Our Low-Tech Tax Code

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.'"

Comments

Re:Was it a cause of his legal trouble?

[LifesABeach]

OK, I'll bite. How is this post Flamebait? Fundamentally, Conservatives pursue an agenda of "Less Government Regulation". the Conservatives do not allow for "moderation",(pun intended), so that when Businesses begin to dominate the economy, as appose to share benefits,(in the form of Taxes), an economy's wealth is severely drained to the point of very slow wealth generation. An economy can rebuild itself, but only after the dominate business has changed its business method(s).

Re:There's more to this story

[h4rr4r]

I have no idea, but these assholes seems to keep fed.