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.
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 16 th 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.
