to the IRS. The IRS claims the alleged offenders attempted to skirt around this law by writing checks just under $10,000 so as to avoid detection by authorities and to evade taxation on income. In legal terms, this violation is called "structuring." It was initially defined in the context of drug dealers who would use many small bank transactions to evade detection. The IRS has elected to use this structuring law to prosecute anyone whom they can make it appear has attempted to evade government detection and therefore, taxation.
Now it is used against a Christian ministry that had no intent to defraud, and individual checks for $9500 and $9600 were cherry-picked over a 2-year period from among weekly checks written to make payroll. The employees were paid in cash and the checks were sometimes written for amounts as low as $2000 or as high as $12,000. Checks written for $6200 and $7800 were not considered "egregious enough."
Any citizen who writes checks for amounts just under $10,000 could be sent to jail. In some instances, even when all taxes are paid, the IRS has deemed transactions under $10,000 to be structured.
How would those accused of structuring have prevented the problem? They would have had to demand that their bank report these less-than-$10,000 transactions to the government so as to avoid potential prosecution. There is no law that would force banks to report transactions below $10,000.
What about privacy? Must the government know everything its citizens do? But citizens serving on a jury panel are likely to ask, what have you got to hide?
Assume for a moment there is no argument that the "tax evader" was actually "evading" taxes. Does that give the Federal government the right to over-prosecute a citizen, tax him for every dime he ever made, use laws intended to deal with drug dealers, and invoke penalties and fines that even convicted drug dealers don’t face?
Who cares, he’s a tax evader, right? That’s just what must have been going through a jury’s mind two years ago in Pensacola, Florida.
The ordeal
Without warning, in the early morning on a day in 1996, Internal Revenue Service agents, sporting seizure papers and accompanied by police officers, towed away cars parked on Cummings Road in Pensacola, Florida. So began a long ordeal between a Christian ministry and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that continues today.
IRS agents seized the property in a claim for $10,000 of unpaid taxes. The alleged tax violators had mailed written responses to the IRS, but IRS agents chose to seize property without notice rather than write a reply to the accused. What would become years of intimidation had begun.
The vehicles were later returned. But the accused had to take advantage of Florida law and file for personal bankruptcy to regain their vehicles.
Today the accused, a man and his wife, convicted of tax fraud, are spending their time in separate federal prisons. He won’t get out of jail till 2015. His wife has just now entered federal prison and will spend a year in jail.
Just how this couple was found guilty of tax fraud extends beyond a family dispute with a local branch of the IRS to public privacy and punitive issues as well as the right to a fair trial that deserve attention in a country that is fast losing its Constitutional freedoms.
Setting the stage
This story is not just that of a crank tax protestor, but that of a retired public school teacher who started a ministry for children to learn about dinosaurs.
In 1989 Kent Hovind and his wife Jo had begun a ministry to educate Christians that they did not evolve from monkeys but rather were made in the image of God, in a six-day creation as spelled out in the Bible.
The Hovind’s called their ministry Creation Science Evangelism (CSE), and they produced videotapes that have been played worldwide. The tapes were not copyrighted and anyone was invited to duplicate them free of charge. Hundreds of thousands of these tapes were copied and distributed throughout the world.
Kent Hovind fondly became known as "Dr. Dinosaur" for his popular presentations to young children that the dinosaurs did not live millions and millions years ago but rather were created thousands of years ago as the Bible describes.
Kent became known for his public presentations where he demonstrated for children how to launch a paper airplane that would fly over a building, and how to shoot rubber bands to hit an object the size of a light bulb from 30 feet away. This wowed children.
Kent was frequently late for appointments because he stopped to help someone stranded on a roadside with a flat tire or a dead battery.
Hovind went so far as to challenge biology professors and teachers of evolution to open debates. Videotapes of these debates made for interesting viewing as time after time Hovind tore into the holes in evolutionary thinking. Hovind even offered a $250,000 reward for anyone who could provide empirical evidence for evolution.
Vow of poverty
Back in 1989, Kent Hovind officially took a vow of poverty, as Roman Catholic priests who belong to an "order" do today. Catholic priests who take a vow of poverty, which is recognized by the IRS, are exempt from paying Federal income tax. For those who have taken such a vow, earnings are considered the income of the religious order, or in Hovind’s case, part of his ministry. In essence, Hovind owned nothing, had no salary, and all of his needs, housing, food, transportation, were met by the ministry. He had no personal wealth, and he was not an owner of any real estate or other property, the ministry was. All of CSE’s real estate was put into a trust. Years later, newspaper reports nebulously reported Hovind failed to pay his taxes. It was a moot point. Hovind, like ordered Catholic priests, officially had no income.
The raid
The Hovind’s faced a squadron of IRS agents and police officers, who with guns drawn, raided Creation Science Evangelism in the morning hours on April 14, 2004. Some $40,000 was stolen from the ministry safe that day.
CSE was hardly a dangerous crowd of workers, but 20 armed government agents stormed onto the ministry property without warning in the early morning hours. One of Hovind’s son, who is physically handicapped, was thrown to the floor and handcuffed. Four armed agents entered Jo Hovind’s bedroom and handcuffed her. She was not even allowed to get dressed or go to the bathroom. She was taken to jail despite pleas for simple courtesies. She was indicted at the Federal Courthouse in her nightgown. Such is the experience today of those who, while innocent until proven guilty, are subjected to humiliation and public ridicule. The local Pensacola newspaper found the Hovind’s ordeal with the IRS increased their readership. Not a whimper of protest has ever been issued from the newspaper. It was as if Hovind was guilty from the start.
The Withholding Tax trap
Kent Hovind was arrested and charged with twelve counts of willfully failing to withhold, deposit, report, and pay federal income and FICA (social security) taxes for employees from March 31, 2001 until December 31, 2003. The only law he was informed that he violated was 26 U.S.C. § 7202. (26 U.S.C. § 7202 has a 5-year penalty and he is in jail for 10.)
When their day in court arrived, 5 of 6 former and current employees testified they had paid their own taxes, so the IRS’ argument that the Hovind’s (or the ministry) owed the government hundreds of thousands of dollars was specious.
It appears that the IRS could not easily invoke fines and penalties upon Kent Hovind because of his vow of poverty. In fact, a 2005 Grand Jury declined to investigate Hovind any further after submission of his affidavit which explained his dedication to ministry work and how he began his ministry with a vow of poverty, which he adhered to religiously.
To the IRS, this was not a ministry but rather Kent Hovind doing business as Creation Science Evangelism. So let’s pretend, for a moment, Hovind really was a business like the IRS tries to make it appear. But the IRS didn’t follow their own rules here. Churches and ministries do not have to apply to the government to be tax exempt.
According to IRS Publication 526:
Organizations That Qualify To Receive Deductible Contributions
You can deduct your contributions only if you make them to a qualified organization. To become a qualified organization, most organizations other than churches and governments, as described below, must apply to the IRS.
In the IRS’ own words a church "is automatically tax-deductible."
Unable to pursue Hovind on the ministry income or personal income taxes because of his vow of poverty, the IRS targeted the Withholding Tax for his employees.
The IRS tells employers and employees that according to Internal Revenue Code (IRC) section 3402(a)(1) of their code: “…every employer making payment of wages shall deduct and withhold upon such wages a tax determined in accordance with tables or computational procedures prescribed by the Secretary.” This language is widely cited in copies of the IRC.
However, this is what the law really says: "no (federal, state, city or county) municipal corporation shall levy or collect or cause to be levied or collected any tax upon the income, or any part thereof, of any person, resident or nonresident (also known as the “Full Paycheck Law”)."
How did the IRC regarding withholding tax get changed? According to a September 15, 2003 letter from GAO (General Accounting Office) to Congressman Elton Gallegly regarding W-4 forms and reporting, this was revealed:
“Under current law, IRS does not have statutory authority to impose a penalty to enforce employer compliance with the reporting requirement. The reporting requirement was promulgated in Treasury regulations.”
So the U.S. Treasury Department altered the Internal Revenue Code regarding Employee Withholding taxes. But even then, there is nothing that an employer can do to force employees to sign the W-4 form
The Code of Federal Regulations clearly advises the employers at 26 CFR §31.3402(p)-1(a) “An employee who desires to enter into an agreement for withholding…shall furnish his employer with Form W-4 (or its equivalent) for withholding. The furnishing of such Form W-4 shall constitute a request for withholding.”
Then, 31 CFR §215.2(n)(1) clearly tells the employers they cannot take amounts from the workers’ pay for any form of State tax UNLESS the employee VOLUNTARILY elects to have such sums withheld.
The IRS threatens employers with huge fines if they don’t withhold payroll taxes. Yet there is nothing an employer can do till employees consent to withholding by signing the W-4 form.
Devvy Kidd, Executive Director of We the People Congress, Inc., says: "The withholding issue was sold under the guise of patriotism because the American people did not want this new taxing scheme back in 1942."
Structuring and penalties
The IRS claimed the Hovinds "structured" 45 checks for $9500 or $9600, totaling $430,000, to skirt around government reporting laws.
First, it is difficult to imagine how one check can be deemed to be structured. The combination of two or more checks that represent $10,000 or more to the same payee, intended to avoid the IRS reporting requirement, has been interpreted as structuring in the past.
But transactions under $10,000 have been cited as a violation of reporting laws. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling states "by its plain language, the statute [Section 5324(a)(3)] prohibits transactions of less than $10,000 that are intended to evade reporting requirements." … "Knowledge of, and the intent to avoid, reporting of those transactions by bank" represents evidence of structuring. (31 CFR § 103.11(gg)
But the fact that one check for $9500, written by anyone who has knowledge of the $10,000 reporting law (which shows intent in the government’s mind), can be deemed to be evidence of structuring means anyone could be found guilty of this practice by happenstance.
Avoiding and evading are mixed here. Citizens apparently have no right to make efforts to maintain privacy in financial dealings. Were the Hovind’s negligent in informing their bank to report those checks under the $10,000 requirement? The IRS needs to make it clear, since the public has become generally knowledgeable of the $10,000 reporting requirement for banks (not businesses, citizens, or ministries), that transactions intentionally engineered so as to remain under this reporting requirement for the sole purpose of maintaining privacy may be deemed to be a violation of the law. Therefore, in self-protection, parties should instruct their bank to report all transactions to the IRS regardless of amount to the IRS. The current practice is a reporting trap.
Here is the IRS’ logic:
You should not drive through a red light or you will be sent to jail.
You can drive through a green light, and you will not go to jail.
However, if you drive through a green light in an effort to knowingly avoid driving through a red light, you go to jail.
Or….
It is illegal to drive 45 in a 45 zone because you’re avoiding breaking the law at 46.
Second, the IRS arbitrarily claims the Hovind’s owe the government $430,000, the total amount of the structured checks. But the 45 checks totaling $430,000 were written to pay the salaries of employees and were essentially a deductible expense of the business. How can the government demand payment for what amounts to the entire weekly payroll of CSR’s employees?
The total withholding tax for workers designated as independent contractors, who would pay both the workers and employer’s share of the tax, would be 15.3%. The Hovind’s would be obligated to pay, at most, 15.3% of $430,000, or $65,790 in Withholding tax. The employees, who were paid cash, were obligated to pay their own taxes on their income. The remaining total of the payroll checks, minus Withholding taxes, would represent a tax deduction to the dba (Kent Hovind) for cost of labor.
How did a jury buy into this false argument that the penalty should be based upon the total payroll, not the total of Withholding taxes? The IRS picked the highest amount, the total amount of the payroll checks, not the lower amount, Withholding taxes. Why did the local news reporters in Pensacola never question this figure? Why did the judge allow this higher figure to be the penalty the Hovind’s owed?
Withholding tax supports a Ponzi scheme
In their defense, the Hovind’s declared the Social Security payroll deduction a Ponzi scheme and branded it as illegal. After his conviction and sentencing, the judge in the case stated she found the Hovind’s defense as based upon "bizarre arguments." Few Americans paid attention.
The General Accounting Office says that Social Security is under-funded by $12 trillion, and there is no money in the Social Security trust fund under each citizen’s name, and it relies upon a larger population of younger tax payers to pay for retirees, and it cannot in any way deliver on its promise to deliver retirement checks to future retirees.
Despite this, most Americans would view the Hovind’s defense, while true, to be a cover to evade taxes and such failure to pay taxes would only make matters worse. It is very difficult to get through to the citizenry on these matters.
Christians appear to be paralyzed to oppose a wrong, their complicity with what appears to be a Biblical exhortation not to "cheat your neighbor, nor rob him. The wages of him who is hired shall not remain with you all night until morning." (Book of Leviticus 19:13) The current Social Security system is going to cheat future generations out of trillions of dollars.
The Securities and Exchange Commission describes a Ponzi scheme as a system where one continues to put money into a system on the “rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul” principle, as money from new investors is used to pay off earlier investors until the whole scheme collapses.
The Withholding Tax may be the law by prevailing practice, but that doesn’t make it moral or right. In fact, it may be unconstitutional because it interferes with the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness guaranteed in the Declaration of Independence.
If somebody doesn’t begin to stand up to a government system that by all definitions is a Ponzi scheme, American society will crumble in economic insolvency, as we read in the daily newspapers now.
Until the laws and regulations regarding taxation are changed, the citizenry is obligated to pay taxes and employers are obligated to withdraw funds from employees’ payroll checks. But this makes citizens complicit in the crime.
News headlines
Within a week of the April 14, 2004 raid on CSE the Associated Press had taken the story national. Why the Associated Press elected to cover a local news story should be noted. It could prejudice a future jury.
Newspaper headlines made it sound like the Hovind’s were millionaires. CSE had taken in $5 million, but that was over a period of 5 years and pertained to the gross receipts of the ministry, not the net profits. The seeming largesse of the money was beyond what any jurist would ever make in their lifetime. They couldn’t imagine the Hovind’s did not personally profit from many donations and tape and book sales.
Playing to the jury
The jury of twelve was sworn in on October 18, 2006 in United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida.
Jurors could only be those who embrace Darwinism or even atheism, or Christians who espouse to the Biblical teaching to pay taxes, or maybe a mixture of both.
It is in just this sort of courtroom vise that the Hovind’s found themselves in a Southern courtroom where it would have been expected that Southern jurors in the heart of the Bible Belt should have exonerated them. But oddly, the godly and the apostate would align together to convict the Hovind’s of contrived charges
The Southern jury was anticipated to largely reflect a Bible Belt population. The prosecution knew this and they had to overcome it. The strategy was to confront the jury with Bible verses that would condemn the Hovind’s right from the beginning of the trial.
On the second day of the trial the prosecution brought Rebekah Horton, vice president of Pensacola Christian College, to the witness stand. Horton’s testimony was irrelevant to the case, but she was allowed to testify anyway.
Horton herself had a history of run-ins with the IRS. The non-profit Pensacola Christian College derived a great deal of its income from A Beka books (named after Rebekah Horton), which publishes Christian books and curriculums for grade school children. In the mid-1990s, A Beka paid nearly $50-million in back taxes after the Internal Revenue Service ruled that it should have been classified as a for-profit entity.
The reformed Horton took the stand. She had subsequently taken an "anti-tax rebel" stand and informed students that the school would report anyone who they feel is breaking the laws of the country. Pensacola Christian College has strict rules of conduct, and they informed students the school would prohibit any student from associating with others who took an anti-taxation stance.
Whether Horton’s penance was to take the witness stand on that day is unknown, but why the judge would allow the prosecution to question Rebekah Horton goes unexplained. Horton had no direct connection with the case. Horton was an avowed enemy of Hovind and had forbidden her school’s students to work for Creation Science Evangelism.
Horton testified: "We know the Scriptures do not promote (tax evasion). It’s against Scripture teaching." The scripture she was referring to is Matthew 22:21: "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s."
Those words were uttered by Jesus when questioners tried to trap Jesus into taking a stand that they could report to the Roman authorities on whether Jews should or should not pay taxes to their Roman occupiers. The more accurate translation is: "Creatures of the State should pay taxes to the State, and Creatures of God should pay to God." This scripture is one of the most often misinterpreted.
Jesus Himself rebuked the Apostle Peter for paying taxes not due. (Matthew 17: 24-27) "Jesus asked: of whom do the kings of the earth take custom or tribute? Of their own children, or of strangers?" (Interpretation: governments raise money from foreigners {aliens} rather than from sons {residents}.)
The Bible offers no mandates for employers to pay their employees taxes, only for workers to pay their taxes. At issue in the Hovind case was Federal withholding for Social Security. Federal withholding taxes actually stake first claim on an employee’s paycheck, essentially replacing the "first fruits" that were to be given to God. (Deuteronomy 26:2) The Federal government now receives the "first fruits." The Hovind’s were objecting, as Christians, to participation in a fraudulent scheme called Social Security. Imagine, in this case, had the jury elected to exonerate the Hovind’s of all charges based upon a requirement to withhold money for a fraudulent public retirement scheme, history would have been made. The jury seized no such opportunity.
The Social Security scheme is not much different than the Bernard Madoff $50 billion Ponzi scheme that has outraged so many Americans. Yet no fury is expressed when the government robs the people.
The Hovind’s claimed no benefits for Social Security. Social Security is still a voluntary system for its participants. Recognize, according to the General Accounting Office, Social Security invests money in securities on Wall Street. Withholding Taxes produce handsome rewards for traders on Wall Street who pay lobbyists and make circuitous political contributions to Congressional representatives. Others line their pockets with the Withholding tax money the IRS collects, under force of law.
The judge
The judge assigned to the case, US District judge Casey Rodgers, a G.W. Bush appointee, was the youngest woman appointed to serve in the federal court system. She was appointed at age 39, a couple of years prior to the Hovind case. She had a career to make and now an important case to cut her teeth on.
Of considerable side interest, Judge Rodgers was later to rule, in a case involving the Santa Rosa County School District in Pensacola, against school prayer. Her ruling prohibits employees from promoting prayer at school-sponsored events. This is despite the 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which states “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Essentially, Judge Rodgers ruling violates the 1st Amendment.
During closing arguments Kent Hovind’s attorney read the jury instructions to the jury about the amount structured must be more than $10,000. The U.S. Attorney objected to her own jury instruction! The judge held a side bar and called for a recess. Forty-five minutes later she came back in with new jury instructions that said if they found that the Hovind’s withdrew less than $10,000 they must find them guilty! The stunned Hovind attorneys each moved for a mistrial since jury instructions cannot be changed after closing arguments are presented. The judge denied their motions. The Hovind’s were never allowed to present a defense for structuring transactions under $10,000. The Hovind’s were found guilty of forty-five counts of structuring.
After the trial, Judge Rodgers was quoted by the Pensacola News Journal to say that "Kent Hovind had failed his fellow citizens and the men and women of the military – who fight to defend his freedoms – by refusing to pay taxes." This is a very strange statement for a judge who is supposed to be impartial. Juries find the accused guilty or innocent, not judges. The definition of a patriot has changed, from one who resisted an onerous tea tax by the British, to Americans today who view any tax protest as a lack of patriotism.
After Kent and Jo Hovind had been convicted and sentenced, an appeal was filed with the 11th Circuit Court. Judge Rodgers refused to produce transcripts of the Hovind case that were required for an appeal to be submitted. In fact, Judge Rodgers even incurred fines and delayed the appeal by many months. Why was Judge Rodgers dragging her feet in delivering transcripts of the case in preparation for an appeal?
After-court comments
In the Pensacola News Journal IRS spokesman Norman Meadows said Hovind’s case was not run of the mill and “tax protesters like this are a threat to the nation.”
The government alleged that Mr. Hovind threatened harm to those investigating him and those cooperating with the investigation, yet when pressed about these claims, the government said this claim was based upon Mr. Hovind’s prayer on the radio program he hosted when he discussed David praying that God would smite his enemies.
On January 20, 2007 the Pensacola News Journal said: "Jo Hovind will be sentenced March 1 on charges of evading bank-reporting requirements." But just exactly how would a citizen force a bank to report transactions to Federal authorities that were below the $10,000 notification point? That point went unexplained. The local newspaper bought the government’s story all the way.
Fearing more charges would be filed against her, after the trial was completed Mrs. Hovind, who had never taken a salary at Creation Science Evangelism and had never filed a tax return, filed a late tax return for the past 10 years showing she owed $25,000 in back taxes (including fines and penalties), which she couldn’t pay. Surprisingly, after belatedly filing her tax returns, Jo Hovind actually received tax refund checks from the IRS for a few hundred dollars!
The ordeal continues. The IRS has delivered tax bills to the Hovind’s for $528,000 and $700,000 and now $10 million dollars (Spring 2008). The IRS is over-prosecuting, declaring every dollar of income made by CRE to be ill-gotten. The IRS must be tabulating the huge cost of filing charges against the Hovind’s and figuring out how to justify what must be millions of dollars spent in their prosecution for more than a decade. This must be the reason for the attempt to confiscate property belonging to Creation Science Evangelism. A judge is now considering which if any properties on Cummings Road in Pensacola, properties worth close to $2 million. Just how the IRS is going to justify the taking of all the property in this ministry is going to be worth watching since churches and church groups, regardless of their filing for 501c3 status, are exempt from paying taxes. The IRS maintains, and the courts supports, the false notion that the IRS is a "victim of tax evasion." (11th Circuit Court of Appeals decision, Dec. 30, 2008, No. 07-10502) Even if true, to what extent? The penalty for not paying Withholding tax appears to be beyond reason since most of the employees paid their own taxes.
Many followers of Darwinian evolution followed the court case involving Kent Hovind every step of the way. Many ridicule Kent Hovind, arrogantly claiming scientific high ground for Darwinian evolution, and gloat that a proponent of Biblical creation has finally been "caged," that his science and his business practices were a fraud all along.
Another note to this saga: Assistant U.S. Attorney John D.R. Atchison, a prosecutor in the Hovind case, was arrested in September of 2008 for flying to Detroit in an attempt to molest a 5-year old boy. Atchison committed suicide in federal prison a month later.
Is there any privacy left in America?
Donald McAlvany, editor of the McAlvany Intelligence Advisor, lashes at the war on cash and privacy. Mr. McIlvany’s words speak loud:
Most Americans suppose “money laundering” refers primarily to the hidden, laundered, movement of cash profits from drug deals. Wrong! It refers today to almost any “financial crime,” broken financial regulation, use of cash, avoidance of government cash-reporting laws, unreported foreign bank accounts, unreported transfer of funds, or virtually anything the government bureaucrats want it to mean. The definition is vague and ever expanding.
IRS agents are greatly accelerating money-laundering cases in situations where there is obviously no criminal intent, and certainly no involvement whatsoever with drugs or drug money. Remember, the IRS considers money laundering to be any effort you make to disguise your assets or avoid completing a federal currency transaction or border-crossing form.
If a tax case can be called “money laundering,” it is no longer civil, but criminal, with large potential criminal sentences and fines….
The first thing the Nazis did in the 1930s to establish control over their population was to establish “money crimes” that were punishable by forfeiture and imprisonment. Half a century later, the same thing is happening here. The war on drugs is a classic government power grab.
McIlvany goes on to address "structuring:"
“Structuring” is defined by the IRS as any effort to avoid reporting cash or other monetary transactions over $10,000 by breaking them down into smaller “related” transactions over any 12-month period (defined by USC 31, Sec. 5322-5324-Money Laundering Control Act of 1986, as amended).
“Structuring” is now defined as money laundering, and is a criminal offense. You can now go to jail for dealing in cash to protect your financial privacy, if the IRS thinks you’re trying to hide or structure your transactions or monetary instruments. Furthermore, it’s against the law for a bank or merchant to tell you that you might be violating the law. This can get him prosecuted as part of your structuring “conspiracy.” If they think your behavior is suspicious, they may fill out a form on you without telling you and file it with the IRS, which will promptly audit you, or begin a criminal investigation. . . .
The average person might say, “Well, the government would never come after anyone who was totally innocent.” But that’s not true – he misses the point. The IRS admits that 85% of the people accused of “structuring” committed no other crime than seeking to protect their privacy.
Interpretation
Americans look to their TV sets for interpretation of current events. It is easy to see that the public sorts out a case like the Hovind’s as just another crank tax protestor who is depriving the public of its money. Yet some people ask why child molesters roam the streets on parole while a teacher like Kent Hovind gets 10-years in the slammer?
The American people largely appear to be oblivious to a government that has slid past socialism to fascism. Americans might admit to the socialist claim, but they wouldn’t recognize fascism if they saw it. It is not in their vocabulary.
In Nazi Germany, Christians were confronted with the Bible scripture to "render unto Caesar" to compel their cooperation. As the nation slides further into debt (another $12 trillion of public debt is planned by 2013) government will legislate more and more ways to raise taxes, pay fines, etc.
The Hovind case was not about law, it was about a country that cannot distinguish the over-reaching arm of government, beyond what the 10th Amendment to the Constitution allows, from an all-authoritarian, totalitarian government, that often, but not always, operates under a dictator. The State has replaced God.
The Hovind case was about a citizenry that cannot fathom that their country does any wrong.
The U.S. Constitution serves as a perfect cover for American fascism. Constitutional limited government is gone. The fear of imagined terrorists produces a need for the public to rely upon an all-authoritative protector.
America is a Constitutional republic in name only. Efforts to remove guns from potential criminals are a cover for negating the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution. The principle of "no taxation without representation" is negated by gerrymandering of Congressional districts. Government must strike down tax dissenters lest the populace rise up against unfair taxation.
The public is encouraged to save rather than go into debt, but the savings only capitalize the bankrupt bankers. The public, via inflation created by the Federal Reserve, is fleecing the citizenry of its money. The public remains in a coma.
The greatness of America, its pioneer spirit and its standard of living, is about to come to an end. The Federal government hides the fact it spends over a trillion dollars a year on war making, or more than half of the U.S. annual budget, essentially robbing money from its future. Medicare and Social Security are aggregately under-funded by $75 trillion. There is no way Americans today are going to be provided the healthcare and pension checks they were promised.
When the citizenry finally does wake up, the only way the State can maintain control is to quell all opposition, threaten imprisonment, keep the people financially impoverished and in bread lines, so they cannot mount up meaningful resistance. Searching for food on the table, they become more dependent upon a monster that the nation’s forefathers warned about.
Threatened with exposure, the government is not beyond a "false flag" operation where a "dirty bomb" or two will cause the people to give up their freedoms for greater security. Plans for such covert operations have been discovered in archives of the federal government.
Oppressive countries imprison dissenters. America has more people locked up in jail than any other country. Prisons have become a growth industry. Kent and Jo Hovind look out from behind bars, wondering when or if America will ever wake up. They now serve God in a prison ministry.
Americans will hear of the Hovind case. They will say, "Ya, that’s that creation guy, got himself into trouble with the IRS. He should have paid his taxes like everyone else."
Yes, we should all be good citizens and pay into the government Ponzi scheme, and relinquish our privacy rights and not hide anything from the government, and make no effort to avoid (not evade) taxes. Americans aren’t likely to pay attention till the IRS is prosecuting them.
At the current writing of this report, the Federal government is covertly auditing small business bank accounts for any appearance of tax evasion. The Federal government assumes it has the right to audit every bank account in America because it is now an insolvent government that must look for new sources of income. It is possible the IRS will estimate taxes owed and withdraw funds directly from small business bank accounts rather than audit every small business.
January 8, 2010
Bill Sardi [send him mail] is a frequent writer on health and political topics. His health writings can be found at www.naturalhealthlibrarian.com. He is the author of You Don’t Have To Be Afraid Of Cancer Anymore.
Copyright © 2010 Bill Sardi Word of Knowledge Agency, San Dimas, California. This article has been written exclusively for www.LewRockwell.com and other parties who wish to refer to it should link rather than post at other URLs.
The Best of Bill Sardi
Recent Comments