Originally published on Forbes.com.
Last week, I wrote about my interview with Kent Hovind, Doctor Dino, a leading light in the field of Young Earth Creationism. Kent is nearing the end of a long federal prison sentence related to the tax issues of Creation Science Evangelism, which distributed his videos and ran a theme park called Dinosaur Adventureland. Kent is facing new charges relating to the filing of a lis pendens on property that the Government had seized. There are also large civil judgments related to his individual income tax liability.
There are quite a few people who believe that Kent Hovind’s tax troubles are the result of religious persecution. There is something of a Free Kent Hovind or Hovindication movement afoot. To the extent there is coordination to the effort, it rests with Ernie Land, Kent’s old friend and trusted adviser.
I interviewed Ernie right before I interviewed Kent. I’ve been interacting with Ernie quite a bit since he took the lead in Kent’s defense and I wanted to confirm with him my understanding of some of their positions.
The Big News
In this interview, Ernie went public with something that he had previously told me off the record. A group of born again businessmen are prepared to invest millions of dollars into a new Dinosaur Adventureland somewhere near the Florida/Georgia border. Kent Hovind would provide the theological and scientific expertise for the park, but it would be a money making enterprise. One of the conditions of the backers is that Kent become conventionally tax compliant. Ernie indicated that Kent may be coming around to that viewpoint.
Kent Hovind As A Man Of Principle
One of the most peculiar things about this whole drama is that if Kent Hovind had been conventionally tax compliant, he probably would have had to pay very little taxes. I have yet to hear anyone dispute the assertion that he lived very modestly. If Creation Science Evangelism had applied for 501(c)(3) status, there is little doubt that it would have been granted it. As a minister, he was entitled to elect out of social security. Much, possibly all, of his compensation from CSE could have been in the form of a housing allowance, making it exempt from income tax under Section 107(2). Ernie discusses this issue beginning around 11:30 contrasting Kent’s stand with that of his son, Eric, who has chosen to be conventionally compliant.
The idea that a conventionally tax compliant Kent Hovind , would not have been bothered at all by the IRS is why I wrote last week that Ernie agreed with me that the whole matter is about the taxes not the dinosaurs. That the Hovindication movement is off base in claiming that Kent is being persecuted for his Christian beliefs. That had Rudy Davis, who is one of the most active of the new batch of supporters chastising me.
Reviewing my discussion with Ernie, I’m going to rate my statement accurate and incomplete. It is about the taxes. It is not really about the dinosaurs. It is also about persecution, if you hold a certain world view, which is often not emphasized in many of the interviews.
What Ernie went on to emphasize was that Kent was very concerned about the state having anything at all to say about his ministry. “Why should a ministry answering to God have to answer to the state?”
The Other World View
Ernie’s view of the world that differs from mine is scattered throughout the interview. Beginning around 10:30 in contrasting Eric’s ministry with Kent’s he talks not only about the tax compliance, but how Eric follows Kent’s teaching on creationism, but stays away from – “Points of Communism, Socialism and Marxism. How creation versus evolution is part of that plank and of course the New World Order, the coming one world government predicted in God’s word and all these secret societies ……”
There’s more but Ernie actually gave me a better summary in an e-mail a couple of weeks ago
I could debate the subject of persecution of Kent, but then I would have to raise all the same issues of the Knights cavalier, the illuminati, the holy grail, the ark of the covenant, etc. because all of those relate back to the fallen angel, Satan and his dominion of earth and it’s Governments, so only well studied real Bible believing Christians would buy into my debate, so I’m best not debating Kent’s persecution over creation views and it’s foundation in Genesis, although I feel strongly those are the reasons. Personally, I believe as I’ve heard it said it’s not about the Muslims and the Christians, it’s not about black or white, but it is about the haves and the have nots. And they use the secret societies and governments to persecute those who expose their plots.
Richard Hofstadter identified this type of viewpoint as a perennial of American history, “the paranoid style – the existence of a vast, insidious, preternaturally effective international conspiratorial network designed to perpetrate acts of the most fiendish character”. Writing in 1965, Hofstadter observed “Today the evolution controversy seems as remote as the Homeric era to intellectuals in the East”. Sadly Hofstadter died in 1970, so he is not available to weigh in on the persistence of the controversy. I don’t think it would have surprised him.
If I accepted the truth of these secret societies masterfully controlling the secret levers of power, things would all of a sudden make a lot of sense. Two good examples are creation science and the income tax.
The Problem With Creation Science Explained
The biggest problem I have with creation science is the scope of the conspiracy that would be required to maintain evolutionary teachings in the vast majority of colleges and universities if the theory is, as Kent Hovind, Eric Hovind and Ernie Land maintain, demonstrably false. Tony Reed in his series “How Creationism Taught Me Real Science” leads off with an analysis of “The Evolutionist Conspiracy”
The required conspiracy seems highly improbable – “To assert that nearly the entire scientific community is working together to suppress creationist evidence”.
If belief in evolution advances the agenda of the new world order and the Illuminati are pulling the strings at all the major universities, though, then it is a piece of cake. Of course someone like Kent Hovind could pose a serious threat.
And The Income Tax
If you ask most practical tax practitioner what the law is that subjects most working American to the income tax and requires them to file, there is a good chance you will get a blank look. That’s not because it is not there. Section 1 of Title 26 (The Internal Revenue Code) imposes the tax. Section 61 defines income very, very broadly including by way of example compensation for services. Section 6012 requires filing by individuals with gross income over the exemption amount.
Somehow that does not satisfy Kent Hovind or his fellow federal prisoner Irwin Schiff or Hovind’s co-defendant Paul John Hansen. There are elaborate theories which challenge the apparently straight-forward definition of income, the validity of the IRS, whether the 16th amendment really passed – they go on and on.
I’ve never found any of the arguments that persuasive, but there is a further problem. If the IRS is essentially tricking us into filing returns and paying taxes that we don’t really owe, the required conspiracy to carry it off is mind boggling, because it includes not just the IRS, but also the entire federal judiciary, since those arguments are routinely ruled to be frivolous.
If the IRS is the tip of the spear of the New World Order, though, it looks a lot different. It would only take a whisper here and there to keep all those judges in line.
The Argument That I Find Persuasive
The purpose of criminal prosecution of tax related crimes is to encourage compliance by the rest of us. The imprisonment of Kent Hovind for over eight years has provided enough encouragement already. The current prosecution is turning him into a martyr and may turn out to be counter-productive.
Coverage
I expect there to be a lot of developments in the Kent Hovind case in the next couple of months. As I was writing this I received a copy of a government motion to extend the trial (currently scheduled for February 9th) another month due to family issues of the government attorney. Hansen and Hovind are opposing the motion.
I can’t turn my quirky little tax blog into all Doc Dino all the time, so I will be posting some items that I don’t deem forbes worthy to my alternative tax blog Your Tax Matters Partner. I posted The Latest Hovindication Developments yesterday.
Several weeks ago Ernie had challenged the promoters of alternative tax and sovereignty theories to come forward in defense of Kent Hovind. I discussed the challenge here.