Originally published on Forbes.com Sept 28th, 2013
Recently I predicted that although Kent Hovind might keep losing in court, he would never give up his tax fight. As Yogi Berra said – “It is tough to make predictions, especially about the future”. Nonetheless, I was pretty confident based on among other things the extensive file of appeals and other documents that are on Hovind’s website. Developments in the last 24 hours indicate that he may have given up. First, I’ll give you some background.
Doctor Dino
Kent Hovind is one of the most prominent figure in the field of “Creation Science” and “Young Earth Creationism”.
People who hold with scriptural inerrancy and a very literal reading of the Book of Genesis will conclude that the earth is about six thousand years old. Maintaining that view will get you in trouble not only in the biology department, since that is not nearly enough time for evolution to work, but also among the geologists and astronomers. “Creation Science”, which many, quite understandably, consider an oxymoron, seeks to refute the weight of “establishment science”. Much of the evidence that regular scientists use to support a very old earth is accounted for by “creation scientists” as evidence of Noah’s Flood.
One of the implications of Young Earth Creationism is that people and dinosaurs must have been running around at the same time. That is why Kent Hovind started “Dinosaur Adventure Land” as part of his ministry.
The business aspects of DAL are the source of Kent Hovind’s tax troubles.
Two Aspects
Many accounts of Kent Hovind’s travails conflate two separate issues. One is his civil tax liability and that of his wife. According to the Tax Court decisions in their cases, it appears that they were not filing income tax returns based on the theory that everything belonged to their ministry. The negative outcome in those cases mean that the Hovinds owe a lot of taxes, penalties and interest, but that is not why Kent Hovind is in prison.
The crimes Hovind was convicted of concerned the payroll tax returns for the employees of the ministry and “structuring”. Structuring, in this case, is the practice of systematically dealing in amounts of cash somewhat less than $10,000 in order to avoid reporting requirement. There were 57 counts covering those two matters. There was a 58th count indicating that he did “corruptly endeavor to obstruct the due administration of the internal revenue laws.”
Appeal From The Movement
The Creation Science Hall of Fame recognizes Kent Hovind as having made important contributions to the field and in spreading the word, but it also is sensitive to concerns that Hovind’s tax problems might tarnish the movement. Nick Lally, President of CSHF, arranged for people interested in the movement to appeal to Kent Hovind to abandon his battle against the IRS.
Doctor Dino Responds
Kent Hovind responded to the appeal yesterday. He indicated that he has not ever been a tax protester and he challenged anyone to study the voluminous material available and show how he broke any law.
If any of you can point to one specific law that I truly violated (AFTER you have read my Third Affidavit filed with the Grand Jury in 2005, my 2255 motions currently in the courts, my appeal to the 11th Circuit about the tax court judgment against me and my Complaint of Misconduct against Judge Rodgers for all her many violations of my Constitutional rights) PLEASE show me.
If you can show me the law I broke I’ll have Hal send you a free copy of my new book on end times: “What on Earth is About to Happen…for Heaven’s Sake?”
What About Not Filing ?
Although Hovind states that he has paid all taxes that he owes, I have never seen him explicitly state that he actually filed returns for the years 1998 through 2006, which were the years that were the subject of the Tax Court decision . It is pretty challenging for an American to be earning enough for any sort of reasonable lifestyle without triggering a return filing obligation. Currently he seems to be arguing that there is evidence in IRS files that indicates that he owes no tax:
There were 35 pages in the 710-page IRS file on me that clearly showed I owed no tax. These 35 pages were deliberately left out when the IRS entered that file in the trial and the IRS agent admitted at trial the pages were missing!
The idea that there is something in the Individual Master File that shows you don’t owe any tax is one that you can find floating around on the internet. I have not been able to find anybody, who had it work in court and I have looked pretty hard. I did find this in the case of William F. Cary:
The fact that respondent’s record shows a zero tax due for 1981 is simply a reflection that as of November 5, 1987, the date on petitioner’s individual master file transcript, no tax had been assessed against petitioner. This is because petitioner showed a zero tax due on his income tax return, and the filing of this case suspended the assessment. Therefore, no tax could have been assessed as of that date. That is not an admission by respondent that petitioner did not have a tax deficiency for 1981.
That makes me kind of pessimistic for Kent Hovind prevailing.
The Latest
Hovind’s letter went up on the Creation Science Hall of Fame website yesterday, but it has been since taken down and replaced with this.
At the request of Mr. Eric Hovind, son of Kent Hovind, the Creation Science Hall of Fame removed the open letter from Kent Hovind on his tax battles. Mr. Hovind asks everyone to respect the privacy of the family and not ask for a specific reason. CSHF apologizes for any inconvenience that might have happened to the Hovind family or to anyone else. We wish only to do what is right by the Hovind family.
I asked Nick Lally to comment. This is what I received:
A lot has occurred within the last 24 hours with respect to Kent Hovind. But unfortunately, I can only say what has been re-written on the Creation Science Hall of Fame web site.
So it is possible the Kent Hovind is giving up his tax battles. We’ll see.
You can follow me on twitter @peterreillycpa.
Afternote
Outing Myself As An Evolutionist
In my previous writing on this I have given some people the impression that I support Young Earth Creationism. I created that impression by a, perhaps unfortunate, tendency to be too subtle when being ironic and a certain sympathy I have for YEC believers.
“Establishment science”, as I call it, teaches many things that I have a very hard time accepting. Evolution does not happen to be one of them. Light being both a particle and a wave makes me a little crazy. The idea that two events might happen in a different order in time, depending on where you are observing from is really disturbing. I actually, I think, get the proof as why you can pick a number of whatever enormous size you want and, in principle, find a stretch on the number line of say 10 trillion, without there being a single prime number in the whole stretch, while at the same time there are an infinite number of primes. Those vast prime number deserts bother me. And then there is Schrodinger’s cat
Virgin birth, resurrection from the dead, transubstantiation and an angry God firebombing the Sodomites for being sodomites are almost easier to accept than what little I have been able to grasp about particle physics. Nonetheless, I go with “establishment science” on all of it including evolution and the earth being billions of years old. To be intellectually honest, though, I have to admit that I’m going with “establishment science”, because it has been delivering the goods including, for example, the computer I am typing on right now. I have to sympathize with someone who finds that their life runs better, because they are following Biblical principles. Those “goods” strike them as being the most important giving them a very strong impulse to embrace “creation science”. My sympathy is, however, emotional not intellectual.
All Hovind Tax All The Time
Even though Doctor Dino seems to be one of the favorite topics of my readers, I have a lot of other things to cover. If you want up to the minute coverage of the Hovind tax drama you may want to check out this facebook page that Bob Baty has started.