The Department of Justice has announced that it has obtained a permanent injunction against Peter Eric Hendrickson, author of Cracking the Code: The Fascinating Truth About Taxation In America:

A federal court in Detroit has permanently barred Peter and Doreen Hendrickson of Commerce Township, Mich., from filing tax returns and forms on which they falsely report their income as zero …. The injunction … requires the couple to repay more than $20,000 in federal income, Social Security and Medicare taxes that they had obtained by filing false tax returns with the IRS.

The order notes that the couple based their improper conduct on a book Peter Hendrickson wrote called Cracking the Code. The book states that federal tax withholding and income taxes on wages are applicable only for a limited class of people, primarily government employees. The court found that position to be “false and frivolous,” and cited an earlier court decision holding the position to be “preposterous.”

Based on advice in Hendrickson’s book, individuals have unlawfully filed tax returns with false substitute W-2 wage statements they prepare reporting little or no wage income. They also fail to submit the correct W-2 wage statement they receive from their employers. Hendrickson’s scheme is number five on the IRS’s 2007 list of the “Dirty Dozen” tax scams.

For more, see Joe Kristan.