The Law That Never Was Vol I

by Bill Benson

The Fraud of the 16th Amendment and Personal Income Tax

Genres: Taxation, Nonfiction

hardcover

First published January 1, 1985

Reviews

[Robert Lewis · Rating 1 out of 5]

The fundamental premise of this book is that the Sixteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (colloquially, the "income tax amendment") was never properly ratified. The bulk of the book's text consists of purported evidence of fraud in the ratification process. The book's assertions are untrue.

In its own way, this book is remarkably well documented. The vast majority of its contents consist of a presentation of "evidence" from the states concerning the ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment. I give the authors credit for their diligence in collecting and presenting what amounts to a mountain of legal records. The problem is, the errors they found in the ratification process are trivial inconsistencies in punctuation or capitalization, not substantive flaws in the process. While we might all prefer "cleaner" legislative records, there is actually no evidence of fraud (except arguably in the book's own contentions). Simply rattling off hundreds of pages of references to errant commas does not undo a long-standing piece of Constitutional law. Indeed, fans of the TV show The West Wing are already familiar (in an admittedly more lighthearted context) with the "inconsistent comma" in the Takings Clause. Yet no one (least of all, I daresay, the authors of this book) would seriously entertain an argument that such an inconsistent comma renders the Bill of Rights void.

Humorously, the book concludes with "warnings" to judges and IRS agents, as if the authors' arguments were so powerful as to shape the future of Constitutional law. Perhaps the authors should have saved the words of warning for themselves, at least one of whom spent time in Federal prison for tax evasion.

I do understand the appeal of such a book. I dislike our tax system as much as the next guy. However, pretending it doesn't exist doesn't make it go away, and concocting an argument--at best ill-informed and at worst deliberately fraudulent--to convince people it doesn't exist only causes more harm. If you don't like the income tax (and fair enough!), the correct course of action is to write your representatives, run for office, even try to rally support to repeal the Sixteenth Amendment if you want. The correct course of action is not to merely pretend the law "never was."

[Michael K. · Rating 4 out of 5]

While long and boring, as these volumes are filled with a great amount of information solely on the illegality & illegitimacy of the 16th Amendment, it was very much so interesting in the long run. Volume 1 was primarily the back story on the promotion for the 16th Amendment and what the government was trying to overcome. When there is a new amendment proposed to the US Constitution the amendment MUST be the very same (wording and punctuation) from each and every state. However, volume 2 of this book had each and every state's amendment proposal, which was approved by the individual states. Although, each and every state did not submit the exact same proposal to the Federal government for approval to become a legitimate Amendment to the United States Constitution. Over half of them were worded differently and had very different punctuation. By that alone the 16th Amendment NEVER should have been accepted & approved!