(This was adapted from an article by Pete Hendrickson, posted
here.)
In 2007, initial government efforts to suppress a book about the income tax ended. A steadily increasing number of Americans had been demanding and receiving complete refunds of amounts taken from them as "income taxes". The tax division of the USDOJ and the IRS sued the author.
The lawsuit alleged that refunds to the author and his wife for amounts paid in 2002 and 2003 were mistakes caused by a lack of awareness on the government's part that the couple had earnings in those years.
However, the government had received both W-2 and 1099 forms from those who had paid the couple for their work well before the refunds were issued, as attested to by the prosecuting attorney. Also, the IRS issued and later withdrew summons for May 24, 2004 and again for August 30th, 2004, in part to determine "whether [the author] can be enjoined under I.R.C. Section 7408" (Hendrickson v USA, No.3:04-MC-00177-MMC (JCS)).
On April 26th, 2004, about five months before the second refund was issued, IRS Revenue agent Heidi Beukema had met with the author and received a copy of the book. No determination that any specific claim in the book is false has ever been made, and the second refund was issued, even as the legal battle proceeded in Michigan and California courts.
The timeline of the refund and the legal actions and their dismissal renders the claim that the government lacked awareness of earnings indefensible. Further damaging the government's allegations is the fact that the government has looked into enjoining the author from promoting the book and found no grounds to do so. It has had the book for several years and has not identified a single incorrect claim in it.
The effect of the legal actions was to put into the mind of the public the idea that the book was wrong. This superficial perception of the situation serves the government well if it wishes to prevent people from learning the truth that is on display in the book.
However, this superficial perception was too easily turned about by any who noticed that the refunds to the author and his wife have never been reversed, nor in any way shown to be mistakes as claimed by the government.
The government asked the court to order the couple to declare-- under oath-- that they repudiated their previous freely-made testimony to the contrary and now believed themselves to have done taxable things and to be in debt to the government. If made, such declarations would establish the otherwise non-existent tax debts. Judge Nancy G. Edmunds issued such an order to the couple.
The tax statute provides the IRS with the authority to create a sworn affidavit proving that the author and his wife (or anyone) did taxable things, but this authority has not been used. The fact that this tool has not been used suggests that any such affidavit would cause a problem, and that perhaps the problem was that whoever signed it would be guilty of perjury. This, in fact, was the position the author and his wife took: that if they acquiesced to the order, they would be committing perjury. The court order itself, in this case, is therefore an example of suborning perjury.
The attempt to suborn the couple to perjure themselves benefitted through two actions undertaken by the government, both of which provide further evidence to those who might examine their superficial perceptions and turn them around:
1. The government alleged that the book-- Cracking the Code- The Fascinating Truth About Taxation In America (CtC)-- argues that only federal, state and local government workers are subject to the income tax. No such claim or argument appears in the book, but the book does show that any such claim is wrong. Judge Edmunds, who indicated to the couple's attorney Andrew Wise that she had not read the book, nevertheless found the allegation to be true.
Based on this "false and frivolous argument in CtC" fraud, the court also "found" that the couple's original, freely-made testimony regarding the taxable character of their earnings for the years in question-- which was declaredly in harmony with the book-- was false (meaning "they don't really believe what they say they do about their earnings").
2. The government introduced as an exhibit a purported IRS "Examination Report" bearing numbers which would suggest, if taken at face value, a specialist's conclusion that the couple actually had earned "income" subject to tax and owed accordingly. In an associated declaration, the examiner who prepared the report explained that this report "did not constitute a formal audit or examination of the taxpayers' 2002 or 2003 federal income tax liabilities or tax returns for the tax years at issue."
The report suggests that a "formal audit or examination" could have been done but was not, just as no IRS or government official would swear to an affidavit declaring the couple did taxable things. A further inference to be drawn from this lack of performance is that the truth is other than the government and IRS would like it to be.
The judge's ruling adopts the government's request to order the couple to declare they believe that they owe the government the taxes. The IRS will not declare these taxes to be owed. This is the critical element of the whole scheme, because if done, such declarations give the whole project legal precedence, and absolve all involved of the crimes of suborning perjury and collecting taxes not owed.
The judge also granted another request of the government. She issued an order prohibiting the couple from ever filing a return in the future "based on the false and frivolous claim in 'Cracking the Code' that only federal, state and local government workers are subject to the tax" which was "found" there by the judge who never read the book.
This second order implies that the book contains a false claim. Thus, the order itself can be used by any in the legal community who wish to prevent people from reading the book to discourage them. In her DOJ-written "ruling", the judge actually refers to an alleged government interest in discouraging inconvenient testimony by other Americans as a rationalization for the order.
In any event, what matters for purpose of this discussion is that, like the order commanding the couple to declare they believe their 2002 and 2003 earnings to be taxable and thereby enable the government to claim ownership of their property, this second order dictating what they are NOT to say also violates the First and Fifth Amendment in the same degree. It just does it in reverse.
By the way, all of this happened without so much as a single hearing. At no point did the couple get a chance to actually confront anyone or challenge anything the judge was "finding" to be true. Their demand for a jury trial in the case was ignored (and never even acknowledged).
The government and others in the legal and tax communities have used the "ruling" in this case as evidence that "the courts have ruled against CtC". Our tendency to perceive superficially continues to be leveraged against us. Encourage people to look more deeply into things. Share with them the telling elements when you understand them yourself.
SO FAST-FORWARD TO 2013. All hope of discouraging the reading of CtC and its inconvenient, individual-liberating and state-restraining truth have been dashed.
More and more Americans are reclaiming collected but never-actually-owed taxes, and are increasingly pissed at having to go through the hassles of doing so. Scholarship on the truth about the tax
continues to advance.
Being the psychos that they are, the corrupt elements of the state responsible for all this fraud lash out. The wife of the couple at whom the bogus, rights-violating lawsuit was aimed is indicted on a charge of criminal contempt of court for resisting the orders made back in 2007 and exercising her rights of speech, conscience and due process.
The new case ends up in the courtroom of a colleague of the earlier judge, and another one of those who presided over the original efforts against CtC... Two trials ensue.
Desperately anxious to hedge the pretense of legitimacy of the lawsuit and its outcome with the pretense of a jury verdict on its behalf, the government and judge put in the fix. A team of specialist gunslingers from the DOJ Tax division are flown in from Washington to do battle with this untrained, inexperienced and non-legally-oriented housewife and homeschooling mom, who defends herself.
By order of the judge, the validity of the lawsuit is not open for challenge. The jury
is instructed that the unlawfulness or unconstitutionality of the orders involved is not a defense to the allegation that resisting them is a criminal offense.
The indictment and the instructions to the jury carefully misstate one of the orders from the lawsuit ruling. The
actual order on this subject prohibits the filing of a return based on the alleged claim of CtC that only federal, state and local government workers are subject to the tax, but of course, the book doesn't say this.
Knowing that it would be pretty difficult to get anywhere with an accusation of having violated an order prohibiting a completely fictional transgression, the indictment and the instruction to the jury misstate this order as prohibiting the filing of a "false" return-- something believed easier to put into the minds of jurors who are all victims of lifelong disinformation about the nature of the income tax. Even with this false ploy in place no chances are taken. The jury is also instructed that
it need not unanimously agree that the defendant actually did either of the two possible acts of offense alleged in the indictment.
But all of this failed. Even with the lawless "unanimity" relief and all the other cheats afforded to the prosecutors, the jury deadlocks.
Eight-and-a-half months later, the government tries again. All the previous cheats remained in place, and this time the housewife was prevented from making her opening statement, was constantly hectored from the bench, and many of her exhibits were disallowed.
The reading to the jury of
court rulings on speech rights and void judgments was thwarted, and in the end of trial, sensing another loss, the prosecutors engaged in a deliberate fraud, introducing previously unseen documents which were falsely declared to be proof that the initial failed efforts to suppress CtC way back in 2004 and 2005 discussed (and
thoroughly documented) at the beginning of this commentary (and in which the trial judge was involved) were no such thing, but were instead really just a routine audit of the defendant's husband.
The falsely-represented documents, which themselves betrayed the falseness of what the prosecutors said about them but which the defendant was given no chance to examine at the time, were kept from the jury.
After trial, the fraud was proven, and then admitted by the prosecutors. Nonetheless, the judge has refused to overturn the falsely-secured guilty verdict returned by the jury this time. (A Motion to Vacate detailing the fraud can be seen
here, with relevant exhibits
here,
here,
here and
here; and a Motion for Reconsideration detailing the misconstructions of the denial of that first motion-- with exhibits attached-- can be seen
here.)
SO, HERE COMES THE DARKNESS. On the 9th of April this viciously assaulted housewife and mother is due to be sentenced for her "crime" of resisting orders issued in a completely fraudulent judicial proceeding of eight years ago after suffering through two completely fraudulent criminal trials.
By this completion of the assault on one righteous and upright American woman, the assault on all our Constitutionally-guaranteed rights of speech, conscience and due process will also be completed. The evil precedent that a court can order someone to make dictated and false testimony favorable to a government case against her, and punish her for refusing, will be established.
Just as pernicious as the violation of speech and due process rights involved here is the pretense argued by the government throughout these trials-- which is that the juries should assume that what this woman was told to declare herself to believe really IS her belief, despite her sworn protestations to the contrary,
because she had been told to say these things by government officials, and who could plausibly disbelieve what government officials said?
If this precedent is successfully planted in April, every American will have suffered, right then, a profound wound to what remains of the rule of law today. This one will be a bleeder, and impossible to undo without pounds of difficult cure.
Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas famously said, "As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there's a twilight where everything remains seemingly unchanged, and it is in such twilight that we must be aware of change in the air, however slight, lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness." Right now, in this case and the entire sequence of frauds that lie behind it, the chill and stink of corruption are in the air. We ignore them at our peril.
Raise a hue and cry.
Demand the honest attention of the media and everyone else. Blog and post
and tweet to inform all you can of
the liberating, state-restraining truth about the tax being revealingly evaded by the government and its courts. Be in Detroit on April 9 to show support for the rule of law and opposition to corruption.
Don't just curse the darkness that is falling, but fan your own flame and become a bright point of light against it.
NOTE: To all those clinging to denial of CtC's accuracy about the tax for whatever reason-- be it your own theories about the law; reflexive skepticism about anything contrary to your long-held beliefs, or whatever-- you must account for the facts and government behavior documented in the discussion above. Remember, an honest but mistaken man, upon being confronted with the truth, either ceases to be mistaken, or ceases to be honest.
NOTE II: What is presented above deals with only a portion of the continuous government efforts to suppress CtC over all of the years since its publication in 2003. A more comprehensive discussion of these efforts can be found
here.