Tax Protesters
Crackdown Hits Tax Protesters, Celebrities Included
Southern Poverty Law Center
Spring 2007
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Capping a four-year criminal investigation, a Pensacola federal court in January sentenced the globe-trotting evangelist minister, creationist activist and businessman Kent Hovind to 10 years on 58 counts of tax fraud, including failure to pay $845,000 in employee-related taxes and threatening investigators. Hovind's wife Jo was convicted on the same charges, which along with tax evasion included 44 counts of evading bank-reporting requirements.
Kent "Dr. Dino" Hovind is a veteran anti-evolution activist whose speeches are estimated to have brought him $50,000 a year, mostly in cash. This income paled, however, next to the revenue produced by his other two cash cows: a bizarre creationist theme park called Dinosaur Adventure Land and Christian Science Ministries, which sells books and other merchandise. Together, the theme park and ministry grossed more than $2 million dollars a year.
Because they considered themselves "workers of God," the Hovinds did not believe they were subject to taxation. To avoid paying payroll and FICA taxes at their theme park, the couple paid their employees in cash and labeled them "missionaries." This did not stop the Hovinds from treating them like employees, however, including docking their pay for being late.
The duo "hadn't filed tax returns ever, to my knowledge," testified IRS Agent Scott Schneider, the former Army interrogator who led the investigation. "He tried to stress to me that he was like the pope and [his business] was like the Vatican," a member of the Christian Law Association said of Kent Hovind, who explained to the lawyer with "a great deal of bravado" how he had "beat the tax system." On his Internet radio program, Hovind had previously declared that he was not a citizen of the United States and therefore was not subject to taxation.
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