The Law that Never Was

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Tax protesters
History Arguments Constitutional Statutory Conspiracy Notable tax protesters Robert Clarkson - Vivien Kellems Mitch Modeleski - Irwin Schiff Richard Michael Simkanin William J. Benson Wayne C. Bentson Related topics The Law That Never Was Cheek v. United States Titles of Nobility Amendment Tax avoidance and tax evasion Tax resistance Christian Patriot Posse Comitatus
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The Law That Never Was: The fraud of the 16th Amendment and personal income tax is a 1985 book by William J. Benson and Martin J. "Red" Beckman which claims that the Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution — commonly known as the income tax amendment — was never properly ratified.

Under Article V of the U.S. Constitution, an amendment proposed by Congress must be ratified by three-fourths of the states to become part of the Constitution. The Article permits Congress to specify, for each amendment, whether the ratification must be by each state's legislature or by a constitutional convention in each state; for the Sixteenth Amendment, Congress specified ratification by the legislatures. There were 48 states in the Union in 1913 — the year when the Sixteenth Amendment was finally ratified — which meant that the Amendment required ratification by the legislatures of 36 states to become effective. In February 1913, Secretary of State Philander C. Knox issued a proclamation that 38 states had ratified the amendment. (According to Congressional analysis, a total of 42 states had ratified the amendment as of 1992.)^[1]

1 The book's contentions
2 Legal status of Benson's claims
3 Benson's Federal income tax problems
4 Notes
5 References
6 External links

[edit] The book's contentions

The book relates how in 1984, seventy-one years after the ratification was proclaimed, Benson began a research project to investigate the ratification process by traveling to the capitols of various New England states and to the National Archives, and reviewing documents relating to the ratification of the Amendment.

Benson found errors in punctuation, capitalization, and pluralization in the language of the Amendment as ratified by many states. He used the errors as a basis for his contention that those states had not properly ratified the Amendment. Benson further claimed to have found documents suggesting that some states that had been certified as having ratified the Amendment never voted to ratify it, or voted against ratification. Benson claimed that no states, or only a few states (variously reported as two states or four states), had properly ratified the Amendment.

[edit] Legal status of Benson's claims

The book was published in 1985. Benson's findings were then raised as arguments in court cases by tax protesters denying the obligation to pay income tax. The earliest reported court case where Benson's arguments were raised appears to be United States v. House,^[2] about seventy-two years after the ratification. Benson testified unsuccessfully in the House case.

Benson's claim was also rejected in Miller v. United States.^[3] The court stated, "We find it hard to understand why the long and unbroken line of cases upholding the constitutionality of the Sixteenth Amendment generally, Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad Company . . . and those specifically rejecting the argument advanced in The Law That Never Was, have not persuaded Miller and his compatriots to seek a more effective forum for airing their attack on the federal income tax structure." The court then sanctioned the litigants for advancing a "patently frivolous" position.

Similar "Sixteenth Amendment arguments" have been uniformly rejected by the courts in other cases including United States v. Thomas.^[4] In Thomas the court referred to Benson's book and noted that the errors found by Benson had already been investigated by Secretary of State Knox at the time of ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment, and had been determined to be insignificant (see Tax protester constitutional arguments).

Arguments that the Sixteenth Amendment was not properly ratified were also rejected in Ficalora v. Commissioner;^[5] Sisk v. Commissioner;^[6] United States v. Sitka;^[7] and United States v. Stahl.^[8] The non-ratification argument has also been deemed legally frivolous in Brown v. Commissioner and Lysiak v. Commissioner.^[9]^[10]

[edit] Benson's Federal income tax problems

In United States v. Benson,^[11] a criminal case, Benson himself raised the Sixteenth Amendment argument, which was rejected by the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. In this phase of the case, his conviction for tax evasion and willful failure to file tax returns was overturned on other grounds and the case was remanded to the trial court.

Upon retrial, Benson was again convicted of tax evasion and willful failure to file tax returns, and his conviction was upheld on appeal. The conduct for which he was convicted involved over $100,000 of income he did not report on Federal income tax returns. He was sentenced to four years in prison and five years of probation.^[12]

Benson continues to promote his views. On his own web site, Benson includes verbiage — in quotation marks — that he attributes to the text of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad, an early case interpreting the Amendment. He quotes the Court as saying that the Sixteenth Amendment "did not change the constitutional limitations which forbid any direct taxation of individuals."^[13] The text of the Court's decision does not contain any such quotation.^[14] No U.S. Federal court has ever ruled that any provision of the United States Constitution forbids any direct taxation of individuals.

Benson's web site also states: "After serving time in federal prison for not paying his United States income taxes, Bill Benson still does not pay income taxes and yet our federal government chooses not to arrest him. Why? Because now he can use this book, which he has written : 'THE LAW THAT NEVER WAS' in his defense."^[15] This web site entry does not disclose that the book was written before Benson's arrest and conviction, and that he actually tried to use the arguments from the book unsuccessfully in the criminal tax prosecution that resulted in his prison term. In that case, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit stated:

Benson argues that he did not need to file tax returns or pay income taxes because the Sixteenth Amendment was not properly ratified. [ . . . ] The district court denied Benson's request for an evidentiary hearing on this issue and refused to hear any Sixteenth Amendment argument.

As the district court noted, we have repeatedly rejected the claim that the Sixteenth Amendment was improperly ratified. [ . . . ] One would think this repeated rejection of Benson's Sixteenth Amendment argument would put the matter to rest. [ . . . ] Benson is the co-author of The Law That Never Was, a book that purports to "review the documents concerning the states' ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment" and to show "that only four states ratified the Sixteenth Amendment [and that] the official promulgation of the amendment by Secretary of State Knox in 1913 is therefore void." [ . . . ] Benson insists that as the co-author of The Law That Never Was, and the man who actually reviewed the state documents "proving" improper ratification, he is uniquely qualified to make the "exceptionally strong showing" we spoke of in Foster. Because of this, Benson insists, the district court should have at least granted him an evidentiary hearing on the Sixteenth Amendment issue.

Benson is wrong. In Thomas, we specifically examined the arguments made in The Law That Never Was, and concluded that "Benson . . . did not discover anything." We concluded that Secretary Knox's declaration that sufficient states had ratified the Sixteenth Amendment was conclusive, and that "Secretary Knox's decision is now beyond review." [ . . . ] It necessarily follows that the district court correctly refused to hold an evidentiary hearing; no hearing is necessary to consider an issue that is "beyond review."^[16]

[edit] Notes

^ Senate Document No. 103-6 (1992 ed.), Analysis and Interpretation of the Constitution; Annotations of Cases Decided by the Supreme Court of the United States (United States Government Printing Office). http://www.gpoaccess.gov/constitution/html/conamt.html
^ 617 F. Supp. 237, 87-2 U.S. Tax Cas. (CCH) paragr. 9562 (W.D. Mich. 1985).
^ 868 F.2d 236 89-1 U.S. Tax Cas. (CCH) paragr. 9184 (7th Cir. 1989) (per curiam).
^ 788 F.2d 1250, 1252 (7th Cir. 1986), cert. denied 107 S.Ct. 187 (1986).
^ 751 F.2d 85, 85-1 U.S. Tax Cas. (CCH) paragr. 9103 (2d Cir. 1984).
^ 791 F.2d 58, 86-1 U.S. Tax Cas. (CCH) paragr. 9433 (6th Cir. 1986).
^ 845 F.2d 43, 88-1 U.S. Tax Cas. (CCH) paragr. 9308 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 827 (1988).
^ 792 F.2d 1438, 86-2 U.S. Tax Cas. (CCH) paragr. 9518 (9th Cir. 1986), cert. denied, 107 S. Ct. 888 (1987).
^ 53 T.C.M. (CCH) 94, T.C. Memo 1987-78, CCH Dec. 43,696(M) (1987).
^ 816 F.2d 311, 87-1 U.S. Tax Cas. (CCH) paragr. 9296 (7th Cir. 1987).
^ 941 F.2d 598, 91-2 U.S. Tax Cas. (CCH) paragr. 50,437 (7th Cir. 1991).
^ United States v. Benson, 67 F.3d 641, 95-2 U.S. Tax Cas. (CCH) paragr. 50,540 (7th Cir. 1995).
^ Retrieved on 22 November 2006 from http://www.thelawthatneverwas.com/new/ratification.asp
^ See Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad, 240 U.S. 1 (1916); text available at http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=us&vol=240&page=1
^ See caption near Benson's picture at bottom of web page. Retrieved on 22 November 2006 from http://www.thelawthatneverwas.com/new/home.asp
^ 941 F.2d 598, 91-2 U.S. Tax Cas. (CCH) paragr. 50,437 (7th Cir. 1991).

[edit] References

Benson, Bill; M. J. Beckman (c. 1985–86). The law that never was: The fraud of the 16th Amendment and personal income tax. South Holland, IL (Box 550, South Holland 60473): Constitutional Research Assoc. OCLC 12357966.