Our Low-Tech Tax Code 691
theodp writes "After establishing that nothing can excuse Joe Stack's murderous intentional plane crash into an IRS office, a NY Times Op-Ed explains the reference in Stack's suicide note to an obscure federal tax law — Section 1706 of the 1986 tax act — which the software engineer claimed declared him a 'criminal and non-citizen slave' and ruined his career. Interestingly, a decade-old NY Times article on Section 1706 pretty much agreed: 'The immediate effect of these [Section 1706] audits is to force individual programmers ... to abandon their dreams of getting rich off their high-technology skills.' Section 1706, the NYT Op-Ed concludes, 'is an example of how Congress enacted a discriminatory law that hurt thousands of technology consultants, their staffing firms and customers. And despite strong bipartisan efforts and unbiased studies supporting that law's repeal, it remains on the books.'"
There's more to this story (Score:5, Insightful)
I remember when this law was passed. At the time, many large companies were switching to having huge numbers of contractors instead of regular employees. Uniformly, these companies denied any benefits, like health insurance. Job security was also lower. I personally did a lot of contract work at the time. After the law passed, the big companies were forced to hire most of those contractors, with benefits. I think this improved things generally all around. For some reason, full employment creates a bond of loyalty from the employee, and sometimes from the company, which is never there as a contractor. More programmers got health care. It was a good thing.
As a contractor, I was not personally effected, because I was an actual contractor, with multiple clients, self-employment taxes, and all. All you need to not be effected by the law is to be an actual contractor.
Re:There's more to this story (Score:5, Insightful)
What are you on?
All this does is give the employee a false sense of security. The corporation is still going to think of you as disposable.
Programmers should be able to buy their own health care without their employer being a part of the transaction.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
What are you on?
All this does is give the employee a false sense of security. The corporation is still going to think of you as disposable.
Programmers should be able to buy their own health care without their employer being a part of the transaction.
Um, programmers, or anyone else CAN buy health care without their employers being part of the transaction. It's probably going to cost more because when we say that employers are "part of the transaction", that means they are paying for a large part of the transaction. There is no law that says you have to let them.
Re:There's more to this story (Score:5, Informative)
Um, programmers, or anyone else CAN buy health care without their employers being part of the transaction. It's probably going to cost more because when we say that employers are "part of the transaction", that means they are paying for a large part of the transaction. There is no law that says you have to let them.
Um! Have you ever tried to purchase insurance for just you and your family? Cost aside, many insurance companies will NOT insure you. Why? Because the risk is there that you will use those benefits. Insurance companies expect that a certain number of employees will NOT use their benefits and generate enough profit to outweigh the expenses of those that do. And if you have ANY pre-exsisting conditions or you've ever smoked a cigarette in your lifetime, they will just flat out deny you any coverage no matter what the cost, as a matter of policy. If you do find some obscure insurance company that will cover you, you can bet your life (not just figuratively speaking) that it will cost you an amount much much more than an employee and his/her employer's contribution for that policy.
Re:There's more to this story (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't need "sound bites" or political mumbo jumbo or statistics pulled out of my arse to make my decisions. The fact of the matter is that I experienced this exact situation in 1996/1997 when I became and independant contractor and tried to buy insurance for my wife, newly adopted daughter, and myself. Because my wife was a smoker and my sister was an epelectic, I was denied time after time. I couldn't even find a solo policy to cover my daughter. In the end, I paid for all of my daughters required doctor visits out of my own pocket without the assistance of insurance and went to work for "the man" immediately after completing the contract. NOTHING in my statement was a political view on the current health care system, it was simply stating the facts in response to the assumption that health care CAN be purchased by anyone.
Re:There's more to this story (Score:5, Informative)
Re:There's more to this story (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:There's more to this story (Score:5, Interesting)
A few items:
Re:There's more to this story (Score:4, Insightful)
You're forgetting the tax advantages of being part of an employer group. If you buy insurance on your own, you do so with after-tax dollars. If you buy through your employer, you do so with before-tax dollars, reducing your overall tax burden (and that of your employer, since their payroll taxes get a break). The Federal government caused the mess of a health care system we have, it strikes me as absurd to expect them to be able to fix it in any meaningful way.
Re:There's more to this story (Score:4, Interesting)
Um. On google images search for the term "lol preexisting condition". Review the picture. That pretty well summarizes the state of healthcare in this country to individual procurers of healthcare. When you are covered by a large company's health plan, there are not preexisting condition limits.
The only way this will ever fixed will be by fiat of law. The market has categorically failed.
C//
chapter 8 (Score:4, Interesting)
Chapter 8 of How To Save Jobs [usspi.org] contains a nice discussion of the U.S. health care system. Since David Gewirtz has kindly made this book free to download, I've taken the liberty of quoting more than I might otherwise, concerning bankruptcy and rescission (emphasis mine):
Three-quarters had health insurance. Put those two numbers together. 60% of all bankruptcies in America were driven by people who couldn't pay their medical bills, most of whom actually had health insurance.
...
Most insurers claim the rate of rescission is fairly small. In testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce, Don Hamm, CEO of Assurant Health stated "Rescission is rare. It affects less than one-half of one percent of people we cover."
And yet, according to a story by Karl Vick in the September 8, 2009 issue of the Washington Post:
In the past 18 months, California's five largest insurers paid almost $19 million in fines for marooning policyholders who had fallen ill. That includes a $1 million fine against Health Net, which admitted offering bonuses to employees for finding reasons to cancel policies, according to company documents released in court.
Amazing statistical coincidence that the rescission rate mirrors the relatively low rate in modern society of personal health catastrophe.
Gewirtz is an odd duck, with significant background in both politics and technology. If your response to Gewirtz is to pigeon-hole him for easy target practice at one end or the other of the ideological spectrum, good luck with that. If he's as clever as I think he is, his misguiding jingoism on "buy American" could be cured by a close listen to Rustici on Smoot-Hawley and the Great Depression [econtalk.org], another flawed discussion which nevertheless can not be resolved by means of a circular pigeon dance. In the end, I rejected about a quarter of what Rustici puts forward, but felt edified by the other three quarters.
I'm about halfway through The Baroque Cycle [wikipedia.org] which has an an organizing theme tumult in the understanding of financial markets and the stability of credit and currency. If Neil's super-great (mostly paternal) granddaughter Nellie Stephenson were to write the Barack Cycle several hundred years from now, it would focus on the present tumult and disorder in our health insurance industry, with lobbyists in Washington taking center stage as the imposing yet perhaps doomed palace of Versailles.
America fails to reform it's health care system because it is now in the late phase of the French disease, terminal narcissism. Debate rarely turns on what needs to be done until coinage runs short. From what I've read, mission accomplished. Will the American empire make it to the next gas station running on fumes? America is not to be underestimated, but far enough back, hard to believe, neither was France.
These kinds of laws are a lot like Smoot-Hawley. The elite has a shallow hand-waving understanding of how this implicates tax revenue (shared by few of the wonks), while totally failing (with scant concern) to wrap their minds around the larger consequences.
Fortunately, there are economies gaining steam in other corners of the world less set in their sumptitude, that sucking glissando you hear as you circle around the velvet drain pipe.
In a vigorous nation, it might be prudent to fix this while time remains, starting with a cold hard look at some of these small fish nourishing larger ponds.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I agree that the loyalty statements in the parent post perhaps went a bit too far, however, there is a big incentive for an employer to keep their employees but not contractors.
Employers by law must pay FUTA to cover unemployment benefits. There are various factors that determine the rates an employer must pay but one of the factors is their history of employee lay offs.
If an employer lays off employees their FUTA rate will go up and the cost of doing business will increase.
If an employer cancels their cont
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The downside to buying your own health care (insurance) is that it's easy for the insurer to drop you as an individual if you start to cost too much. At least if you're on an employer group plan, they have to weigh the cost of losing the whole group.
Re:There's more to this story (Score:5, Interesting)
I tried to get private healthcare once, I can't. You should try it yourself.
Re:There's more to this story (Score:4, Interesting)
When I was unemployed about 2 years back, I looked into getting catastrophic health insurance in case anything big happened. Not looking for coverage for a cold or gym membership reimbursement, but I couldn't find anything. Apparently my own state government of Massachusetts, in its infinite wisdom, declared it illegal!
So much for helping the down-on-their-luck and the poor, huh?
If car insurance worked like health insurance, we'd never see the real costs of things like oil changes because we'd only pay the co-pays. And the costs would rise since every shop would need an extra person to handle the paperwork and claims.
Re:There's more to this story (Score:5, Interesting)
If car insurance worked like health insurance, we'd never see the real costs of things like oil changes because we'd only pay the co-pays. And the costs would rise since every shop would need an extra person to handle the paperwork and claims.
This is the quasi-logical rhetorical form that gives the economics profession a bad name, for it conceals everything about the issue worth thinking about.
The underlying structure is the timeless vapour-lock of the insipid: "if there is enough food in the food, how come people are starving?"
Indeed, good question, and it happens to have an answer: distribution is often a harder problem to solve than production. This surprises anyone why? The former is largely a political problem (venality and custom), the later is largely an industrial/engineering/scientific problem. Our accomplishments on the later front include the green revolution, fiber optics, and sending a man to moon, on the former front our wreath of achievement is CNN.
In the case of our hyper-technological medical system, it's a miracle of paper-work that anyone gets the right sequence of treatments on a prompt and cost effective basis. The paper-pushers are hardly a burden on the system, they are practically the whole of the system, unless you regard the human brain as a leech on the human organism.
E. O. Wilson: Trailhead [newyorker.com] is a nice read. Now imagine what it requires to individually and fairly compensate every ant in this society for their individual contribution as measured by the outcome to the hive of the trails they blaze or toil upon? You'd need a whole other ant hill just to keep track.
A founding principle of America is that all this score keeping is a pro bono service of the invisible hand. That's what "invisible" primarily means by those who invoke it: that you never see the bill for services rendered. A health system based on less individual score keeping for the corporate participants (such as the Canadian system) strikes most Americans as inimical to the American way, yet at the same time the cost of all this score keeping is brushed off the table as inefficiency and overhead endemic to the regulatory structure as opposed to being endemic to the problem itself, delivering health care products and services so complex and litigious and expensive it boggles the mind.
Yes, it's possible to stiff the invisible hand, if you don't mind watching 20% of American society line up for the soup kitchen while the nation fences with Asian tigers for increasingly sparse petroleum resources.
I've been trying to decode the lure of "the invisible hand" for over a decade. Visibility in America is anything or anyone that collects its debts; invisibility is everything else. Amazing what can hide in a word and for how long. The old gag in America is that as soon as the invisible hand becomes visible (by collecting its debt for services rendered) it's immediately dismissed as a burden of regulation, with the same fatuous logic that in a world with enough food for everyone, no one starves.
In the glib theory of the invisible hand, a twenty year old American male lacking health insurance who comes down with testicular cancer can borrow $100,000 against future earnings (without posting hard equity of which he has none), to cure himself of the cancer and remain a valuable member of the American work force, since this is the most sensible economic outcome. Equity-lite loans worked great with housing.
If your family posts equity, that's sugar-daddy insurance, a whole different ball game. In the American myth, everyone has a loving sugar-daddy to fall back upon when the heartless banks demand equity against their loans, and thus a productive future worker never falls through the cracks of too little treatment too late.
Re:There's more to this story (Score:4, Informative)
No, MA just makes you pay big tax penalties for not having health care. They don't provide you health coverage, though.
They set up group plans through private insurers, but you buy a plan through the state. They also expanded state aid for paying for the premiums. This means you can't be denied coverage or have to deal with pre-existing condition BS. The rates are also cheaper than normal open-market pricing.
Re:There's more to this story (Score:5, Insightful)
At the time, many large companies were switching to having huge numbers of contractors instead of regular employees.
It's true, there were a lot of companies abusing the private contractor exemptions. Many were doing it blatantly.
But now it's a handicap. There have been many times I could have stayed on with companies as a sub-contractor but they were afraid of getting dinged by the IRS.
We need something in between the wild west days when everyone was a contractor and what we have today. There has to be a better solution.
Lower than what?? (Score:5, Insightful)
I remember when this law was passed. At the time, many large companies were switching to having huge numbers of contractors instead of regular employees. Uniformly, these companies denied any benefits, like health insurance. Job security was also lower. I personally did a lot of contract work at the time. After the law passed, the big companies were forced to hire most of those contractors, with benefits.
I remember that too. That was during The Bubble.
And then after the bubble? Why most of those people were laid off. Only instead of being able to get by with smaller amounts of work the way mot people do, they spent years unemployed because they couldn't contract anymore and they couldn't find permanent work either.
I don't know why on earth you would say "job security was lower" because contractors at least always had a defined term of work and only in the most extreme circumstances would you be able to get rid of them even if you as an employee thought they sucked. Meanwhile at any moment Hammer Of Rightsizing could come down on you as an employee.
As for healthcare, there are a lot of people with spouses also working that can cover the health angle or you can opt to go with the catastrophic coverage (still pretty cheap) along with the tactic of setting aside something more than the $2-$3k deductible in a medical savings plan. Then you are covered for the big things but also can do the small stuff too if you want.
insurance games you (Score:5, Interesting)
One thing everyone is forgetting about health insurance. They cheat. Insurance doesn't pay what they should, and they'll always have some excuse. They can outright deny your claims. More common is burying you in technicalities that somehow amount to them paying a good bit less than they ought while trying to convince you and the doctors that they've paid their share. Watch Sicko sometime, and try not to let any bias you may harbor about the director interfere with the message.
First thing you know is the hospital is hitting you with one of their fantasy bills for something you thought was covered. You think you're only on the hook for 10% of the 30% of the completely scandalous list price the insurance negotiated when they entered into an agreement with the doctors. But then they won't pay it. They give you and the hospital a load of crap about how some of the drugs and procedures aren't approved, the visit is classified in a certain way, the particular deductible hasn't been met yet. They've got a mile long list of excuses. Denied by insurance, the hospital has the gall to turn around and demand from you not just the 30% the insurance was supposed to pay, no, but the full 100%, because of course you don't have any such agreement with the hospital. Pretty big jump when your share of the bill changes from 3% to 100%. I've had the hospital harassing me with weekly calls and finally siccing a credit collection agency on me for a bill that the insurance bastards should have and finally did pay after much determined calling and calling and calling and waiting on hold and waiting while they "investigate" and waiting for supervisors and listening to them blame the hospital for entering incorrect codes (to which I replied that it was the insurance's fault if they'd made the system too complicated for the doctors to get right), and angrily refusing when they try to tell me I should just pay up and stop making trouble. Cost me a lot of time to straighten out just one-- so much time that maybe I could have earned as much or more money than what the insurance tried to cheat me out of. I have several others that look like they're never going to be paid. And they didn't surface until more than a year after the medical work was all done-- that's how long the hospital tried to get fully paid through the insurance. To be fair, the hospital shares a good bit of the blame for their outrageous billing practices, in particular, the miserable fee for service system with the completely insane rates that somehow can't be figured out in a timely fashion because they've got to pack it with every service they can. Decided I was through arguing about it all and am just letting the rest rot. Statute of limitations FTW!
You may even have to find a lawyer to threaten to sue the damned insurance company.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Uuuummm... Yes. That’s why in Germany, it is illegal to be a “contractor” with only one single client. Which means you already have to start with more than one, to not become illegal when starting your self-employment.
I never got why anyone would work as a contractor for only one client anyway. Isn’t the whole point of being a contractor, that you have more than one client, and that if one of them is a dick, you can say fuck you, and still work for your other clients? (= “fire
Re:There's more to this story (Score:5, Informative)
Cost, lack of coverage for pre-existing conditions and in general the mess that is the US insurance industry.
Re:There's more to this story (Score:4, Interesting)
Most self-employed folks get health insurance sometimes and not others. I am no exception.
We dropped health insurance at one point because the insurer raised rates from $800/month to $1200/month just due to market pressures. This was after they used the "reasonable and customary" way out of paying about a third of what I expected them to pay. Looking at the cost/benefit, we decided that it would be far better to just drop the health insurance for a while than to keep it. Almost all the time we have had medical care required we have paid out of pocket anyway.
I agree we need health insurance reform, btw. However, the current proposals would make the situation worse rather than better for many self-employed folk such as myself and there are a number of much more urgent reforms that need to happen first.
Why is it we in the US require more transparency regarding costs of car repairs than we do non-emergency health care?
Re:There's more to this story (Score:5, Interesting)
Whoaaa! $800/month ($10k/annum)
In Australia:-
Everyone is covered with free emergency care in the public system. (Which is very good despite what fringe whiners say)
The public system has waiting lists for non life threatening stuff (Which can be days to years)
You have the option of buying private health insurance which for a family is around $2k/annum.
Private insurance gives you the choice of your own doctor in a private hospital.
Pre existing ailments usually have a one year exclusion.
Employers do not provide any form of health insurance.(because it is not required)
GP visits are covered under the Medicare system where you are refunded 50-100% of the consult.
If you spend more than about $1500/annum on medicines, the Govt covers the rest.
Some medicine is covered under a Pharmacetical Benefits Scheme which makes their cost around $15/treatment no matter what the price of the drug.
In the USA, it sounds like when the Military Idustrial Complex ran out of wars, they got into medicine.
Re:There's more to this story (Score:5, Insightful)
The insurance company. They won't even sell you a policy if you've ever so much as skinned your knee.
Re:There's more to this story (Score:5, Insightful)
But I was referring to the inherent shit of the setup not particularly the care you get when you are there. Most places in the world the system is this: you have healthcare. In the US it is incredibly complex, can result in huge legal troubles, shit tons of bureaucracy and changing jobs could result in you permenantly losing healthcare. (Rates can multiply by 10 when you change jobs due to conditions you get while working.) This type of setup can force people to essentially be slaves for their company since it is death if they switch. And that is just ONE possible example of complications. There are many more.
If i cut my hand badly I go: oh fuck I have to go to the hospital. In the states I go, oh fuck, is this covered? How much will my premiums rise? Is it worth the cost? I could probably be ok if i just kept it under pressure. Fuck, I shouldn't have quit my job last month. Do I think we'll come out of the recession fast enough or could I lose my house over this, maybe I can risk a thumb.
Things you shouldn't be thinking as your blood drains out of you and you risk your fingers going necrotic.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:There's more to this story (Score:4, Interesting)
But i was referring more to medically rather than lifestyle. Doctors doing more checkups, catching things earlier ends up saving more lives and money. One simple example of preventative vs repair work.
Re:There's more to this story (Score:5, Insightful)
I assume you're referring to the cost... In every other aspect, America has the highest overall quality health care and is always at the bleeding edge of medical technology - electronic, methodic, and pharmaceutical. This is a statistically proven fact.
Really? And yet the World Health Organization has it ranked at a lowly 37. http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html [photius.com]
Re:There's more to this story (Score:5, Informative)
Aggregate infant mortality rate 6.3 per 1000 - 33rd in the world, same as Brunei, slightly beating Poland.
You're good at cancer survival - 9th, but not as good as the amount of money thrown at it would indicate. And the evil nationalised socialised medical systems of Netherlands, Italy, Hungary,Luxembourg,Slovakia,Ireland, Czech Republic and New Zealand, beat you.
Your national system spends more than 7000 USD per year per head - nearly 3 times more than in the UK, and a third more than the second on the list.
Your life expectancy is then the 11th best in the world.
Sounds familiar? (Score:5, Insightful)
From TFA: In an earlier interview, Tom Burger, the director of employment taxes for the I.R.S., said one of the agency's difficulties ''is that, and I need to pick my words carefully, Congress passes laws, often without asking us about them, and then tells us to enforce them.''
Translation: Politicians make laws without knowing jack about the consequences and not even bothering to ask those that could tell them what kind of can of worms they are about to open. And then they're too pussy to admit they blundered.
Sounds familiar? A law gets passed that should cure some problem with the economy and the only thing it accomplishes is to cause troubles where there were none before while the problem continues to exist.
If I get that right, the law aimed at eliminating the "fake freelancing", where companies pretty much forced programmers into freelancing instead of hiring them, resulting in cheaper labour for them and shifting the risk and insurance burden on their not-quite-really-employee. Now, that still exists, with programmers now being passed about like slaves by temp agencies where they enjoy little less risk or much more insurance while at the same time losing their freedom entirely, while those companies still get the cheap programming labour they wanted, and at the same time the whole deal also keeps those programmers that are good and sought after enough to actually be (really) self employed and successful at it from actually being this.
Sounds very familiar...
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Enjoy corporatism (Score:3, Informative)
this is how it happens :
- you let individuals or groups to amass unlimited wealth
- eventually some reach the wealth level with which they can influence democratic processes or representatives
- the first individuals or groups to reach the above level start protecting their interests in lieu of everyone else
- laws do not work against this, because if you can influence democracy and its representatives, you can MAKE laws, as in the current example we are discussing (contract law)
- 'the people' get the shaft
The more interesting part (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The more interesting part (Score:4, Insightful)
but it is rather apparent that to be noticed by government
Speaking of which, I notice an uncanny lack of reporting over this incident. It exploded across the internet, but not really through the formal news channels. CNN, which covered the plane crash of a fighter jet into a residential neighborhood for DAYS with live footage, etc, only mentioned the crash briefly in their reports and on their website had only one small link that took you to the story.
But oh God, Tiger Woods just farted so let's dedicate a good 25% of each hour to THAT.
It's hard to avoid thinking that the government somehow "asked" the press to downplay this, and the press is complying. Just like you never really hear about the WARS anymore... This is the New World Order. Hell if it wasn't for the internet, all the news we'd get would be about Angelina, Brad and Tiger.
Re:The more interesting part (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, let's face it - Stack was a white American, so you can't drum up the "damn Islamic foreigners" angle.
Plus, he's demonstrated quite nicely just how pointless most airport security is these days. I'm pretty sure he didn't have to go through a full-body scanner, and yet once again a terrorist has managed to crash a plane into an office building.
Some random Arab kid screws up even *trying* to crash a plane, and it's news for weeks, with subsequent major overhauls of government practices and even the President getting involved. Some random white American SUCCESSFULLY crashes a plane, into a civilian target, and we get a brief mention one night. Double standards, what are those?
I was also disappointed that Slashdot didn't post anything at the time (at least, this is the first story I've seen). Guy was a computer programmer, so there's the nerd angle. Plus, this site has been obsessed with any story hinting of this since 9/11.
Re:The more interesting part (Score:5, Insightful)
Civilian means non-military.
And I can't blame him for his choice.
I can. Because I'm not a sociopath.
Re:The more interesting part (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't be idiotic.
However much I despise the politics involved in the UK's rough equivalent, "IR35", that would not grant me one iota of dispensation to kill and maim civil servants just carrying out their jobs, however annoyingly (and I have some top annoying-tax-inspector stories of my own I can assure you). These are average Jo(e)s with families and what have you, not snarling special army corps with their bodies and minds pumped full of evil setting out to eat babies every morning.
I've just tonight sent another angry letter to our Prime Minister (responsible for IR35 when he was Chancellor) and the head of the opposition (who is quite likely to be PM in a very few weeks) with the link to the NYT item pointing out that IR35 remains oppressive *and* ineffective at raising more taxes, hoping that there is a chance that they'll think again. Do you think that maiming innocent third parties would be more effective in *any* way?
Rgds
Damon
Re:The more interesting part (Score:4, Interesting)
Speaking of which, I notice an uncanny lack of reporting over this incident. It exploded across the internet, but not really through the formal news channels. CNN, which covered the plane crash of a fighter jet into a residential neighborhood for DAYS with live footage, etc, only mentioned the crash briefly in their reports and on their website had only one small link that took you to the story.
Are you watching the same media I am? My CNN (you know, the one on the actual TV, not the one in your head) had nothing but the Stack crash for several hours on the day that it happened, including live footage of the outside of the building for as long as that was available. Then continued to mention it several times every time I've turned CNN on since then. MSNBC and Fox News have been covering it quite a bit as well.
But oh God, Tiger Woods just farted so let's dedicate a good 25% of each hour to THAT.
That's a good point. But when they also devote 30% of every hour to Stack, that pretty much kills your argument.
It's hard to avoid thinking that the government somehow "asked" the press to downplay this, and the press is complying.
Ok, now you're just trolling. We've already established your premise is false.
Double-Standard (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Double-Standard (Score:5, Insightful)
This AC needs modded up.
Just because the guy hated the same things as other libertarians that does not make him less of a terrorist nutbag.
Re:Double-Standard (Score:4, Informative)
One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist. Always has been, always will be. What's more, the only way that that question is settled is by who wins the war. If the revolutionaries win the war, the Freedom Fighters stay Freedom Fighters. If the government wins, the Terrorists stay Terrorists.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This guy was a fundamentalist libertarian terrorist.
BZZZZTTTT! Libertarians don't go around quoting Marx.
Sorry. Try again.
Re:Double-Standard (Score:4, Interesting)
This guy was a fundamentalist libertarian terrorist.
BZZZZTTTT! Libertarians don't go around quoting Marx.
Sorry. Try again.
Glen Beck goes around quoting "progressives." Does that make him a progressive?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Glen Beck is little more than a political comedian. It's not his fault that progressives seem to say the funniest (in a scarry way) things.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
This guy was a fundamentalist libertarian terrorist.
BZZZZTTTT! Libertarians don't go around quoting Marx.
Sorry. Try again.
Sure they do. Makes them sound well-read.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
So we can't objectively identify whether or not he had a point?
Obviously terrorism is evil and should be stopped, but it doesn't mean we should shut off our brains.
Re:Double-Standard (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Double-Standard (Score:4, Insightful)
I bet Stack didn't even have his water bottle confiscated at security. No wonder he was able to crash a plane!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No this was not terrorism, here is why.
It was a lone act by one person and there is no expectation of repeated acts by his group or him. Terrorism implies pushing a goal for a group through repeated violent actions....hence the terror part. If he were to say blow up that building and then send in a letter saying he will continue this until he gets what he wants then yeah that would be terrorism. Repeated acts of violence to push an agenda is terrorism. A lone act by one person that can not or will never com
Good luck getting it repealed now (Score:4, Insightful)
If it was part of this nutjob's manifesto, now if Congress repeals the law it will look like the government can be swayed by terrorism. Since the government never ever wants to appear to be that way, this law will now have to remain on the books forever.
Way to go.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If he was so desperate and just wanted to end it, he could have eaten a bullet on the steps of the building. Same message, way less risk to others.
He wanted to be a terrorist, he just did not do a good job of it.
Re:Good luck getting it repealed now (Score:4, Insightful)
Call it what you will. You push people hard enough and eventually they start pushing back. I see an interesting future for the US - the "land of the free" where 12 year olds are arrested for writing on school desks. Very interesting indeed. Will they still be terrorists when they are fighting and dying for your rights?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The reality here is the only thing this asshole was try to fight for was the right to be a tax cheat.
Just like your founding fathers. After all, excessive TAX was the REASON for the revolt - or at least the one put forward in school books. Oh wait, were you trying to make a different point with your comment? Were you trying to say that the founding fathers were somehow "good terrorists" and this guy is a "bad one" because he had tax issues?
You picked a bad example
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
No, I picked that example for that reason. You see the founding fathers did not want to pay taxes,s o they fought a war and made their own country, this asshole wanted to just lie on some forms. They had more dedication, he was just a wimp who offed himself the minute things did not go his way.
The reality is the founding fathers got very little for their tax, we today get far more. Look at all those wars the american people so dearly love, we have at least 2 going at any given time.
Re:Good luck getting it repealed now (Score:5, Insightful)
Tip of the iceberg or just another wing nut? (Score:5, Interesting)
The question I have is whether this guy is the tip of the iceberg or whether he's just another wing nut who can't admit when he's lost whatever argument he got in.
He does make some complaints in his screed about the kinds of issues that even rational people are worried about -- big government, big corporations and a "system" that feels stacked against individuals; some of these issues have been kicking around among conspiracy theorists and paranoids forever, yet a Treasury run by ex-bankers that loans out a trillion dollars to bankers and others who make sure the banks get paid is only too real.
Is unemployment and the rest of it going to create more of these guys?
he was mentally ill (Score:4, Insightful)
He blamed 'politicians, the Catholic Church, the "unthinkable atrocities" committed by big business and the government bailouts' for his own failures to reach his goals. This is classic schizophrenic behavior, it is delusions of grandeur. With delusions of grandeur, you are convinced you are the most amazing person in the world and you should be able to succeed at anything. When you don't succeed, you start finding reasons as to why. And since you're convinced you are the best, you start at the top, because clearly it takes powerful forces to keep a great man like you down.
So you blame any powerful group. The government, big religion and big business.
My uncle had the same symptoms. He had all his genius ideas written down and the government was trying to steal them (physically!). He wrote to Kofi Annan (the head of the UN) to tell him that George Tenet (the head of the CIA) was in the building across the street spying on him. This is how these delusions work. Not only is the government out to get you, but the important people in the government are involved!
So what makes these guys? Well, primarily their own mental illness. The media has a role (previously lore did) in helping them choose the bad guys who they are going to list as out to get them. But the media doesn't create them, they'd just select other enemies if the media changed their tune.
You owe taxes if you are a "non-contractor" (Score:4, Informative)
The issue with this would impact someone who forms his own contracting firm and starts to deduct business expenses like getting from home to the job site, home office costs, etc... If he is later declared to be an employee, all those deductions get disallowed and he owes the back taxes. I suspect that, if he incorporated and paid himself mostly by distributions, he also paid his taxes at capital gains rates instead of the wage rates. That's a privilege restricted to lawyers, doctors, financial consultants, investment fund managers, and corporate officers.
Now, originally, the law's effect would have been balanced by the way that it kept companies like Microsoft and IBM from just making everyone a contractor to remove benefits, but the corporation quickly figured out that they could use temp agencies as a middle-man. It wasn't until a major lawsuit in the late 1990s that companies became sensitive to the idea that if it walks like a duck (employee) and quacks like a duck (employee), then it is a duck (employee) that can sue you for benefits. After that suit, many companies started brining contractors back on the payroll to avoid later class action claims.
Boo hoo (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah this poor guy could only afford a nice house and a plane. Just imagine, without that terrible law, he could have been able to afford a two engine plane and a slightly nicer house!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Just the devils advocate.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This asshole was a tax cheat. You want us to feel sorry for a tax cheat? Someone that costs me money as an honest tax payer. If I thought there was a hell I would wish that this asshole rot in it.
irrational or rational response? (Score:3, Interesting)
I was traveling through airports when I happened to see this story on the news, so I haven't caught up on all the details, but one thing disturbed me: the lying heads went on and on about how mentally disturbed this man must have been, and how could we identify such mentally disturbed people in the future, but never once did they ponder whether this was a rational response to an untenable situation. Never once did they question the role of a convoluted, maddening, and probably illegal tax code.
It is difficult living in a country where there is little rule of law because the multitude and complexity of laws makes virtually everyone eligible for a felony conviction at the arbitrary whim of unaccountable government officials. If Mr Stack had run into such persecution his response may well have been the only rational one. What other avenues were open to him to escape from the situation? Good riot police know that they should never cut off an angry crowd's escape routes, as they will have no choice but to fight, and most of us have heard of the dangers of a cornered animal, but what opportunities did Mr Stack have to avoid what he (probably accurately) described as a kind of slavery?
In short, if Mr Stack had no viable alternatives, or if he was feeling especially patriotic, this response may not have been irrational. If all his friends and colleagues never suspected that he was insane, it may be because he wasn't. The fact that his suicide note was angry and used profanity does not necessarily mean that Mr Stack was mentally unbalanced - it may simply mean that he had good cause to be angry. If someone tried to enslave you, would you be angry? Would you say some naughty words? If so, does that mean that you are wrong or mentally ill to object to being enslaved, or does it mean that the bastard who is trying to enslave you is wrong?
The fact is, all Americans have become or are becoming the slaves of the United States government, which in turn has become the instrument by which those who take more than they give (at present 60% of Americans) have harnessed the productive classes for their own benefit. This is the tyranny of the majority, and it looks like it will only increase in the future. Talking to people overseas, I have met many who envy American wealth but none who envy American "freedom".
The fact that the lying heads on the News never addressed this question concerns me. The American media is no longer interested in discovering the truth, they merely do the bidding of their employers - and with the U.S. government being the largest advertiser, guess who their employers are? It may well be that Mr Stack really WAS crazy, but we will never learn the truth from the media.
The tax code is really a minor problem though (Score:3, Informative)
I would point you to Three Felonies a Day [amazon.com] by Harvey Silverglate.
Silverglate should have a great deal of appeal here. He was deeply involved in the ACLU, was a founding member of FIRE, and was the first litigation counsel for the EFF.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Stack's note claims that his problems stem from $12,000 in unreported income that his wife had, and a piano that had been claimed as a business expense or asset that the IRS said was not. He also mentioned having his retirement reset to 0, but hey, that's about as common as having freckles or wearing glasses.
This caused him to destroy a house worth $250,000 and a plane that is probably worth $20,000 to $40,000. The unpaid tax on $12,000 might have been $4,000 at most, maybe doubled with penalties especial
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, the situation is probably worse, with the most productive being sucked dry. You have to differentiate between the productive rich and the thieving rich and the parasitic poor and the honest poor. The value creators and value producers are presently being vampirized by the rest, and they physically number very close to 60%.
The simple truth is that there is a net transfer from net taxpaxers to those that aren't. You might want to read the excellent article on the topic over at http://www.vinsupry
Simple solution (Score:3, Interesting)
Gross receipts tax. It's like a VAT, but on everything you receive. No deductions, no exemptions, no exclusions. Applies to everyone with a tax ID (i.e. persons and corporations). Double taxation for small businesses? Yup - you get the protection of the government via corporate veil, you pay the extra. (disclaimer - I own an S corp - I would be double taxed)
Then it doesn't matter what is deductable. It doesn't matter how you make it or where it comes from - gifts, cap gains, interest, wages, inheritance. It favors local production (fewer middlemen). It's easy to administer. Everybody pays something.
It does not, however, allow for social tinkering via the tax code, so it will never be adopted.
Re:Can someone who understands the IRS explain? (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you mean 'criminal and non-citizen slave'?
Or 'is an example of how Congress enacted a discriminatory law that hurt thousands of technology consultants, their staffing firms and customers. And despite strong bipartisan efforts and unbiased studies supporting that law's repeal, it remains on the books.'?
The gist of it is that the 1986 law withdrew a special exemption for high tech workers, along with a whole bunch of other tax shelters (the law is most hostile to individuals that work full time using resources provided by a company and with supervision from an employee of the company, while claiming that they are a corporation doing contract work for the company).
Re:What Special Exemption? (Score:5, Informative)
No. In the 1770's, the government taxed imports for its operating funds. It did not tax income. It was not authorized to tax income, and if you had suggested that they should do so at the time, likely you would have been shot, hung, or worse. Here's how it actually went:
The federal income tax was first enacted in 1862 to pay for civil war expenses on the part of the Union. They subsequently eliminated it in 1872; turned around again and revived it in 1894; and then finally it was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1895. Then in 1913, the 16th Amendment put income tax into the "authorized powers" category, and that's where we are today.
Re:Can someone who understands the IRS explain? (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not a tax attorney, but I do know a little about the situation. Here's a brief summary:
There's a lot of concern over how to classify workers as either "employees" or "independent contractors." Each has its own pros and cons, but in general, it's better for a company to consider its workers as contractors from a tax perspective. Because taxes are radically different based on how an employee is classified, a misclassification that is turned up by the IRS can be very expensive for a company. As such, there is a "safe harbor" which protects companies who have a reasonable basis in considering an employee to be an independent contractor.
There was a sense this was being abused in the technology industry in the 1980s, and as such, Congress amended the law. The amendment didn't change the classification system of employees versus independent contractors, but did remove the safe harbor. As such, companies became much more reticent to hire a worker as an independent contractor, because the penalty for getting it wrong was much more likely to be assessed.
Re:Can someone who understands the IRS explain? (Score:5, Insightful)
Basically, it's a duck law. If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and walks like a duck it is a duck.
If you work for one company long term, doing what is essentially a full time position, then you are an employee whether you want to be or not and are entitled to things like health care and you employer is required to pay payroll taxes. It doesn't matter if you call yourself a consultant or work out of some sort of shonky staffing agency, and more importantly it doesn't matter if your employer calls you a consultant and hires you through some shonky staffing agency.
In theory it's to protect the rights of workers so they get all the benefits of full time employees if that's what they are, however in reality it's to close a tax loophole. Ya see the thing is generally speaking capital gains tax is less than income and payroll tax. Consultants running their own companies generally pay capital gains on most of their income whereas employees pay income tax and their employers pay payroll tax, which generates more revenue for the government. The extra benefits for employees are nice too, but that isn't really the goal.
Now the thing about this law is that if you actually are a consultant(you know, changing clients regularly, working for multiple clients, or doing work that isn't standard 9-5 work) none of this affects you, you're still a consultant and you still get the pluses and minuses of that arrangement. If you're not really a consultant(more than a year at the same place, no additional clients, doing what would normally be a salaried position) then your employer has to treat you as an employee. This means paying payroll tax, health benefits, 401k if applicable, which is of course expensive. Generally speaking if this happens a company decides to either get a real consultant or get a real employee. If they make you a real employee it generally means a pay cut(since they're paying all those benefits) and essentially the end of the little consulting business you had going.
Now none of this is in and of itself a problem, people who were being exploited got their proper benefits, the tax man got his money, and real consultants weren't affected. The problem is that some people are either stupid or lying to themselves. They want all the stability and routine of a salaried position with the higher salary, lower taxes, and theoretical freedom of a consultant. Essentially they want to be consultants without incurring any risk. This, of course, doesn't work because the loser in this relationship is the government who gets fewer tax dollars, and everyone who does the right thing since they're paying extra tax to make up for you dodging yours.
There were a few problems because of people who really couldn't face doing either real consulting or real employment(which this guy seems to be one of with the whole slave thing) or who invested a lot of money and time into their business shell even though they weren't actually using it. All in all it's a fair law though, real consultants stay consultants, real employees stay employees, people who are in the wrong category get moved to the right one. Everyone pays the taxes they owe.
The moral of the story is that consultants get higher pay and lower taxes because they incur higher risk(a consultant/contractor may or may not have work at any given time and has pretty much zero protections) and you can't get rid of the risk and still retain the other benefits.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
How are contractors realizing capital gains? Are they 'creating' software and then transferring ownership of it?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
If you bill as an individual, 100% of the revenue (after expenses) gets hit with 15.2% ss/medicare tax. So you incorporate and instead of paying yourself a salary, the company issues a monthly dividend which is exempt from the 15.2% ss/medicare tax.
Sounds good, but there are 3 things to keep in mind:
Re:Can someone who understands the IRS explain? (Score:5, Informative)
Here is the deal - companies pay out money in a few different ways.
They can pay money to vendors for services rendered. Generally there is no tax on this, but it can't go to an individual directly, and it might be taxable by states/etc.
They can pay money to an employee - W-2 and all that. That is how 99% of the US population gets paid. The recipient pays income tax on that.
They can pay money to their shareholders in the form of dividends. The shareholders pay capital gains taxes on that money, which is a nice low percentage so that rich people don't have to pay taxes. There is also the issue of double-taxation, but most big corporations have so many tax shelters that they don't pay those anyway (just watch the Frontline episode on companies buying sewer systems in Europe and leasing them back to communities, and so on).
When you have a company of 1 you can elect to pay yourself in salary, or in dividends. The latter is FAR more beneficial tax-wise, although you first need to realize the money as corporate profits and pay corporate taxes on it. If you pay yourself as salary then chances are you won't have many corporate profits to speak of and so corporate taxes will be low (a salary counts as an expense on the balance sheet - a dividend does not).
The reason dividends are attractive is that before you pay them to yourself you can offset them with all kinds of expenses. Driving to your client pays for your car, any computer used mostly for work purposes is a deduction, lunch with the client is a deduction, and so on. Ordinary employees are expected to pay for their own commutes and pay taxes on that money at a much higher rate on top of that.
Hope that explains some of the nuances here. Disclaimer: I'm not a tax accountant, and I'm not an expert on this stuff in any way so a detail here or there might be off.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
In theory it's to protect the rights of workers so they get all the benefits of full time employees if that's what they are, however in reality it's to close a tax loophole. Ya see the thing is generally speaking capital gains tax is less than income and payroll tax. Consultants running their own companies generally pay capital gains on most of their income whereas employees pay income tax and their employers pay payroll tax, which generates more revenue for the government.
I like your post, not being argume
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
All Section 530 does (which the 1706 amendment exempted programmers, drafter and other similar technical people) is to make it easier for employers who hire independent contractors to protect themselves of the "contractor" fails to pay his taxes. Someone who works for another can easily file a form with the IRS claiming that in fact they were an employee, not a contractor--and that could cause an employer to be subject to an audit and owe employment taxes.
By exempting programers and drafters and other techn
Re:Was it a cause of his legal trouble? (Score:5, Informative)
That's not how I read the article. The law creates tax issues for individual programmers who incorporate: if your business has only one employee and is less than one year old, the IRS comes looking for you. And as a matter of policy, the IRS is harassing _the employers_ of such contracting companies. The result is to discourage individual programmers from incorporating on their own.
Partly due to the economic issues lately, I've had _a lot_ of recruiting companies trying to recruit me to leave my work and come help them earn their recruiting fees. It's taken me a lot to stop laughing, sadly, when they say how lucrative it is: salary equal to my current salary, but without benefits or vacation, unemployment, and on a "temp to perm" basis for a company that is already falling apart due to letting their qualified engineers go at the start of the crisis is not a good place to go. I've reviewed the potential for consulting, and while it makes sense for some, it's not the wonderful and economically sound decision that many recruiters would have you believe.
Re:Was it a cause of his legal trouble? (Score:5, Interesting)
Look: If you want economic security as your top priority, don't be self-employed. Starting a business or going out on your own universally means that one must be willing to accept a lack of security. And for all that you have to work harder than anyone else.
Furthermore, every new business fails. It isn't a question of if you will run out of money. It is a question of when. More money doesn't solve that problem. What separates out a successful from an unsuccessful business is that the successful one manages to keep going through the failure and eventually arrives at success. If you don't have the fortitude to do it, don't.
There are a lot of benefits to starting such a business, though. They include freedom and the possibility in time to earn more than you would working for someone else. I prefer this route, but I would certainly not recommend it to everyone.
Re:Was it a cause of his legal trouble? (Score:5, Insightful)
The point isn't about economic security. (Although there's really very little more as an employee than as a contractor.)
The point is that the IRS has singled out - for persecution, one might argue - small (both one-man and slightly larger) technology companies to investigate this issue.
Re:Was it a cause of his legal trouble? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm sorry, but I work for a company in the top 10 of the fortune 500 and with the economy the way it is I'll be _lucky_ to not be outsourced by the end of this year.
Job security in IT is _not_ joining a large company that is going to ship your job overseas the second they realize they will save 50%+ letting you and your staff go.
Going out on your own may not yield the best results up front, but once you get a somewhat stable client base you are basically secure.
In the world of outsourcing IT, keeping yourself visible and available is the way to go. Not locking yourself behind some corporate facade that will drop you first chance they get.
Re:Was it a cause of his legal trouble? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm pretty certain the Stack tragedy represents the outcome of some form of mental illness, not terrorism or a political statement. The jury is still out, but the rant seems kind of pointless.
OTOH, section 1706 has been a bone in my craw and the deep seat of a sincere grudge I hold very firmly. It was obviously a sop to IBM and when it emerged from reconciliation, also Cap Gemini and other large contracting organizations (at the time, AKA "body shops"). It was very obviously intended as an anti-competitive measure against people just like me. I have personally observed the negative influence of section 1706 on my business and career on more than a dozen occasions.
For the people who say "just work around it" - that's the point - it's another increment in the cost of doing business. Also it increases the risk to your customers - they have to verify you're not going to face them with an unforeseen tax liability. And so the whole market was modified to favor the large firms at the expense of entrepreneurship. And then there's the obvious begging hand of Congressional shakedown held out whenever someone tries to get the law changed to remove this double-dealing injustice.
Fucking Parasite Bastards. I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels this way. All these holier-than-thou pro-IRS bigots who holler "we're just following the law" or "We did our job fairly" need to consider the consequence of laying down to bed with tyranny. It isn't something which may be excused with happy talk and a smiley face!
Re:Was it a cause of his legal trouble? (Score:5, Informative)
I'm pretty left wing, but I lived through that insanity:
1. The IBM PC had just become a viable business computer
2. Firms had an incredible need for decent programmers
3. Decent programmers commanded pay 2-3 times what was then considered reasonable salary for a recent college grad (i.e. way outside corporate pay scales)
4. Firms had a hard time telling good vs bad programmers apart
so...
5. Firms hire programmers as consultants, pay them market wage, but have the ability to easily fire them by not renewing contracts
6. Programmers self incorporate because that is the only way firms are equipped to pay them
7. Programmers quickly realize that they can write off giant amounts of income as business expenses (travel, meals, home computers, video games, home office space, etc.)
then...
8. Law is passed to prevent this if basically:
a. You claim to be a sole proprietor, and
b. All your billing is coming from a single corporation (i.e. you are really an employee, not a consultant.)
IIRC, I avoided the law by forming a two person corporation with multiple billing streams.
Re:Was it a cause of his legal trouble? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Was it a cause of his legal trouble? (Score:5, Insightful)
IIRC, I avoided the law by forming a two person corporation with multiple billing streams.
After reading the idiot pilot's letter several times as well as the links provided, the solution to this tax situation is exactly what you did: create a partnership/hire another person, and have multiple concurrent projects.
For all the tax-avoiding mental gymnastics many of the antitax crowd employ, and with how smart they think they are, you'd think a simple, straightforward solution such as what you did would be obvious. Some people just don't want to pay taxes.
As the son of the IRS employee who was killed in this incident said, "if he [Stack] has a house and a plane he can pay his taxes." (Austin American-Statesman, 2/21/2010).
Re:Was it a cause of his legal trouble? (Score:5, Insightful)
For all the tax-avoiding mental gymnastics many of the antitax crowd employ, and with how smart they think they are, you'd think a simple, straightforward solution such as what you did would be obvious. Some people just don't want to pay taxes.
You've made a mistake here. The anti-tax crowd aren't against paying their taxes. They don't want to have to go through any kind of "straightforward" gymnastics to avoid taxes. They just want the taxes to not be in the way to avoid.
Because of the complexity of the tax laws, we now have a new activity which somehow is frowned upon by everyone (and committed by nearly as many.). An activity which is not only perfectly legal, but also presumably encouraged. You've even advocated that activity right here, but for some reason there are people decrying "Tax Avoision."
Why not just not have that complexity. Have a tax code that's short enough for a single person to read completely through in less than 2000 hours of reading (leaving two weeks for actual work). Every section you can't read is a section you can't be sure doesn't apply to you. If you're on the hook for criminal liability for failing to adhere to "must" sections, then you must be able to read them. And that's not even counting the money you lose by not having time to find "may" sections.
That's far too glib. (Score:5, Interesting)
More accurately, it is likely he had a house and a plane because he did not pay his taxes.
After paying for his legally required share of the two utterly ridiculous wars we are prosecuting, US bases all over the world, the cost of keeping an unprecedented number our citizens in jail, subsidies for businesses that otherwise would naturally fail... he might very well have been unable to purchase a house, much less an aircraft. 20% to 40% of one's income in your hands over the years (more, if you actually do the math*) makes for quite a difference in how you can approach purchasing big ticket items like homes and boats and so forth; and if in doing so, whether you ride the wheel of debt that has been arranged for us, or if you are able to actually make such purchases without incurring additional costs in interest.
It is well to keep in mind that like any enterprise that involves the legal system, trying to stand up for a position that the government finds itself in disagreement with - legitimately or otherwise - is also a hugely expensive undertaking, easily capable of bankrupting any person of average income. The presumption that you can fight city hall is false for most people. It's just another way to shipwreck your life.
Perhaps taxes are too high, and government too large, after all. I seem to recall that there are Americans who are looked upon as heroes because they fought against unreasonable tax policies. Is it fair to assume that each and every one of those we hold in such high regard perfectly managed their lives? This guy clearly could have made different decisions (no doubt most of them to his detriment), but would they have been "right", or merely compliant?
I could point out many historical examples of "law abiding citizens" that most certainly were not doing "right." To call this fellow an "idiot", as you do, is to attempt to wrap the whole event in a nutshell of disrespect that does not serve the interests of the dead IRS employees, the family Stack left behind, or, frankly, the rest of the nation.
It does, however, serve the needs of the government. An entity that is more in need of careful pruning than encouragement, in my opinion. I can't support Stack's action, because in the end, these people were neither his enemy nor the source of his problems. However, from where we stand today, it is history, and all I can do is hope that more people think about the problem, instead of assuming it is inevitable that we pay such huge amounts for "services" that primarily benefit other than the general population. Perhaps while they're at it, they'll think about how the government has stepped outside the boundaries defined for it by its formal authorizing mechanism.
After all, a government that is doing what it was actually authorized by its citizens to do is a lot less likely to incur the wrath of its citizens, thinking rationally and "acting rightly", or not.
---
*note: The amount of your money that goes to taxes is the amount you actually pay directly, plus the amount paid by any first-party you do business with. For instance, if you pay a plumber $100 to fix your pipes, and the plumber is paying a 25% tax rate, then $25 of the $100 you gave the plumber goes directly to the same tax well that your direct taxes do. Here's the math. Let's say you and the plumber are both paying 25%. Then, you initially earned $133; the government taxed you 25%, which is $33.33, and now you have $100 left. Now you give that $100 to the plumber, who in turn has to give $25 of that income (25%) to the government. $75 of your $133 has arrived in the plumber's hands, actually paying for the plumbing work. Your actual tax rate here is 75/133 which is about 56% - not the 25% that it initially appears to be.
And the income of the plumber, w
Re:That's far too glib. (Score:5, Insightful)
Ok, let us carry your argument to its logical conclusion: your original dollar passes through your hands, your plumber's hands, the local hardware store's hands, etc, getting taxed at 25% at each point. Eventually, all the money goes back to the government in taxes. Wow, we have a 100% tax rate!
Maybe you want to reexamine your model?
The horror! Obviously, the economy is broken. Oh, except you got your pipes fixed, the plumber made a profit and bought more stuff, the hardware store owner got to buy food for dinner, etc. And somehow, the government wound up with $1 to spend on fixing the roads, hiring a policeman, or whatever.
Re:That's far too glib. (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it'll never be 100%, because (for one thing) you actually get the work and service you requested as part of the transaction. For another, every time that dollar changes hands, it provides more goods and services, although less and less as it works its way downstream.
You didn't understand what I wrote. I suggest you go back and read it again, as many times as necessary, until you do. You are correct in that taxation further downstream detrimentally affects how much you pay for things; you are very much incorrect to assume it reaches 100%. As it goes downstream, the effect diminishes considerably. First order effects are the main load. The fact is, your real tax rate specifically determines what goods and services you get for your dollar. That means taxes applied to your purchases - no matter what they are called - reduce the ability of your dollar to function on your behalf.
No. I earned $133; I was enabled to apply $75 to engage services or purchase goods; the government got $58 with which it then generally spends servicing a huge debt it should never, ever have gotten into, with the remainder mostly paying for services I do not consider useful, much less necessary, notable exceptions being roads, education, and the like.
My hope for you is that someday you actually understand what is being done to you.
Re:That's far too glib. (Score:5, Insightful)
Right, you get stuff, pay the provider, and pay some tax.
But, you claim we must also include the tax the plumber pays as part of your effective tax rate. What is your reason for claiming that? The plumber is a tax-free entity? The plumber is the final consumer of dollars? Dollars are backed by plumbing supplies? Plumbers are tax-exempt?
Your argument makes very little sense, unless:
Ah, the "I was born, raised, and educated in the USA, now I'm paying taxes, I have the moral right to decide what I should be paying for. Oh, and I repudiate the national debt: sure it helped pay for my education, provided roads, sanitation, a safe place to grow up in, but I didn't vote for it, so no obligation here."
But prices are not determined by taxes (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact is, your real tax rate specifically determines what goods and services you get for your dollar. That means taxes applied to your purchases - no matter what they are called - reduce the ability of your dollar to function on your behalf.
You are implying that if that tax rate was lessened, I would somehow have had "more money" to spend on plumbing. But that is not necessarily true because prices are set by the market not by the tax rate. Even if the plumber had to pay $0 in taxes, he would still charge me the same $100 if the market would bear it. The taxes that businesses pay are simply a cost of doing business, which is only one input into price.
My hope for you is that someday you actually understand what is being done to you.
This seems really melodramatic. You said that maybe Stack could not have afforded his house if he had paid his taxes, but I pay my taxes every year and presumably so do most of the businesses where I spend my money. And yet, I have little problem affording my house and many businesses turn profits. Taxes are simply a cost to be managed. It's a very good idea to minimize them--yes--but IMO it's ridiculous the degree to which some people get emotionally involved in the concept of taxation.
Re:Was it a cause of his legal trouble? (Score:5, Informative)
Corporations with multiple headquarters and Lear jets don't end up paying the taxes Joe was required to pay.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't see any reason to pay taxes - they already TAKE TAX out of my check before I ever get it. Fuck paying them anything extra.
You are aware exactly how all that works, right? The amount taken from your paycheck has absolutely no effect on the total you have to pay for the year.
Re:Was it a cause of his legal trouble? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're living below poverty then you don't have the perspective of those of us living well above it. They aren't taking what they want. They're taking what you told them to take.
My only income isn't my job. It's the lion's share, but I have investments, too.
My withholding is set - by me - so that the monies that come out of my paycheck cover my expected investment income too.
Just how do you expect to the IRS to manage that trick?
By the way, why wouldn't you file taxes for every tax year you can if they owe you? A 1040-EZ is, well, easy. Back when I owned a business I helped a number of my employees do them rather than pay the H&R Block bastards. If you can do basic math it takes about 20 minutes.
If you're living on that little money, I'd think an extra few hundred or thousand would be most welcome.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This amounts to you giving the government an interest free loan. Keep the money and make interest on it yourself. (of course you get taxed on that interest too. grr)
Re:Was it a cause of his legal trouble? (Score:5, Insightful)
The only people who don't are those who want to avoid paying their proper share.
And people who understand the time value of money, which you obviously don't.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Awesome, we can basically make sure rich people pay practically no taxes at all.
Are you super rich or dumb?
Re:The IRS is not a *kind* organization... (Score:5, Insightful)
But they don't. See the thing is once you have so much money you basically can't spend it all. Add to that they will be paying less tax as a percentage of income and it gets really unfair. Heck, they also tend to spend lots of money on things that are not property so more money they spend without paying taxes on.
The only real fair tax would be, no tax on first X dollars made and Y% on every dollar made after. With no difference between money made via honest labor or capital gains, or dividends.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Because the organization that makes sure _every_ _single_ _retail_ _item_ has had its tax paid, necessitating intrusive monitoring ... won't have the name "IRS"?