Academic

So, while I was enjoying the hospitality of Gordon and BYU at the Fourth Annual Law & Entrepreneurship Retreat, Andrew Joseph Stack III flew his own Piper aircraft into an office building in northwest Austin, Texas, killing one IRS employee.  (NYT story here; complete Austin American-Statesman coverage here.)  Among other tenants of the building were the I.R.S., the F.B.I., and an arm of St. Edward's University.  There's obviously a lot going on below the surface for someone to commit suicide by flying a plane into a building, but much is being made of the fact that Mr. Stack, a software consultant, has cited Section 1706 of the Income Tax Reform of 1986, as turning him into a "criminal and non-citizen slave." 

This section, which has been the subject of repeal debates from time to time, is discussed thoroughly on TaxProf (fittingly enough).  The section seems to make it very difficult for a firm or individual to characterize "an engineer, designer, drafter, computer programmer, systems analyst, or other similarly skilled worker engaged in a similar line of work" as an independent contractor, creating the consequence that these individuals have difficulty starting their own firms and working for various clients instead of merely being employees.  A side box in the NYT on Friday quoted an attorney as saying ?This law has ruined many people?s lives, hurt the technology industry, and discouraged the creation of small, independent businesses critical to a thriving domestic economy."

First, if the tax law does have negative unintended consequence and nearly no benefits, as its detractors claim, then it should be repealed.  That being said, I'm glad that this story seems to not be gaining momentum (even as we are obsessed with other angered criminals, like Amy Bishop) or being used as part of a larger tax reform platform.  I tend not to want to know more about the beliefs of individuals or groups who seek to kill others by flying planes into buildings, blowing up trucks with fertilizer next to buildings or putting explosives in the mail.  (BTW, I also don't care to know whether Bishop's tenure denial was defensible or not for the same reasons.)