On 2/19/2010 9:14 AM, wrote:

AIUI, he owned a small software company who hired only "contractors"
and paid on 1099s.

Just out of curiosity, is it your opinion that this is improper? If so,
on what do you base that opinion?

The IRS ruled (or was about to) that they were
employees so he had to fork over back withholding and employment
taxes.

My understanding is that this is SOP when the IRS has difficulty
collecting taxes from the 1099 contractors.

I recall that the IRS received a fair amount of media attention for
responding to taxpayer inquiries with misinterpretations of its own
rules, and later applying stiff penalties when people acted in
conformance with the interpretations provided. IIRC, the IRS' error rate
on taxpayer inquiries was in excess of 30%.

The IRS has a history of terminating (seizing all assets and records for
long enough to prevent recovery) legitimate businesses who owed no taxes
because someone at the IRS thought _incorrectly_ that the business had a
tax delinquency.

He played the game, badly, and lost and was ****ed because he
got caught.

That's certainly a possibility - but it's not the only one. I'm not in
any great rush to accept any IRS version as complete or truthful, so
long as "getting caught" isn't necessarily equivalent to "broke the law".

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/

On 2/19/2010 11:38 AM, wrote:

At the time? 24 years ago? The dufus was in tax trouble for his
recent screw-up.

Once again, you're dead wrong on all counts. Here are his EXACT words:

quote

Return to the early '80s, and here I was off to a terrifying start as a
'wet-behind-the-ears' contract software engineer... and two years later,
thanks to the fine backroom, midnight effort by the sleazy executives of
Arthur Andersen (the very same folks who later brought us Enron and
other such calamities) and an equally sleazy New York Senator (Patrick
Moynihan), we saw the passage of 1986 tax reform act with its section 1706.

For you who are unfamiliar, here is the core text of the IRS Section
1706, defining the treatment of workers (such as contract engineers) for
tax purposes. Visit this link for a conference committee report
(http://www.synergistech.com/1706.sht...ommitteeReport)
regarding the intended interpretation of Section 1706 and the relevant
parts of Section 530, as amended. For information on how these laws
affect technical services workers and their clients, read our discussion
here (http://www.synergistech.com/ic-taxlaw.shtml).

SEC. 1706. TREATMENT OF CERTAIN TECHNICAL PERSONNEL.

(a) IN GENERAL - Section 530 of the Revenue Act of 1978 is amended by
adding at the end thereof the following new subsection:

(d) EXCEPTION. - This section shall not apply in the case of an
individual who pursuant to an arrangement between the taxpayer and
another person, provides services for such other person as an engineer,
designer, drafter, computer programmer, systems analyst, or other
similarly skilled worker engaged in a similar line of work.

(b) EFFECTIVE DATE. - The amendment made by this section shall apply to
remuneration paid and services rendered after December 31, 1986.

Note:

· "another person" is the client in the traditional job-shop relationship.

· "taxpayer" is the recruiter, broker, agency, or job shop.

· "individual", "employee", or "worker" is you.

Admittedly, you need to read the treatment to understand what it is
saying but it's not very complicated. The bottom line is that they may
as well have put my name right in the text of section (d). Moreover,
they could only have been more blunt if they would have came out and
directly declared me a criminal and non-citizen slave. Twenty years
later, I still can't believe my eyes.

During 1987, I spent close to $5000 of my 'pocket change', and at least
1000 hours of my time writing, printing, and mailing to any senator,
congressman, governor, or slug that might listen; none did, and they
universally treated me as if I was wasting their time. I spent countless
hours on the L.A. freeways driving to meetings and any and all of the
disorganized professional groups who were attempting to mount a campaign
against this atrocity. This, only to discover that our efforts were
being easily derailed by a few moles from the brokers who were just
beginning to enjoy the windfall from the new declaration of their
"freedom". Oh, and don't forget, for all of the time I was spending on
this, I was loosing income that I couldn't bill clients.

After months of struggling it had clearly gotten to be a futile
exercise. The best we could get for all of our trouble is a
pronouncement from an IRS mouthpiece that they weren't going to enforce
that provision (read harass engineers and scientists). This immediately
proved to be a lie, and the mere existence of the regulation began to
have its impact on my bottom line; this, of course, was the intended effect.

/quote

As I said earlier, your grasp of the time frame, and underlying issues
are both lacking in factual content.

--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 10/22/08
KarlC@ (the obvious)

On Feb 19, 11:53*am, Swingman wrote:
On 2/19/2010 11:38 AM, wrote:

At the time? *24 years ago? *The dufus was in tax trouble for his
recent screw-up.

Once again, you're dead wrong on all counts. Here are his EXACT words:

quote

Return to the early '80s, and here I was off to a terrifying start as a
'wet-behind-the-ears' contract software engineer... and two years later,
thanks to the fine backroom, midnight effort by the sleazy executives of
Arthur Andersen (the very same folks who later brought us Enron and
other such calamities) and an equally sleazy New York Senator (Patrick
Moynihan), we saw the passage of 1986 tax reform act with its section 1706.

For you who are unfamiliar, here is the core text of the IRS Section
1706, defining the treatment of workers (such as contract engineers) for
tax purposes. Visit this link for a conference committee report
(http://www.synergistech.com/1706.sht...ommitteeReport)
regarding the intended interpretation of Section 1706 and the relevant
parts of Section 530, as amended. For information on how these laws
affect technical services workers and their clients, read our discussion
here (http://www.synergistech.com/ic-taxlaw.shtml).

SEC. 1706. TREATMENT OF CERTAIN TECHNICAL PERSONNEL.

(a) IN GENERAL - Section 530 of the Revenue Act of 1978 is amended by
adding at the end thereof the following new subsection:

(d) EXCEPTION. - This section shall not apply in the case of an
individual who pursuant to an arrangement between the taxpayer and
another person, provides services for such other person as an engineer,
designer, drafter, computer programmer, systems analyst, or other
similarly skilled worker engaged in a similar line of work.

(b) EFFECTIVE DATE. - The amendment made by this section shall apply to
remuneration paid and services rendered after December 31, 1986.

Note:

· "another person" is the client in the traditional job-shop relationship.

· "taxpayer" is the recruiter, broker, agency, or job shop.

· "individual", "employee", or "worker" is you.

Admittedly, you need to read the treatment to understand what it is
saying but it's not very complicated. The bottom line is that they may
as well have put my name right in the text of section (d). Moreover,
they could only have been more blunt if they would have came out and
directly declared me a criminal and non-citizen slave. Twenty years
later, I still can't believe my eyes.

During 1987, I spent close to $5000 of my 'pocket change', and at least
1000 hours of my time writing, printing, and mailing to any senator,
congressman, governor, or slug that might listen; none did, and they
universally treated me as if I was wasting their time. I spent countless
hours on the L.A. freeways driving to meetings and any and all of the
disorganized professional groups who were attempting to mount a campaign
against this atrocity. This, only to discover that our efforts were
being easily derailed by a few moles from the brokers who were just
beginning to enjoy the windfall from the new declaration of their
"freedom". Oh, and don't forget, for all of the time I was spending on
this, I was loosing income that I couldn't bill clients.

After months of struggling it had clearly gotten to be a futile
exercise. The best we could get for all of our trouble is a
pronouncement from an IRS mouthpiece that they weren't going to enforce
that provision (read harass engineers and scientists). This immediately
proved to be a lie, and the mere existence of the regulation began to
have its impact on my bottom line; this, of course, was the intended effect.

/quote

As I said earlier, your grasp of the time frame, and underlying issues
are both lacking in factual content.

The underlying issue is that he didn't pay taxes that were owed and
got caught. The rules didn't change in the middle of any game. BTW,
those same rules *do* apply to large corporations. They hire other
companies, at a *large* increase in cost, to insulate themselves from
these issues.

On 2/19/2010 12:02 PM, wrote:

The underlying issue is that he didn't pay taxes that were owed and
got caught. The rules didn't change in the middle of any game. BTW,
those same rules *do* apply to large corporations. They hire other
companies, at a *large* increase in cost, to insulate themselves from
these issues.

Go back and read my original post and put it back in the proper context
as written; context which you've conveniently removed in a misguided
attempt to justify your lack of understanding.

--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 10/22/08
KarlC@ (the obvious)

On Feb 19, 12:30*pm, Swingman wrote:
On 2/19/2010 12:02 PM, wrote:

The underlying issue is that he didn't pay taxes that were owed and
got caught. *The rules didn't change in the middle of any game. *BTW,
those same rules *do* apply to large corporations. *They hire other
companies, at a *large* increase in cost, to insulate themselves from
these issues.

Go back and read my original post and put it back in the proper context
as written;

Ok... (tough to do via Google)

Swinger: It would probably help if you had some understanding of the
issue.

I do understand the issue, but perhaps not the nitwit's particular
problem.

Swinger: What he was ****ed at, the way I read his swan song, was not
that he
"got caught", but the rules had been changed during the game,
and even
then the big corporations didn't have to play by the same
changes and
"get away with it".

They *do* have to play by the same rules.

Swinger: And they do ... much of Continental's current baggage
handling website
was written by an ex partner of mine who was 1099 contract
software
labor during this time period ... with an office, a desk, a
cell phone,
etc ... all the accouterments of an "employee".

They may get away with it, but the RULES ARE THE SAME. He got caught.

Swinger: Things may have changed recently, but at one time that was
SOP in many
industries.

"Changed recently?" You're the one who was ragging on me for
mistaking 26 years for 15 years.

Swinger: I'm not excusing his inhuman act, nor his reasons for
committing it, but
he is right about who has to play by which rules in the
United
Corporations of America, or Congress, today.

But the rules here ARE THE SAME. Because someone else didn't get
caught, or more likely followed the letter of the law, doesn't let him
off the hook.

context which you've conveniently removed in a misguided
attempt to justify your lack of understanding.

A lie. I haven't snipped anything in this thread. Google's interface
is terrible, but it looks like *you* are the one snipping.

"Lew Hodgett" wrote in message
...

Andrew Joseph Stack III, 53 was definitely one sick puppy crashing his
plane into an IRS office in Austin, TX.

Wasn't it Ben Franklin that once said something about death and taxes?

Mr Stack didn't feel he was obligated to pay his taxes.

Hell of a way to take out his frustrations.

Lew

Apparently the lunatic worked in a field that has a legitimate beef with the
tax code. Many years ago I worked for a guy who took a very loose attitude
towards his business taxes, workers comp payments etc., they slapped him
down repeatedly and finally took control of his payroll to make sure all
payments were made properly. Fortunately he didn't have a pilot's license.

http://www.salon.com/news/joe_stack/..._tax_problem_2

Joe Stack wasn't wrong about the tax code
Even the sponsor of the 1986 amendment that punished thousands of software
programmers realized it was a mistake

That 1986 change in the tax code that Joe Stack, the suicidal pilot who
crashed his plane into an IRS building on Thursday, cited as a primal
grievance in his online manifesto? According to David Cay Johnston, writing
in the New York Times, Stack's beef was legit: the law "made it extremely
difficult for information technology professionals to work as self-employed
individuals, forcing most to become company employees."

And the original reason for the law, well, one can understand why some
people would find it a little crazy-making.

The law was sponsored by Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Democrat of New
York, as a favor to I.B.M., which wanted a $60 million tax break on its
overseas business.

Under budget rules in effect at the time, any tax breaks had to be paid for
with new revenues. By requiring software engineers to be employees, a
Congressional report estimated, income and payroll taxes would rise by $60
million a year because employees had few opportunities to cheat on their
taxes.

Within a year, however, Moynihan changed his mind, and unsuccessfully sought
for the law's repeal.

The Times inexplicably does not link back to Johnston's much longer article
exposing the law in 1998. In that piece, Johnston extensively documented
the devastating effect the law had on software programmers who wanted to set
up their own shop.

As for the accusation, cited yesterday in my post, that the law was
originally designed to crack down on illegal tax shelters? Harvey Shulman, a
Washington lawyer who Johnston describes as specializing in representing
"companies that supported the desires of software engineers to be
independent contractors," sent an e-mail to Salon contesting the rationale.

To the contrary, there was no such evidence (and there are Department of
Treasury documents, obtained in 1987-88 under FOIA, which show the true
genesis of this law); indeed a Congressionally-mandated study of Section
1706 resulted in an unbiased government report of about 100 pages (1988)
which, along with other studies, found that tax compliance by these
self-employed workers was actually higher than most other types of
workers -- and that the enactment of Section 1706 probably did not generate
any additional tax revenue and may, in fact, have led to revenue losses (due
to the favorable tax treatment accorded many employee benefits which was not
accorded to self-employed workers).

It doesn't need belaboring that 99 percent of the software engineers
negatively affected by Moynihan's amendment to the tax code did not end up
as tax protesting kamikaze pilots. But the final kicker to Johnston's update
of the story nevertheless provokes a chill.

On Wednesday, the day before Andrew Joseph Stack III left his suicide note
and crashed the plane into the building in Austin, the Obama administration
proposed a widespread crackdown on all types of independent contractors in
an effort to raise $7 billion in tax revenue over 10 years.

Leon wrote:


"Mark & Juanita" wrote in message
...
Definitely one sick puppy. Not only did he set his home on fire before
doing this, from the reports, his wife and a young girl assumed to be his
step-daughter were rescued from the blaze.


Nope, his wife and daughter drove up to the burning house. They were not
in
the house at all. No one was in need of rescued except those at the IRS
building.

I stand corrected. I should know better than to trust mainstream media
reports (AP).



--

There is never a situation where having more rounds is a disadvantage

Rob Leatham

On Thu, 18 Feb 2010 18:56:04 -0800, the infamous Zz Yzx
scrawled the following:

Wasn't it Ben Franklin that once said something about death and taxes?

But death doesn't get worser and worser each year.

I agree, a sick puppy with a screw loose. Same mentality as Tim
McVeigh: "I'm ****ed so I'll kill some innocent and unrelated people
and babies".

You just had to mention killing babies, didn't you?
"It's for the children!" sigh

But it's one terrorist attack with an actual reason behind it. He's
trying to kickstart the Rev, guys. He realized that he couldn't fix
the broken gov't via the ballot box so he took the next step. Hold
on, boys and girls. TAR II is on the way.

[TAR II is my own (solo) pet name for "The American Revolution #2",
which is, with little doubt, coming to a USA near you soon(?)]

--
"Just think of the tragedy of teaching children not to doubt."
-- Clarence Darrow

On Thu, 18 Feb 2010 19:04:38 -0800 (PST), the infamous Robatoy
scrawled the following:

On Feb 18, 9:17*pm, "Lew Hodgett" wrote:
*Andrew Joseph Stack III, 53 was definitely one sick puppy crashing
his plane into an IRS office in Austin, TX.

Wasn't it Ben Franklin that once said something about death and taxes?

Mr Stack didn't feel he was obligated to pay his taxes.

Hell of a way to take out his frustrations.

Lew

Now Stack's estate gets to pay the IRS?

They can keep the plane.

--
"Just think of the tragedy of teaching children not to doubt."
-- Clarence Darrow

On Fri, 19 Feb 2010 07:11:46 -0600, the infamous "Leon"
scrawled the following:


"Lee Michaels" wrote in message
. ..
Snip
Now Stack's estate gets to pay the IRS?


I think he probably burned up his estate, he burned his house down this
morning prior to taking the plane trip. He was up for audit, I suspect
the government pretty much had it all to start with.

Thereby depriving his wife and daughter of a house to live in. He was
****ed off at the world. He wanted to hurt as many people as possible.

And get this, HE WAS A SOFTWARE ENGINEER!!! That explains a lot.

I suspect that he had a life insurance policy that will take care of his
family, IIRC that can not be touched by the IRS.

Life insurance usually doesn't cover suicide, nor does homeowner's
insurance cover arson by the owner.

--
"Just think of the tragedy of teaching children not to doubt."
-- Clarence Darrow

On Fri, 19 Feb 2010 09:19:00 -0600, the infamous Swingman
scrawled the following:

On 2/19/2010 8:38 AM, Lee Michaels wrote:
wrote in message
...

wrote in message
...
On Fri, 19 Feb 2010 07:11:46 -0600,

I suspect that he had a life insurance policy that will take care of his
family, IIRC that can not be touched by the IRS.


I've never seen a life insurance policy that would pay off in the case
of suicide.


Strange that I would know this but most "do" pay off for a suicide however
the stipulation is that the policy has to be held for more than 2 years.

But many do not pay out for any kind of illegal act or crime.

I always thought that also, but in the past twenty years I've known two
terminal cancer patients that unquestionably committed suicide with
handguns and their wives were well taken care of by the insurance proceeds.

Not that I'd recommend it.

The insurance companies probably thought it was a good idea. It was
cheaper for the company if they offed themselves rather than keep
running the exhorbitant horsepistol and doktor bills for the duration.

--
"Just think of the tragedy of teaching children not to doubt."
-- Clarence Darrow

On Fri, 19 Feb 2010 09:26:26 -0600, the infamous Swingman
scrawled the following:

On 2/18/2010 9:17 PM, Leon wrote:

Sick absolutely. But considering the current political climate in Austin he
may only be the first to pull a stunt like this.

Too damn bad the inhumanity of the act is already fueling an excuse for
libtard's to fall all over themselves, self righteously salivating like
Pavlov's hound.

I particularly liked this statement by the Gods of Our Security:
"The FBI launched an investigation and Rep. Michael McCaul, a
Republican from Austin on the Homeland Security Committee, said the
panel will take up the issue of how to better protect buildings from
attacks with planes."

Feh! There goes the price of buildings...

--
"Just think of the tragedy of teaching children not to doubt."
-- Clarence Darrow

Larry Jaques wrote:

But it's one terrorist attack with an actual reason behind it. He's
trying to kickstart the Rev, guys. He realized that he couldn't fix
the broken gov't via the ballot box so he took the next step. Hold
on, boys and girls. TAR II is on the way.

[TAR II is my own (solo) pet name for "The American Revolution #2",
which is, with little doubt, coming to a USA near you soon(?)]

We already had a Second American Revolution (1861-65), sometimes called "The
Recent Unplesantness".

We lost.

On Thu, 18 Feb 2010 18:17:32 -0800, "Lew Hodgett"
wrote:

Andrew Joseph Stack III, 53 was definitely one sick puppy crashing
his plane into an IRS office in Austin, TX.

Wasn't it Ben Franklin that once said something about death and taxes?

Mr Stack didn't feel he was obligated to pay his taxes.

Hell of a way to take out his frustrations.

Lew




We don't need to fight terrorism on the other side of the earth when
it exists within the United States. Am I supposed to fear folks that
hate the IRS?

On Sun, 21 Feb 2010 11:55:13 -0500, the infamous Phisherman
scrawled the following:

On Thu, 18 Feb 2010 18:17:32 -0800, "Lew Hodgett"
wrote:

Andrew Joseph Stack III, 53 was definitely one sick puppy crashing
his plane into an IRS office in Austin, TX.

Wasn't it Ben Franklin that once said something about death and taxes?

Mr Stack didn't feel he was obligated to pay his taxes.

Hell of a way to take out his frustrations.

Lew

We don't need to fight terrorism on the other side of the earth when
it exists within the United States.

Are you saying that we should ignore terrorism everywhere but here?

What ****es me off is that the Army didn't authorize, for 3 years, the
extra pay for the National Guard units which were sent over to Iraq
for extreme extended duty in 2007. One local couple is owed $8k while
the gov't has been paying the Blackwater, etc. troopers betweeen $68k
and $200k per year.


Am I supposed to fear folks that hate the IRS?

Only if you're -in- the particular IRS office at the time they decided
to "get even", Fishy.

--
"Just think of the tragedy of teaching children not to doubt."
-- Clarence Darrow