I just finished the book
Wolves in Costume: Kent Hovind, and in it, I have completely changed my position from believing he was innocent, to fully understanding his guilt because of what he did wrong. My apology comes from not doing close enough research to discern the entire matter.
I am simply going to explain this without providing all the references. If you want reference, go read the book because I provide plenty of sources for you to do research.
There were two points that he was guilty, and the first was not paying withholding taxes. Now, this one is a bit tricky because most people do not understand the fullness of this matter.
First of all, income is gain by corporate profit, which means that, for most Americans who only earn a wage, they do not owe income taxes, and yet, businesses take income taxes out of their paychecks anyway. When a business signs up a corporate entity, they are now subject to the
carte blanche privilage of IRS, meaning that they are required to take withholding taxes out of the wages of Americans, and so they bypass the Constitution and federal statutes to bully businesses into taking money from citizens because they know they can not do it any other legal way.
Of course, this is a very shady, legal way of theft, but, Christians should abide by it anyway. Why? Because of the difference between taxes and tribute, and this is what the average churchgoer and pastor does not understand about the matter.
Tribute in Scripture is not taxation, but that is how it is commonly taught. In Scripture, the word 'custom' is used to define taxes, and that is normal way of life for any society.
The reason tribute is important to understand is because it is a question of authority, not taxation. Tribute was a sum a country would pay to a kingdom that ruled over that country, so when the Romans conquered Israel, the Israelites were supposed to pay tribute, which was a gift given willingly to the Roman Empire every year as a token of their submission to Rome's authority.
Thus, the tribute the IRS demands is something we should send to them. The answer to fighting the IRS is to go through the due process of law through Congress, NOT to just refuse to pay withholding taxes. The people who protest instead of going through Congress are the ones who get themselves in a lot of trouble, and rebellious thieves like Greg Dixon and Kent Hovind paid the price for it.
Kent had people he called "volunteers" or "missionaries," but behind closed doors, he called them "employees," he had a time clock for them to punch, and gave them benefits, sick days, and vacation time. Thus, the court ruled that he had employees on his corporate business, which was Creation Science Evangelism Enterprises, and he refused to pay withholding taxes; that was offense number one.
The second offense was bank structuring, and even though Kent withdrew amounts large than $10,000 from his bank account (which is the minimum requirement to file federal paperwork), he was still guilty of doing it because the rule is in place to catch money launderers (like Kent Hovind) and drug dealers. People who consistently withdraw money with the purpose of hiding their business activity from the government can still be charged with a crime, even if they do not break the $10,000 limit.
In addition, Kent was involved with quite a few people who were known tax protesters, and these are men that have since gone to jail themselves for running something call sham trusts. Again, you can learn more details in the book.
By the time you get done reading the book, you will clearly see that Kent is a false teacher, and I apologize for any incorrect information I had previously written and spoken on the matter.
