The Law that Never Was

1985 book by William J. Benson and Martin J. "Red" Beckman

The Law That Never Was: The Fraud of the 16th Amendment and Personal Income Tax is a 1985 book by William J. Benson and Martin J. "Red" Beckman which claims that the Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, commonly known as the income tax amendment, was never properly ratified. In 2007, and again in 2009, Benson's contentions were ruled to be fraudulent.

Under Article V of the U. S. Constitution, an amendment proposed by Congress must be ratified by three fourths of the states to become part of the Constitution. The Article permits Congress to specify, for each amendment, whether the ratification must be by each state's legislature or by a constitutional convention in each state; for the Sixteenth Amendment, Congress specified ratification by the legislatures. There were 48 states in the Union in 1913 – the year when the Sixteenth Amendment was finally ratified – which meant that the Amendment required ratification by the legislatures of 36 states to become effective. In February 1913, Secretary of State Philander C. Knox issued a proclamation that 38 states had ratified the amendment. According to Congressional analysis, a total of 42 states had ratified the amendment as of 1992.

The Benson book was published in 1985. The earliest reported court cases where the book was mentioned appear to be United States v. House and United States v. Wojtas. Benson testified unsuccessfully in the House case. In the latter case, defendant Wayne Wojtas was unsuccessful in his attempt to use Benson's theory to have his indictment for failure to file federal tax returns dismissed. In the case the judge ruled that Benson's evidence was inadmissible, stating that:

Wojtas was convicted, sentenced to prison, and released in August 1986. Benson's claim was also rejected in Miller v. United States. The court stated, "We find it hard to understand why the long and unbroken line of cases upholding the constitutionality of the Sixteenth Amendment generally, Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad Company  and those specifically rejecting the argument advanced in The Law That Never Was, have not persuaded Miller and his compatriots to seek a more effective forum for airing their attack on the federal income tax structure." The court then sanctioned the litigants for advancing a "patently frivolous" position. Similar "Sixteenth Amendment arguments" have been uniformly rejected by the courts in other cases including United States v. Thomas. In Thomas the court, in affirming the tax convictions of Kenneth L. Thomas, referred to Benson's book and noted that the errors found by Benson had already been investigated by Secretary of State Knox at the time of ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment, and had been determined to be insignificant. (See Tax protester constitutional arguments.) Arguments that the Sixteenth Amendment was not properly ratified were also rejected in Sisk v. Commissioner; United States v. Sitka; and United States v. Stahl. The non ratification argument has also been deemed legally frivolous in Brown v. Commissioner and Lysiak v. Commissioner. The argument that the Sixteenth Amendment was not ratified, and variations of this argument, have been officially identified as legally frivolous federal income tax return positions for purposes of the $5,000 frivolous tax return penalty imposed under Internal Revenue Code section 6702(a).

Followers of Benson who have been convicted of federal tax crimes include Kenneth L. Thomas and Wayne Wojtas (see above). Additionally, on March 6, 2008, the United States Attorney's office in Grand Rapids, Michigan announced that Charles E. Hughes of Dansville, Michigan had been convicted of four counts of tax evasion. Hughes had purchased Benson's "16th Amendment Reliance Defense Package" for $3,500, and had used the materials. The U. S. Attorney's office stated:

Hughes was sentenced to 15 months in federal prison, and was incarcerated at Federal Correctional Institution at Ashland, Kentucky. He served his time and was released from prison in May 2009.