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USDC
To Hear 16th Amendment Fraud Issue
DOJ Lawsuit Against Bill Benson Backfires
Twenty-five years ago Bill Benson, a former Illinois Department
of Revenue investigator, began a cross-country trip across the
forty-eight states that comprised the Union in 1913 seeking documentary
evidence regarding the ratification of the 16th Amendment.
This was a most important undertaking, because the government
uses the 16th Amendment as its sole authority to tax
an individual’s wages and salaries.
During his two-year trip, Benson collected thousands of certified
legal documents from both state and federal archives documenting
exactly how the 16th Amendment was acted on by each state legislature
and handled by the office of the Secretary of State for the United
States.
In the end, Benson had assembled an irrefutable mountain of evidence
showing that during the final days of the William Howard Taft
administration in 1913, the 16th Amendment was fraudulently declared
by the U.S. Secretary of State, Philander Knox, to have been properly
ratified by the requisite number of state legislatures. Bill Benson,
and his co-researcher Red Beckman, documented the results of their
work in a two volume research report entitled, “The Law That Never
Was.”
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Until now, no federal court has agreed to
examine the vast body of legal evidence compiled by Benson.
Indeed, the federal courts, both District and Appellate,
have consistently refused to tackle the troubling issue,
claiming the matter of the fraudulent ratification of the
Amendment to be a “political question” for Congress to decide,
and beyond the jurisdiction of the courts.
For more than 20 years, this judge-made “political question”
doctrine has blocked a resolution of the issue. |
Today, as the result of a dramatic court
battle now being waged in Chicago, Bill Benson and Red Beckman
may be on their way to vindication and the federal government
may soon find itself scrambling for a new principal source of
revenue.
In November 2004, the Department of Justice
filed a lawsuit against Benson in the USDC in Chicago, accusing
him of operating a “fraudulent tax shelter” and violating Section
6700 of the Internal Revenue Code.
At the heart of Benson’s alleged fraudulent tax shelter “scheme”
is the two-volume research book,
The Law That Never Was. The hard bound publication
is an exhaustive, detailed review of each state’s legislative
process regarding its adoption, or rejection, of the 16th Amendment.
The government claims Benson fraudulently induced large numbers
of Americans to stop paying income taxes because they relied
upon fraudulent statements contained in Benson’s “Reliance Defense
Package”.
Shortly after being charged, Benson’s lawyer, Jeff Dickstein,
filed a
Motion to Dismiss the suit, claiming that Benson, as a matter
of law, could not present a defense as to the factual truth
of his claims regarding the ratification fraud because the federal
courts have repeatedly ruled that the issue is outside their
legal domain, and hence, the courts are without subject
matter jurisdiction.
Specifically, Benson’s attorney argued that because the fact
of making “false or fraudulent statements” is a central element
of the alleged unlawful act, Due Process requires that Benson
must be given an opportunity to directly defend the factual
question of whether Benson’s claims are true or false – despite
the fact that the federal courts apparently lack any jurisdiction
to consider or adjudicate such a question. This legal “Catch-22”,
Dickstein argued, required the dismissal of the case.
Ignoring this constitutional quagmire, the District Court in
Chicago rejected Benson’s Motion to Dismiss for lack of subject
matter jurisdiction, thereby indirectly admitting it did,
in fact, have subject matter jurisdiction regarding the ratification
of the amendment.
Most importantly, the Court must now address the exercise of
Benson’s Due Process Rights which include challenging the factual
substance of the government's allegations, i.e., that Benson
is willfully and falsely telling people that
because the 16th amendment wasn't ratified, people do not have
to file a federal income tax return.
During a status conference, the Court specifically stated it
would study The Law That Never Was and also ordered
Benson to submit a legal brief arguing the details of the fraud
for the Court. On August 1, Benson’s attorney filed the
legal brief
detailing aspects of the ratification fraud.
As Benson’s documentation overwhelmingly establishes, the fraud
was deliberate and pervasive throughout the four-year long amending
process. As a single example, consider Kentucky’s resolution
on the 16th Amendment which was recorded by the Secretary
of State as having passed the amendment on a vote of
22 to 9. In fact, the source historical record shows that
Kentucky’s
resolution was rejected on a vote of
22 to 9, thereby voiding the 16th Amendment, which Philander
Know alleged had been passed with only a two-state margin.
Will Benson Enjoy Due Process Or Will His Claims Be Judicially
Presumed False?
On its face, Benson’s legal proceedings can be considered the
worst possible scenario for the government. Despite all efforts
to avoid such, the government is slowly being forced by a District
Court into directly confronting the legal evidence put forth
by Benson.
That is, to successfully sustain its legal claim against Benson
for allegedly violating Section 6700 of the Internal Revenue
Code, (i.e., running a “fraudulent tax shelter”), the government
must establish for the record that Benson had an “illicit state
of mind” by proving that Benson could have had NO rationale
or reasonable basis to believe that his claims regarding the
16th Amendment are, as a matter of law, true.
Unfortunately for the government, standing in its way are thousands
of certified, legislative documents and a court-ordered hearing
to examine Benson’s rationale in advancing his allegedly fraudulent
claims.
According to Benson, at an earlier status conference, DOJ officials
openly offered to settle out of court and that they only wanted
to bar him from distributing his 16th Amendment “reliance
package”. However, as part of the settlement, DOJ also wanted
a list of Benson's customers. In response, Benson asserted his
right to remain silent because an IRS CID special agent asked
about Benson in connection with an on-going grand jury investigation
in another state. Benson did not settle out of court.
On August 4, presumably to avoid any further public hearings
on the matter, the government filed a
Motion for Summary Judgment. Benson's attorney is currently
working on a response to this motion and is preparing a cross-motion
for summary judgment. Oral arguments regarding Benson’s research
have not yet been held.
Benson, who for years failed in his attempts to force the government
to honestly respond to his legal research has, through a strange
turn of events involving these Section 6700 civil charges, been
drawn into a legal conflict where he may yet have his questions
answered.
Ironically, in its insatiable desire to suppress the distribution
of an ever-growing body of research exposing the legal fraud
of our tax system, and to quash those that act in good faith
upon that research to secure their Rights, the government, in
its lawsuit against Bill Benson, has inadvertently put itself
in the position of having to confront the very thing it dreads
– a public, judicial hearing where it must rebut the existence
of thousands of certified legal documents that irrefutably
establish that our income tax statutes have no constitutional
authority.
Some might conclude the government’s lawsuit against Bill Benson
has backfired.
Story Related Links
Benson’s original
Motion to Dismiss
The Government’s Motion for
Summary Judgment
Benson’s
brief on the 16th Amendment fraud
Go to Benson’s website: www.TheLawThatNeverWas.com to order Vol. I & II of The Law That Never Was
Click Here to order a copy of the record of the WTP
Truth In Taxation Hearing
in which Benson testified extensively under oath about the income
tax fraud.
Over 14 hours of video +
450 legal exhibits + transcript
+ multi-media interface
(CD-ROM or VHS)
Benson would also appreciate financial support to finance his
legal defense.
His address is:
Bill Benson
PO Box 550
South Holland, IL 60473
DISCLAIMER:
I make
no claims for the accuracy of this information and express no personal opinion
on the matter. The information was acquired off the web and from authors (owners
of said pages) and other sources and described as "information"
and I wanted to pass it along to anyone who might find it interesting or otherwise
useful. I'd appreciate any feedback you'd care to share with me if you wish
to proceed in a civilized manner. If the work is yours please email me and
we can work something out.
I want to give the author the credit they deserve or remove the piece.
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