Is Kent Hovind A Tax Protester?

Originally published on Forbes.com Jan 20th, 2014

Kent Hovind (Doctor Dino) is one of the leading lights in the field of “Creation Science”.  He is a champion of the extreme view known as “Young Earth Creationism”.  If you carefully read the Book of Genesis and sum up all the begats, you will conclude that the Earth is roughly six thousand years old.  Young Earth Creationists scorn the notion that perhaps before the Creator had things up and running a “day” might have lasted a really long time.

Kent Hovind will not be popular in the biology, astronomy or geology departments of most universities, since young-earth creationism is inconsistent with what I call “establishment science”, although I could understand why you might want to shorten that to “science”.

Interestingly, he might also have a hard time at seminaries that hold with “scriptural inerrancy” , which is not the same thing as literalism.  That’s because Kent has issues with most recent translations of the Bible into English. He holds with the school of thought that the King James translation is as inspired as the original texts in Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic.  When I asked my blogging buddy, Reverend William Thornton, who is my go-to guy on all matters evangelical, about the “King James Only” view, he wrote:

  .. there is disdain among educated Bible scholars for the KJV only crowd. My prof called it “willful ignorance”

Dammit Jim I’m A Tax Blogger

Of course, I’m just a tax blogger not a scientist or a biblical scholar, so I am contenting myself with taking on the question of whether Kent Hovind is a “tax protester”.  Wikipedia defines a tax protester as

…. someone who refuses to pay a tax on constitutional or legal grounds, typically because he or she claims that the tax laws are unconstitutional or otherwise invalid.

The term has became controversial, because the IRS is prohibited from designating someone as an “illegal tax protester” in their internal records.  I like to call people what they like to call themselves within reason, but I have yet to come on a really good way of describing the essence of the tax protester phenomenon.  Some advocates like to use the term “tax honesty” movement. Dan Evans likes “tax denier”.  Reputedly, IRS people banned form using “tax protester” adopted “constitutionally challenged” as a short-hand term.

Kent Hovind actually thinks highly of tax protesters and thinks they have an important role to play. He just does not consider himself a tax protester.  I think that using the “walks like a duck, talks like a duck, seen in the company of ducks” standard, you might be able to make a case that Hovind is a tax protester, but if you stick with his recent filing with the 11th Circuit protesting the deficiency that the Tax Court found in his case, you can make a pretty good argument that Kent Hovind is not a classic tax protester, but rather someone with a really weak case.

I may be making a subtle distinction here.  My standard for a serious tax protester is Irwin Schiff.  He has constructed an argument from a variety of excerpts from Supreme Court decisions to the effect that the income tax is very limited in its applicability. Schiff may well be the grandfather of the contemporary movement whatever you wish to call it.

What is really intriguing about the movement is that it seems to be immune from acknowledging its losses.  When a former friend got caught up in the movement, I spent a lot of time looking into his various arguments.  Before the courts lost their patience with arguments they considered frivolous, there were rulings on issues such as wages being income and the sixteenth amendment having actually passed.  Those rulings made no impression.  The answer is that “The courts are corrupt”.

When The Tax Honesty Movement Is Dishonest

I spoke with Irwin Schiff’s sons Andrew and Peter.  They both believe that their father’s interpretations are correct, but they do not encourage anybody to follow in his footsteps.  They recognize that the courts have universally ruled against people following their father’s advice.  This is not common among “tax honesty” advocates.  They may be sincere in the belief that their arguments should work, as I believe the Schiffs, father and sons, are, but they fail to warn their followers that when challenged by the IRS in court, the arguments will not work.  In doing this, they are violating Reilly’s first law of tax planning “It is what it is.  Deal with it.”

Of course, lax enforcement will cause almost any scheme to work for many, if not most, people who try it.  I will say that if you believe that the tax laws are immoral and you have a moral right to violate them, the wiser course is to follow in the footsteps of fictional hero Repairman Jack.  The novels of F Paul Wilson are chock full of practical advice on how to live off the grid.  If you ever get caught, don’t waste time arguing about the 16th amendment, focus on collection due process hearings where you show that you can’t afford to pay.  They are pretty unlikely to find all those bullion coins you have taped to plumbing.

Why Kent Hovind Is Not A Tax Protester

Irwin Schiff argues that very few people would have to pay income tax, if the law were properly interpreted.  Kent Hovind does not make any such argument in his filing.  His arguments are as follows:

1.  He argues that he is not subject to self-employment tax, because he is a minister.

2. He notes that the wages of ministers are exempt from federal withholding tax.

3. He argues that Creation Science Evangelism was an entity separate and apart from him and that it was wrong of the IRS to impute its earnings to him

4. He also notes that the IRS Individual Master File, a copy of which he attaches shows that he does not owe any taxes.

All in, at least in his argument to the 11th Circuit, it is all about him.  I would not be able to use any of his arguments to maintain that I don’t owe any income tax.

An Evaluation Of Hovind’s Document – For Whatever It Is Worth

I asked a few tax experts to look at Hovind’s document.  I did not get a lot of response, but I did get one really good one..  Dan Evans, who has posted an extensive treatment of tax protester style arguments really came through for me.

I should mention that most tax professionals do not really dig very far into original source material.  Those that do will be satisfied with the numerous Tax Court and Appellate decisions upholding the validity of the income tax as it is commonly understood.  Very few of us have the patience to actually examine the arguments of folks like Irwin Schiff.  When we do and find them unconvincing, we are viewed by some as being either insincere or blinded by our attachment to the system, which whatever its flaws, gives people like us work.

Regardless, I would encourage you if you have become convinced that the income tax applies to a very narrow group of people or transactions, that you take the trouble to read the entire text of the decisions that are cited.  Schiff’s arguments do not hold up very well if you do that.

Here is what Dan Evans has to say about Kent Hovind’s appeal

You might want to look at the Tax Court decision relating to his wife, Jo Hovind, because it includes an extensive description of their operations.

About the appeal to the 11th Circuit:

1.  The appeal has already been dismissed for failure to prosecute.

2.  A look at the Tax Court docket (the docket and court orders can be found on-line, but not the pleadings themselves) shows that Hovind moved to withdraw his own petition, which is something I’ve seen other tax deniers try to do, and which makes no sense to me because without the Tax Court proceeding the IRS can just assess the deficiency and proceed to start collections.  The Tax Court refused to dismiss the proceedings, and gave Hovind several months to oppose the government’s motion for an entry of judgment, which Hovind never did, so it’s hard to see any constitutional problems with the proceedings.

3.  The various arguments relating to his “ministry” might make sense if the question was self-employment tax, but I’m not sure that it was.  It’s difficult to be sure without seeing the notice of deficiency (which would be attached to the petition), but it looks to me as though the proceedings were mainly about the income tax imposed by section 1, and only incidentally about any tax on self-employment income imposed by section 1401 (which is part of FICA, or Social Security contributions).   A common tax denier tactic is to use definitions that apply to FICA or withholding rules and claim exemption from income tax, which is (of course) wrong.

4.  The individual master file (IMF) is something tax deniers like to look at and argue about, but it’s almost always considered irrelevant.

5.  The Tax Court docket also suggests that Hovind was represented for awhile by Jerold Barringer, who also has a reputation as a tax denier.

I should note that it was my coverage of the Tax Court decision in Mrs. Hovind’s case that got me following this matter. I have been greatly encouraged by my most loyal commenter, Bob Baty, who had been unsuccessfully trying to get me to look into young earth creationism prior to Mrs. Hovind’s decision.

On The Creationism Debate

As I have followed the Hovind story, I have pretty well stuck with the tax story which is pretty interesting. I have given brief explanations of Young Earth Creationism mainly for context and also, because I find it kind of amusing.  My comments section has sometimes flared up with debates between YEC proponents and those who love to argue with them.  This has kept me on the lookout for items concerning the larger issues of science and religion particularly as they relate to evolution.  Hence I noted with interest the passing of  Ian G. Barbour.  According to his obituary:

Dr. Barbour, who was 90 when he died on Dec. 24 in Minneapolis, earned a doctorate in physics at the University of Chicago and then a divinity degree from Yale, and he never abandoned his passion for scientific exploration or his place in the pew. He embraced the complexities of evolution and the Big Bang theory, of genetics and neuroscience. He also embraced Christianity. He was a devoted parishioner at First United Church of Christ in Northfield, Minn.

I was inspired to pick up his When Science Meets Religion: Enemies, Strangers or Partners? Doctor Barbour had a low opinion of “creation science”.

I believe that creation science is a threat to both religious and scientific freedom.

He noted that the media likes to portray a “war between science and religion”, because that makes for a more exciting story, but there really are other ways for the two fields to interact.

…scientific materialism and biblical literalism both claim that science and religion make rival literal statements about the same domain (the history of nature), so a person must choose between them. They agree in saying that a person cannot believe in both evolution and God. Each side gains adherents partly by its opposition to the other, and both use the rhetoric of warfare.