IRS 'ENFORCERS' TARGET EX-AGENT

A former IRS criminal-investigation special agent who left the agency and became a whistleblower exposing government fraud and abuse says the agency, in its attempt to prevent him from serving as an official representative of taxpayers, is illegally using "enforcers" to monitor his political activities and build its case against him.

On his website, Freedom Above Fortune, former IRS employee Joe Banister explains his journey from special agent to a member of the "tax honesty movement" – activists working to expose what they consider is a fraudulent income-tax system. He says when he quit his job at the IRS, he committed himself to "raising awareness about the dirty little secrets the IRS keeps from the American people," even if it caused him "personal and professional hardship."

The IRS filed a complaint against Banister on March 19, 2003, and began what he calls the agency's "mission to silence and discredit me." The agency claims Banister advised two taxpayers they were not required to file income tax because the 16th Amendment to the Constitution establishing the tax was not properly ratified and that the tax code defines "income" in a way that exempted the taxpayers' pay. The agency further seeks punishment for Banister because he did not file a tax return himself for the years 1999 to 2002.

Banister told WND he was an exemplary employee of the agency from November 1993 to February 1999, when he left to become a taxpayer advocate.

"I really did good work there," he explained. "I've got plenty of written documentation that I wasn't disgruntled or a troublemaker or anything like that. I received lots of awards and promotions."

In December, an administrative law judge made an initial decision to disbar Banister from practicing before the IRS. Banister subsequently filed an appeal Jan. 23 with the Secretary of the Treasury.

The IRS claims Banister's situation is "a simple case involving a … former Internal Revenue Service employee who advanced frivolous arguments on behalf of taxpayers and failed to file his own returns for a number of years."

Banister and his attorneys, however, are convinced the agency is illegally monitoring his political activities in its attempt to win the case.

In the latest action, on Feb. 27 the IRS filed a response to the former agent's appeal that cites as justification for its action a Nixon-era tactic the agency used to punish war protesters.

"What Nixon did is he put together a committee (the Activist Organization Committee) within the IRS to monitor Vietnam War protesters," one of Banister's attorneys, Bob Barnes, told WND. "They used IRS financial databases to check on protesters' financial income, audit them and then if possible try to create criminal or financial or tax problems for them purely based on their political position."

Continued Barnes, "The IRS cites that case heavily in their opinion as to why its completely permissible to do what they are currently doing" to Banister.

Barnes says the IRS had not cited the Nixon-era tactic previously in any case he has seen – "for evident reasons," he said.

"What they're saying is there really are no restraints" on politically motivated monitoring by the agency.

In its response to Banister's appeal, the IRS argues: "[In Teague v. Alexander] the court considered allegations by the plaintiff that his selection for audit by the IRS was directly related to, and resulted from, his dissident views on the Vietnam War in violation of his First Amendment right to freedom of speech.

"The court … stated that: 'the exercise of some selectivity in enforcement of the laws is not in itself and always a constitutional violation.'"

"Based on the brazenly presented argument in the IRS brief, the agency believes it would be justified even if a committee or division as Orwellian as 'Silence Client Advocates' or 'Discredit Fearless Client Advocates' existed," he told WND.

"Is there an American alive who does not recognize the self-serving nature of the IRS being able to police client advocates, especially client advocates who can actually help their clients expose fraudulent IRS practices and fraudulently derived income tax assessments?"

"The IRS wants to use the 'DOP' (Director of Practice) as a secret police force to monitor and punish political advocacy. … Is it any surprise that the agency fought so hard to limit all discovery (my right to learn details about the government's evidence and witnesses) in the case against me? Is it any surprise that the IRS is desperately fighting my appeal?"

Continued Banister: "First, these enforcers monitored my political appearances, then admitted that the referral of the IRS complaint against me resulted from my talk-radio appearances. Apparently, IRS officials simply cannot tolerate one of their former criminal investigators telling America the truth about the agency's deceitful and illegal practices."

Like Barnes, Banister claims the IRS has no authority to engage in such "enforcing," but that it does so anyway, saying, "All the political rallies a person attends or speaks at and all private political strategies and efforts are subject to IRS scrutiny. Can you believe this?"

"With your prayers and financial support," wrote Banister, "you have helped me to force these IRS officials out from the dark recesses of their bureaucracy into the bright light of truth, opening the eyes of the American public to the fact that the IRS Emperor has no clothes. At every stage of this process, we can sense IRS officials salivating at the opportunity to discredit and silence me, but each and every time they have to step into the light and expose themselves and their true objectives."

On his website, Banister includes each document relevant to his case as a .pdf link.

Banister says if Treasury Secretary John Snow rejects his appeal, he then would turn to federal district court, bringing the matter from the executive to the judicial branch. In the meantime, Banister is still serving as an advocate on behalf of his clients dealing with the IRS.

Do you have a source that can confirm your contrary assertion CN?

On the Quatloos page, they say that Bannister now says he files returns, during his TV appearances.

If he does, and tells the chumps that buy his tapes not to, he's a scoundrel. If he doesn't (or didn't), he's a knucklehead. Quite possible he's both.

What he isn't, is a good source of tax advice for anyone. Another page linked from Quatloos notes that he bases part of his book on a series of cases that another tax crank supposedly won. The only prob is, the crank lost.

If you want to believe this guy, ity's your right. It's a free country and people believe all kinds of weird stuff: space aliens ate their livers, the world is flat, Joe Banister has discovered the secret of paying no taxes, which he will gladly share for the price of a book or a few tapes or DVDs. But if you act on Joe B's advice you, like he, will wind up jammed up with the law, because his advice is to commit violations of the law.

So far, the tax protest movement is batting a solid .000 across the whole lineup. One after another their golden boys have been labeled "felon" and tossed in the hoosegow. There will soon be a market for a whole new range of scam-gurus selling tapes on how to get your sentence commuted. I can see it now: "Hi, I'm Joe Bannister and I've seen Federal law enforcement from both sides, up close and personal..."

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

there are tons of good reasons to abolish the Code that rewards cheaters and abuses those who attempt to comply

Yeah, right now we have an arcane system that basically is set up to make a net transfer of wealth from the average working stiff to folks who can afford high-powered tax advisors and attorneys.

Many have suggested fairer tax schemes, including consumption taxes or an income tax that is simplified, like Steve Forbes's famous "Flat Tax." These run up against all the entrenched interests that make money off the current system, including banks, H&R Block, big accountancy firms, etc. But a fairer system is a worthwhile goal.

However, the goal of the protesters is not to establish a fairer system through the legal & constitutional means available. It's to simply quit paying, using a variety of dodges and authoritative-sounding legal arguments. The problem is that these arguments sound authoritative to John and Jane Public, but they cut no ice whatever with the courts. Another poster has published a case list of some of the sad souls who trusted tax protestors' legal arguments. (Some of these guys contact you ONCE you get in trouble and say that ONLY their legal advice will get you off... of course it's gonna cost you.... meanwhile they are batting .000 and their excuse is, "well those people didn't follow my advice exactly.")

The first rule of scams is, when someone offers you something that is too good to be true, pull the eject handles, hard. If you don't recognise "I can show you how to avoid paying any income taxes, and it's legal" as "too good to be true," you are the kind of person that scam artists are looking for.

The guy in Nigeria with the $30 million he needs to put in your checking account, he's not real either....

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

Do you really believe government been 'honorable' in its dealings with the Citizens of our Republic about the legal status of the 16th Amendment?

For an Amendment to the Constitution to pass, it must come from a Constitutional Convention called by 2.3 of State legislatures (which has never been done). or it must pass both Houses of Congress by a 2/3 margin and then be ratified by 3/4 of States (which can be by State Legislatures or a State Constitutional Convention, as specified in the Amendment or at the option of the State if not specified). This is spelled out in Article 5 of the Constitution.

The Senate vote was 77-0 in favour of Amendment XVI. It passes the first half of the 2/3 test.

The House vote was 318-14 in favour. It passes the second half of the 2/3 test. This was a bipartisan, popular Amendment.

It was ratified by 38 States, two more than necessary (at the time there were 48 States. 36/48=.75=3/4). This happened within the relatively short span of three years, ten months (the link, from USConstitution.net, has the states and the date of ratification). More states would have ratified the amendment as well, but it wasn't necessary, so they cleared it off their legislative calendars and went about other business.

The argument that the 16th was never legally ratified appears to have originated in a book by a guy named Benson, who made a lot of unsupported claims about fraud, etc. This is the ur-root of the tax protestors' false and easily disproven claims about the legality of Federal income taxes.

Another argument beloved of the cranks attempts to play Clintonian "meaning of 'is'" games with the wording of the 16th. That doesn't work, because it is really a very simple piece of text:

Amendment XVI - Income taxes authorized. Ratified 2/3/1913.
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

How long will it take before our prisons are chuck full of God fearing Citizen taxpayers who know the Constitutional ratification of the 16th Amendment was never completed.

The prisons won't fill up. We'll build more.
If they were tax "payers," they wouldn't be in prison, would they? How about tax "cheats?"
As I just posted, the ratification of the XVIth was fully completed in accordance with Article V and has been accepted as such for 91 years. If someone "knows" something at variance with these historical facts, it is possible that prison is not the right place for him -- such a serious delusion probably requires professional inpatient mental health treatment.

A Roman soldier, troubled about how to reconcile his loyalty to his nation to his newfound religious belief, came to Jesus Christ. Jesus asked if he had a denarius (a very small coin). "Look at the denarius, then," said Jesus, "and tell me whose face is upon it."

"Why, it is Caesar's face, my Lord," the soldier replied.

"Then, it is Caesar's coin," said the Lord. "Give to Caesar that which is Caesar's; my kingdom is not of this world."

Now, I have paraphrased the parable off the top of my head. In my denomination we don't go in for great swathes of Bible memorisation (and we haven't got any snake-handling, either, more's the pity). But that parable has been a guide for Christians trying to make their spiritual life coexist with the temporal world for the last twenty centuries.

I don't see how spitting in Caesar's eye makes one particularly "God-fearing" (although the outcome might make one rather Caesar-fearing, I'm thinking) and I don't see any nobility in going up the river for somebody else's bad idea. I especially do not believe that Jesus would have recommended the course of action taken by the dozens of chumps who filed the dozens of ill-fated suits VRWC-Minion listed.

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

I can't figure out how there are so many bootlickers on freerepublic. The IRS is a joke. Anyone that can't see that is blind.

You all that call this guy a shyster, and laugh at people that stand up to the tyranny, that pay whatever the good pseudo-agency tells you to pay, need to check yourself. How can you sit there and argue for enslavement? Good thing there were more patriots and less cowards at the Boston Tea Party, at the signing of the Declaration, at the hashing out of the Constitution. You types should be ashamed of yourself. You wear chains, and are proud of the fact that you do.

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