An invitation was issued to President Clinton, Senator Lott,
Speaker Hastert and Commissioner Rossotti, to identify their most knowledgeable people and
have them participate in the July 1st and 2nd symposium to argue against the conclusions
of William Benson, Joseph Banister, William Conklin and Lowell Becraft. Those invitations
were not acknowledged or accepted. This wasn't the first time the government has decided
to turn a blind ege and a deaf ear to the hard evidence and the truth regarding the
legality of the 16th Amendment.
This isn't the first time the government has decided to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear
to the hard evidence and the truth regarding the legality of the 16th Amendment. In 1985,
not long after Bill Benson and Larry Becraft completed their research on the ratification
of the 16th Amendment they began to submit the report to various federal courts on behalf
of taxpayers who were charged by the IRS with a "willful failure to file" and
pay income taxes. At first, the judges applied the doctrine of "conclusive
presumption" to dismiss the claims that taxpayers are not liable to pay income taxes
because the 16th Amendment had not been ratified. Under the doctrine of "conclusive
presumption," the courts said that if the Secretary of State in 1913 (Philander Knox)
proclaimed that the 16th Amendment was properly ratified then that's good enough for the
courts -- it's conclusive in the courts.
However, Benson and Becraft didn't quit there. In 1986, they submitted their evidence
in yet another "willful failure to file" case. This time, Benson and Becraft
charged Secretary of State Knox with fraudulently proclaiming that the 16th Amendment was
ratified. The Judges could not now dismiss the claim on the basis of the doctrine of
"conclusive presumption." The judges, faced with having to strike down the laws
governing the income and social security taxes, decided to dismiss the case on the ground
that the question of the legality of the 16th Amendment was a "political
question," which only Congress could answer. With that decision, Benson delivered a
copy of his two-volume research report to each member of Congress with the Congressman's
name embossed in gold lettering. Not one Congressman responded to Benson. Instead, the
Congressional Research Service issued a report authored by one of its attorneys --Thomas
Ripy -- which admitted that it had not looked into the factual allegations of the Report
and that the issue of the legality of the 16th Amendment was a matter for the courts.
Editor's note: This is the way you play ping-pong in the government.
Also, in another example of government's turning a deaf ear, IRS agent Joe Banister
completed his 95-page research report in February of this year, and submitted it to his
superiors in the San Jose office of the IRS with a respectful request that it be passed up
the chain of command to the IRS Commissioner for a response to its conclusions that there
is no statute compelling citizens to file and pay income or social security taxes and that
the 16th Amendment was not legally ratified. Instead of responding to the evidence and
conclusions, Mr. Banister's superiors asked for his resignation.
