Bernhoft represented Banister in his crim case

[Demosthenes]

Milwaukee tax attorney ordered to court (BizJournals)
7 Jul, 2008 attorney

Milwaukee attorney Robert Bernhoft, who has gained notoriety for his involvement in high-profile tax litigation, has been ordered to appear in federal court in August as part of an Internal Revenue Service investigation into a former agent-turned-tax challenger.

[Demosthenes]

QueryReportsvUtilitiesvLogout
United States District Court
Eastern District of Wisconsin (Milwaukee)
CIVIL DOCKET FOR CASE #: 2:08-cv-00515-RTR

United States of America v. Bernhoft
Assigned to: Chief Judge Rudolph T Randa
Cause: 26:7402 IRS: Petition to Enforce IRS Summons
Date Filed: 06/13/2008
Jury Demand: None
Nature of Suit: 870 Taxes
Jurisdiction: U.S. Government Plaintiff
Petitioner
United States of America represented by Robert E Fay
United States Department of Justice (DC)
Tax Division
555 4th St NW
PO Box 7238
Washington, DC 20044-7238
202-305-9209
Fax: 202-514-6770
LEAD ATTORNEY
ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED


V.

Respondent
Robert Bernhoft


Date Filed # Docket Text
06/13/2008 1 PETITION To Enforce IRS Summonses filed by United States of America. Consent forms to be distributed for Magistrate Judge Gorence. (Attachments: # 1 Civil Cover Sheet)(mlm)
06/13/2008 2 DISREGARD ENTRY-PLF WILL FILE CORRECT BRIEF. BRIEF of Law in Support of 1 Petition to Enforce IRS Summonses and in Support of Motion for Order to Show Cause filed by United States of America (mlm)
06/13/2008 3 BRIEF in Support of 1 Petition to Enforce IRS Summonses filed by United States of America. (mlm) (Additional attachment(s) added on 6/13/2008: # 1 Text of Proposed Order) (mlm).
06/13/2008 4 DECLARATION of Revenue Agent Shereen Hawkins. (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit #1)(mlm)
06/18/2008 5 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE signed by Chief Judge Rudolph T Randa on 6/17/08.Show Cause Hearing set for 8/19/2008 09:30 AM in Courtroom 320 before Chief Judge Rudolph T Randa. (cc: all counsel)(cef)

[Famspear]

Here's a link to the story...

http://www.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/st ... a=from_rss

The case is United States v. Robert Bernhoft,
case no. 2:08-cv-00515-RTR
U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Wisconsin
commenced June 13, 2008.

Petition by United States to enforce IRS summons.

The government alleges that Robert Bernhoft has paid substantial sums to Joseph Banister, and that the payments constitute a "substantial portion of Banister's annual earnings." On September 5, 2007, the IRS issued a summons to Bernhoft, "to obtain information about the payments Bernhoft made to Banister." Bernhoft did not comply.

Bernhoft has been ordered to appear in court on August 19 to show cause as to why he should not comply with the IRS summons. According to the government, the IRS "is conducting a 26 U.S.C. [section] 6700 tax scheme investigation of Joseph Banister to determine whether Banister promotes abusive tax schemes that would subject him to penalties under 26 U.S.C. [section] 6700 or subject him to injunction under 26 U.S.C. [section] 7408."

EDIT: Demo, you beat me to it.

[Demosthenes]

The documents for the above docket:

http://www.cheatingfrenzy.com/bernhoft1.pdf
http://www.cheatingfrenzy.com/bernhoft3.pdf
http://www.cheatingfrenzy.com/bernhoft4.pdf
http://www.cheatingfrenzy.com/bernhoft4-1.pdf

[LPC]

It's really difficult to imagine why Bernhoft would be paying Banister.

I thought that the court documents might provide a clue, but the IRS seems to be as mystified as I am.

[Demosthenes]

Bernhoft has set up a travel agent business and Bernhot has been traveling quite a bit for various trials.

I wonder if Bernhoft has been 1099ing Banister.

[Joey Smith]

If Bernhoff was my client, I would have him appear and take the Fifth unless I had a really, really, really good explanation why Bernhoff is paying Banister. This case just begs for a U.S. Attorney to charge all or any of money laundering and/or wire fraud.

Is it just as we have suspected for so long, that the attorneys who make money defending tax protestors are also quietly spreading the seeds of tax protesting so that they will always have a full harvest of criminal defense clients?

[Demosthenes]

According to Banister, Bernhoft has been reducing his legal fees to the tune of "many tens of thousands of dollars."

Kill The Messenger Campaign Continues

From : Freedom Above Fortune
Sent : Monday, July 17, 2006 2:03 AM
To : List
Subject : Kill [The IRS Whistleblower] Messenger Campaign Continues

Freedom Above Fortune News

Kill The Messenger Campaign Continues

Dear Friends:

It will probably come as no surprise to you that the tentacles of the federal
income tax enforcement apparatus continue to reach far and wide to discredit and
silence my whistleblowing efforts at every opportunity and using every resource,
this time using the resources of two California bureaucracies, the California
Board of Accountancy ("CBA") and the California Department of Justice (“CDOJ”).

Detailed below is an account of the latest attack against me. I am again asking
for you to pray for me and my legal team as we prepare for this next battle and,
yes, I am asking you to pray for those who are trying to do me harm. I am also
asking for your financial support as I will again be incurring significant
expenses to defend myself (Details Below).

You may recall the “disbarment” fiasco in 2003/2004 wherein the IRS claimed it
was protecting the “public” from a “disreputable” character like me by
“disbarring” me from “practice” before the IRS. But when it came time for the
“public” hearing to which I was entitled, the IRS and the administrative law
judge sought to convene the hearing on, no joke, a military base located on an
island in San Francisco Bay, making it impossible for the “public” to attend.
After significant outcry from the very same “public” that the IRS was supposedly
protecting that they were being prevented from attending the hearing, the
administrative law judge then canceled the hearing altogether, scheduled a
“sanction” proceeding and railroaded me into “disbarred” status, which has
prevented me from formally communicating with the IRS regarding client disputes
ever since.

When I appealed my “disbarred” status to the next level, Secretary of the
Treasury John Snow, he side-stepped deciding my appeal and incestuously handed
the decision-making authority in my appeal back to the IRS, the very agency that
had asserted the allegations against me in the first place!

Even with the Internal Revenue Service’s extraordinary level of control over the
decision-making authority in my “disbarment” appeal, the IRS appeal decision
recognized the weakness of half of the allegations against me and dismissed them
outright. For the remaining allegations, the IRS justified its decision by
asserting that it has the authority to prohibit any client from choosing a duly
authorized, state-licensed accountant or attorney as their representative simply
because the client's opinions or beliefs are not the same as the IRS. Such a
justification is, of course, nowhere near adequate, at least not according to
American jurisprudence, and the remaining allegations are therefore being
appealed.

Although the IRS achieved its underhanded goal of marking me with the “scarlet
letter” of “disbarred” IRS practice status, the “disbarment” fiasco also exposed
a great deal of IRS trickery, injustice and hypocrisy to the thousands of
Americans who were following the battle. It appears that the “disbarment”
fiasco discredited the IRS much more than it discredited me so the IRS had to
cook up another way to “kill the messenger”.

What the IRS cooked up was to accuse me, in November of 2004, of criminal
conspiracy to defraud the United States of America and of criminal preparation
of false tax returns, accusations that, if sustained, could have sent me to
federal prison and certainly would have discredited me forever. The problem for
the IRS was that the accusations were totally false and a jury of my peers,
seeing that the charges were false, acquitted me on all charges. In fact, more
than one juror commented after the trial that I was more than just “not guilty”,
I WAS COMPLETELY INNOCENT. Once again the IRS failed to “kill the messenger”
and it had no choice but to reach back into its ever-growing and ever-brazen bag
of dirty tricks.

Some of you may recall the federal state partnership formally forged on
September 16, 2003 ( http://www.givemeliberty.org/RTPLawsuit ... -14-03.htm
). This cozy little relationship was designed to make the heavy hand of the
income tax enforcement apparatus even heavier. Federal and state government’s
pledged to work together to destroy anyone who questioned the legitimacy of
income tax administration and enforcement. Interestingly, the kick-off to this
cozy little relationship led to another extremely embarrassing moment for the
IRS (http://www.givemeliberty.org/wtp-tv/4MinLinks.htm ). Since the IRS wasn’t
having much luck at completely soiling my reputation and credibility, it sought
the help of a couple of its state “partners” to finish the job, namely the
California Board of Accountancy (“CBA”) and the California Department of
Justice” (“CDOJ”).

After over 7 years of whistleblowing efforts, I have learned a great deal about
what I have often described as the “income tax enforcement apparatus”. The
tentacles of this apparatus are much more numerous and far reaching than most
law-abiding, liberty-minded Americans could have imagined and those tentacles
stretch far outside the walls of IRS offices.

Unknown to those of us who thought we were free, these tentacles have been
purposely put in place over many decades, almost as if the evil octopus was
preparing for the day when Americans would discover the problem but find it
impossible to escape. These tentacles are constantly trolling for ways to reach
beyond the walls of the IRS to protect the federal income tax from any credible
opposition.

Unfortunately, credibility is a double-edged sword. When one is trying to blow
the whistle on wrongdoing, the more credibility you have the better. By the
same token, the more credibility you have the more of a target you become – the
worst thing that an evil- doer can have on its hands is a credible whistleblower
exposing its misdeeds. The apparatus was unsuccessful in discrediting me with
last summer’s criminal prosecution but it could not stop there.

The federal income tax enforcement apparatus simply cannot coexist with credible
people who expose its misdeeds, so rather than correct the misdeeds, the
credible people must be destroyed. A former IRS criminal investigator
whistleblower in jail was first prize but a former IRS criminal investigator
whistleblower defrocked of his credentials and reputation is a nice consolation
prize.

For you see, CBA holds the keys to something about me that has undoubtedly
galled the IRS since the day I resigned from the agency – the fact that I was
not only one of their own highly decorated criminal investigators but that I had
three letters of additional credibility after my name – “C.P.A.” for “Certified
Public Accountant”.

Undoubtedly egged on by the IRS, the CBA is now poised to take some kind of
action against my C.P.A. license and the first battlefield was a hearing that
occurred July 6, 2006.

The hearing was relatively brief. The presider at the hearing was
Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) Steven C. Owyang from the California Office of
Administrative Hearings. The “complainant”, Carol Sigmann, of the California
Board of Accountancy (CBA), was represented by California Department of Justice
(CDOJ) Deputy Attorney General Jeanne C. Werner. Ms. Werner informed ALJ Owyang
that the complainant would not be calling any witness to testify and would be
proceeding against me solely on the basis of the disbarment appeal decision
rendered by the IRS (the decision described above that was supposed to be
decided by Treasury Secretary Snow but was delegated back to the IRS for a
decision). Some administrative matters were then taken care of and then my
attorney Robert Barnes gave a superb opening statement. Ms. Werner objected a
couple of times during Mr. Barnes presentation but ALJ Owyang politely allowed
Mr. Barnes to finish his statement. ALJ Owyang then instructed both sides to
submit opening legal briefs by September 5, 2006 and responses to each others’
opening briefs by October 11, 2006.

Thus, the period between now and the end of August is of critical importance and
this is the period when I most need your help. Here I stand at another
crossroads. I hope you will agree that your past prayers and financial support
have enabled me and my legal team to beat extraordinary odds against a
formidable foe. Up to this point, we have been able to create an incredibly
full record regarding how the income tax enforcement apparatus conducts its
dirty business. We need to continue building that record and exposing the
octopus for what it truly is and what it truly does.

I am therefore asking for your help again. It is not easy to withstand these
attacks but I know that each proceeding (disbarment, criminal prosecution,
abusive tax shelter investigation, CPA license revocation, etc.) brings these
dark forces a little farther into the light and exposes them for what they are.
I then make the resulting record of these proceedings available for all to see
(at http://www.freedomabovefortune.com click on “IRS LOCKOUT UPDATE” in the top center
of the screen). Ahhh, the life of a guinea pig!

I would appreciate any support you can provide. If your support is spiritual,
please give (pray) as often as you can. If you can afford to assist me
financially, your help is indeed welcomed and appreciated. Bernhoft Firm (
http://www.bernhoftlaw.com ) attorney Robert Barnes spent significant time preparing
for and attending the July 6th hearing and he and Bernhoft Firm principal Robert
Bernhoft will be spending many hours in the next few weeks preparing a brief
that will properly and adequately address the very important issues in this
California Board of Accountancy case. The legal briefs submitted in this case
will be made available on my website but first they have to be written, and
written well.

Make no mistake – the issues involved in this case have huge ramifications for
every American, the most significant of which is determining whether Americans
will retain the ability and freedom to choose zealous advocates to defend them
against government attacks and abuses or be left with only phony, spineless
advocates whose fear of being attacked themselves neutralizes any zeal to
advocate for their clients. Remember that the octopus is not just targeting
you, it is also targeting the professionals who would and could be there to
defend you.

The Bernhoft firm has already been extremely generous with billing concessions
(to the tune of many tens of thousands of dollars) but the level of their
concessions has reached a point where help is desperately needed to shoulder the
financial burden, especially the burden that will transpire over the next few
months.
You all have been so very generous with your support and I thank each and every
one of you for your ongoing help. A number of you continue to routinely send
donations without even being formally asked, for which I am forever grateful. I
can assure you that all of your donations have been used and will continue to be
used for these ongoing battles.

I will continue to provide updates as events unfold. Please support this effort
as often and as generously as you can. Details are included below. Thank you
from the bottom of my heart for your continuing support.

******************************************************************

-For those who have received this message as a forward from someone
else, you can sign up to receive these messages directly by visiting
http://www.freedomabovefortune.com and clicking on "Mailing List".

-For those who are unfamiliar with what has transpired to date in this
case, especially the recent acquittal on all charges leveled against me, please
visit http://www.ninehundred.net/banister/ , http://www.joebanister.blogspot.com and
http://www.freedomabovefortune.com (click on
"IRS LOCKOUT UPDATE"). You can also find archives of informative radio
shows at http://www.hearliberty.com .

-Prayers in support of this effort are always welcomed and encouraged.
Contributions to my legal defense fund are also welcomed due to the
significant costs of defending against multiple and continuing IRS attacks.
Checks or money orders are gratefully accepted and can be made payable to
"Joseph Banister Legal Defense Fund", and mailed to 1805 N. Carson Street, #188,
Carson City, Nevada 89701. Money orders may provide a greater degree of privacy
to the donor than checks so use your own discretion based on the degree of
privacy you desire.

-Visit http://www.ninehundred.net/banister for more information as to how you
can obtain information about my recent trial and contribute to my legal defense
fund at the same time.

-My sincere thanks to those who have prayed for the success of our
efforts and/or contributed to my legal defense fund. Your continued support is
enabling me to illustrate, in detail and in a very public
manner, that the IRS does not prevail against citizens because the
agency adheres to the rule of law, but that the IRS prevails against
citizens because the agency ignores the law, twists the meaning of the
law, and overwhelms the citizen with economic and legal burdens. In a
school yard, such tactics are called "BULLYING". In a government
setting, such tactics are called "TYRANNY". This effort is the
equivalent of ganging up on the bully and sending him to reform school
where he belongs.

[Doktor Avalanche]

I'm going to hold off predictions until Banister and Bernhoft are actually pilloried in the town square.

[Doktor Avalanche]

It's really difficult to imagine why Bernhoft would be paying Banister.

I thought that the court documents might provide a clue, but the IRS seems to be as mystified as I am.

You're not the only one. Every time I try to add the sum of Bernhoft and Banister I keep coming up with "money laundering", "tax evasion" and "fraud".

[grixit]

Bernhoft needs to remember that when you are "disbarred" and continue to work with a "client", you run the "rick" of being "indicted", and perhaps even "served" with a "subpoena" and called into "court". At the "trial" you'll then discover that, when aren't really a "lawyer", you have no "attorney client privilege", and will have to "testify". Furthermore, if it appears that you have been "furthering" an "illegal" activity, you might be the subject of a "conspiracy" charge.

Also, the bailiff won't let you bring more than a bushel of apostrophes into the courtroom.

[webhick]

Also, the bailiff won't let you bring more than a bushel of apostrophes into the courtroom.

But if you're smart, you'll sprinkle some viagra on the bushel and there'll be more in short order.

[Nikki]

Bernhoft needs to remember that when you are "disbarred" and continue to work with a "client", you run the "rick" of being "indicted", and perhaps even "served" with a "subpoena" and called into "court". At the "trial" you'll then discover that, when aren't really a "lawyer", you have no "attorney client privilege", and will have to "testify". Furthermore, if it appears that you have been "furthering" an "illegal" activity, you might be the subject of a "conspiracy" charge.

Also, the bailiff won't let you bring more than a bushel of apostrophes into the courtroom.

The quotation marks belong to Banister, not Bernhoft.

Banister, clearly, is not the brightest bulb on the tree. The most frightening thing about him is that the IRS was stupid enough to license him to carry a firearm.

[webhick]

The most frightening thing about him is that the IRS was stupid enough to license him to carry a firearm.

And that he looks like a creepy porn star from the 70s. You know, the kind of person you wouldn't trust to keep an eye on your vegetable stand.

[Gregg]

I'm sorry, am I missing something here? Can you be disbarred if you're not an attorney? Was he an attorney?

[The Operative]

I'm sorry, am I missing something here? Can you be disbarred if you're not an attorney? Was he an attorney?

Banister was a CPA. CPAs are able to represent taxpayers before the Internal Revenue Service. These usually are represented civil matters concerning taxes and the IRS considers it a privilege similar to a lawyer representing a client in court. When the IRS revokes this privilege, they call it being disbarred.

EDIT: Since he was a CPA AND he should have been keeping up with his continuing education AND he should have had a basic knowledge of taxes, he SHOULD have known this. However, I have a distinct impression that he slept through his tax courses and/or he was licensed as a CPA before the current requirements were put into effect. I don't know when he first became a CPA.

[LPC]

According to Banister, Bernhoft has been reducing his legal fees to the tune of "many tens of thousands of dollars."

And paying Banister for the privilege.

Undoubtedly egged on by the IRS, the CBA is now poised to take some kind of action against my C.P.A. license and the first battlefield was a hearing that
occurred July 6, 2006.

I don't remember if this has been mentioned before, but according to the California Board of Accountancy web site, Banister's license was revoked effective March 7, 2007.

[LPC]

One idea for the reasons for the payments from Bernhoft to Banister: Banister is continuing to screw up people's lives with bad tax advice (cf., Walter Thompson), and Berhoft is paying Banister a referral fee for each indictment against one of Banister's clients.

[Famspear]

Since he [Banister] was a CPA AND he should have been keeping up with his continuing education AND he should have had a basic knowledge of taxes, he SHOULD have known this. However, I have a distinct impression that he slept through his tax courses and/or he was licensed as a CPA before the current requirements were put into effect. I don't know when he first became a CPA.

As a CPA, Banister had to know very well what virtually all CPAs know about the nature of federal income taxation. By the way, Banister apparently became a CPA in California in February 1991. Even if he never took a tax course after obtaining his CPA certificate, and even if he slept through every continuing education course all those years (in many states, 40 hours per year is the requirement to maintain the CPA license) there is no way Banister can credibly claim to honestly believe the tax protester garbage that Banister essentially has claimed he believes -- unless he is suffering from a serious mental problem. I became a CPA long before Banister did, and I know that he has no valid excuse.

In my opinion, Banister's problem is probably not lack of competence in tax matters. Same for Tommy Cryer or Sherry Peel Jackson or anyone else like that. Maybe what people like Banister really need is a psychologist or psychiatrist (not that it would necessarily do them any good).

[LPC]

Bernhoft also represented Banister in the IRS disciplinary proceedings.