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Texas plane crash, embittered pilot vs. the IRS - Page 2

post #31 of 42
2/28/10 at 1:36pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Will_B View Post

The New York Times was one of the very few papers to state that his argument was actually materially correct in many respects:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/19/us/19tax.html

 

The NYT article said no such thing. It was limited to a history of sec. 1706 of the tax code, which has been an issue for many professionals, especially software engineers. While sec. 1706 occupied a significant place in Stack's last posting, it was by no means the only target of his anger. He identified many sources for his problems. Indeed, the role of sec. 1706 was limited to his time in California. Once he moved to Austin to start over, it was no longer mentioned. His problems in Austin stemmed from elsewhere. Here it is in his own words; people can decide for themselves whether the style sounds like a "rant":

Quote:
By this time, I’m thinking that it might be good for a change.  Bye to
California, I’ll try Austin for a while.  So I moved, only to find out
that this is a place with a highly inflated sense of self-importance and
where damn little real engineering work is done.  I’ve never experienced
such a hard time finding work.  The rates are 1/3 of what I was earning
before the crash, because pay rates here are fixed by the three or four
large companies in the area who are in collusion to drive down prices
and wages… and this happens because the justice department is all on the
take and doesn’t give a fuck about serving anyone or anything but
themselves and their rich buddies.
 
 

http://www.t35.com/embeddedart.txt
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post #32 of 42
2/28/10 at 2:03pm
I read his final post and I think the classifications of it as a rambling rant are accurate.
It all most felt like something you would expect from the main character of Dostoyevsky’s Notes From The Underground.

Also, the comments that the media have not gone into depth about for the motives of the 9/11 terrorists are way off base.
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post #33 of 42
3/2/10 at 2:24pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Michael Reuben View Post

The NYT article said no such thing. It was limited to a history of sec. 1706 of the tax code, which has been an issue for many professionals, especially software engineers.

The funny thing is that what the NYT said wasn't accurate, but then that is par for the course. I've worked in that industry as a self-employed person, and there was no issue since I formed a corporation and my corp billed the client for my time. That makes it harder for the IRS to claim the person is an employee of the client when they clearly are not.

Even if the Times interpretation was right, it seems the issue should be with how the law is written, not how the IRS enforces it.
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post #34 of 42
3/2/10 at 3:54pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris Lockwood View Post




The funny thing is that what the NYT said wasn't accurate, but then that is par for the course. I've worked in that industry as a self-employed person, and there was no issue since I formed a corporation and my corp billed the client for my time. That makes it harder for the IRS to claim the person is an employee of the client when they clearly are not.

 

If it were that simple, there would never have been an issue. The damnable thing about the 1986 amendment represented by sec. 1706 was that it permitted the IRS to question even such formal separations, thereby throwing into doubt all sorts of contractual arrangments on which people had relied. You were lucky. Other people weren't so fortunate, and apparently Stack was one of them. (This is assuming, of course, that Stack's account can be taken at face value. Some reports have suggested that he was a dyed-in-the-wool tax protester, and if it hadn't been 1706, he'd have been objecting to some other provision.)

This isn't the place to get into an extensive discussion of tax law, which is both complicated and boring, but Harvey Shulman, who is the principal source for the NYT article, is a long-time expert on 1706, has testifed before Congress on its impact, and wrote an editorial on the statutory mess shortly after Stack's death. Unless the paper misquoted Shulman or got the statute's legislative history wrong, I don't see how the story isn't accurate.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris Lockwood View Post


Even if the Times interpretation was right, it seems the issue should be with how the law is written, not how the IRS enforces it.

 

Agreed. It's a case of shooting the messenger.
Edited by Michael Reuben - 3/3/10 at 11:45am
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post #35 of 42
3/2/10 at 5:55pm
Thread Starter 
Wow, no wonder so many bored engineers I know have been interested in getting their pilots licenses....  I'm content to let someone else hold our lives on the line =)
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post #36 of 42
3/3/10 at 4:26am
Ha, you have to be careful with us engineers... As one myself, when I read his rant/manifesto/diatribe/website, I knew he had to be an engineer... It just fits the profile. :)


P.S. I don't fly. :)

Jay
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post #37 of 42
3/3/10 at 7:29am
I'm not sure any one profession has a lock on that style.

I saw a lot of it when I worked in the courthouse, more years ago than I care to remember. There's a certain kind of personality that emerges when someone has spent years nursing grievances and dwelling on them privately. You see it in the writings of litigants representing themselves (so-called "pro se litigants") over some elaborate wrong that has become so convoluted that it takes pages of explanation that only they can follow. It's a basic principle of the American court system that the courts are open to everyone; so as long as someone can pay the filing fee, he or she is allowed to submit such a claim and have it get to at least an initial consideration.

Sometimes it gets further than that. I once represented a local law school against a former student who had failed the bar exam at least six times and had an elaborate theory about how he'd been wronged by the law school and various other parties. He knew enough to keep the case going as far as an appeals court, but Stack's manifesto kept giving me flashbacks to that guy's filings. (Thankfully, he never turned violent.)
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post #38 of 42
3/3/10 at 12:19pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Michael Reuben View Post
Unless the paper misquoted Shulman or got the statute's legislative history wrong, I don't see how the story isn't accurate.
 

I said it was inaccurate since it said that it was "extremely difficult for information technology professionals to work as self-employed individuals", which simply is not true, from my experience and that of others.
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post #39 of 42
3/3/10 at 1:14pm
So this guy is making it all up?

Quote:

Harvey J. Shulman, a Washington lawyer who represented companies that supported the desires of software engineers to be independent contractors, estimated that the law currently affects at least 100,000 such people.
 

“This law has ruined many people’s lives, hurt the technology industry, and discouraged the creation of small, independent businesses critical to a thriving domestic economy,” Mr. Shulman said in an interview Thursday.
 

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post #40 of 42
3/5/10 at 6:37pm
On something related but not related, Did you guys hear about the guy who sort of did a frontal assault on the Pentagon? When and shot and injured two Pentagon police and was shot and killed by the cops afterwards... Guess what was his profession?

A software engineer!   See...  We're nuts!  

Jay
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post #41 of 42
3/7/10 at 2:36am
Not IT, though?
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post #42 of 42
3/8/10 at 5:24am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kevin Hewell View Post

Not IT, though?

Don't know his job, though the newsarticle mentioned "software engineer" which usually is differentiated by IT though I am sure the newsfolks don't know or care about the difference. 

Jay  "going nuts in the near future... HAHAHAHAHA" H
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