Wayne C. Bentson is a businessman and tax protester

Tax protester (United States)

A tax protester is someone who refuses to pay a tax on constitutional or legal grounds, typically because he or she believes that the tax laws are unconstitutional or otherwise invalid...

 from Payson, Arizona

Payson, Arizona

- History :Payson considers its founding year as 1882, at which time it was known as Green Valley or Union Park. On March 3, 1884, the town officially established a post office. Postmaster Frank C. Hise recommended that the town be named after a man named Levi Joseph Payson. Senator Payson was very...

.

Bentson operated Western Information Network and the Bentson Group until May 1997. He represented himself as a tax

Tax

To tax is to impose a financial charge or other levy upon a taxpayer by a state or the functional equivalent of a state such that failure to pay is punishable by law. Taxes are also imposed by many subnational entities...

 expert and told his clients that they did not need to pay federal income tax.

Benston helped Milton William Cooper

Milton William Cooper

Milton William Cooper was an American writer, shortwave broadcaster, conspiracy theorist, and political activist.-Biography:...

 research the article BATF/IRS Criminal Fraud which was published in Veritas magazine, issue #6, in September 1995.

According to the United States Department of Justice

United States Department of Justice

The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...

, Bentson falsely advised clients that the income tax laws apply only "to individuals residing in the Virgin Islands, Guam, and Puerto Rico." Bentson was convicted of conspiracy

Conspiracy (crime)

In the criminal law, a conspiracy is an agreement between two or more persons to break the law at some time in the future, and, in some cases, with at least one overt act in furtherance of that agreement...

 to defraud the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and willful failure to file income tax returns by a federal jury

Jury

A jury is a sworn body of people convened to render an impartial verdict officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a penalty or judgment. Modern juries tend to be found in courts to ascertain the guilt, or lack thereof, in a crime. In Anglophone jurisdictions, the verdict may be guilty,...

 on December 13, 2004 in Tucson, Arizona

Tucson, Arizona

Tucson is a city in and the county seat of Pima County, Arizona, United States. The city is located 118 miles southeast of Phoenix and 60 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border. The 2010 United States Census puts the city's population at 520,116 with a metropolitan area population at 1,020,200...

. On May 18, 2005, he was sentenced to four years in prison and three years of "supervised release during which he is barred from giving tax advice." He was ordered to pay $1,129,937 to the Internal Revenue Service

Internal Revenue Service

The Internal Revenue Service is the revenue service of the United States federal government. The agency is a bureau of the Department of the Treasury, and is under the immediate direction of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue...

in restitution.

Bentson was incarcerated at the Federal Community Corrections facility at Phoenix, Arizona, and was released in May 2008.