The Secret Agent

Here's a surprisingly sober analysis of Joe Stack's screed/manifesto with a careful look at the IRS statute that Stack cited, and how that statute had very specific meaning for him: The Joe Stack Suicide Note: What Is He Talking About

Now why would that be a reason for an engineer to go down the slippery slope of rage based insanity?

Because when the IRS changed the code, it destroyed thousands of engineering independent contractors status. In the past, an individual could act easily as a small business, complete with all taxes and deductions allowed to a small business and take on projects directly with large companies, working in house, using their engineering workplace.

In fact it is necessarily for a consultant to do so on large, complex projects where equipment being used for advanced R&D is in the millions of dollars.

Independent consultants peddle their expertise, a unique niche of specialty skills.

But when the IRS did this, to capture those lesser skilled individuals who were being denied permanent employment and benefits so a corporation could save a buck, instead they captured these very experts, who ran their businesses by moving from technical firm to technical firm, utilizing their specialty skills and knowledge per project as needed.

That independent consultant, engineer, was charging lawyer rates, $100-$600 an hour, and the firm, corporation contracted with that individual directly.

Corporations would pay those rates and still do, for they needed that level of expertise, but unfortunately, again to the Sec. 1706, the engineer no longer is getting that money, instead a 3rd party contract house is, like a glorified slave trader.

Even worse, corporations will only use certain contract houses and it's not based on skills, expertise, ability, it's all based on some inside contract arrangement and preferred vendor status. Get it? Now trading people is considered to be a vendor. One is just a body and individuals with their technical expertise are traded like sacks of corn and potatoes.

Now, I feel compelled to point out that, if you have a beef with any government agency, your mother's admonition still applies: flying airplanes into buildings never solves anything! Stack was not just disturbed; he would meet any objective definition of terrorism, and would undoubtedly be labeled as such if he had a copy of Going Rogue in his knapsack.

Still, the above is interesting, not for the window it gives us into the soul of Joe Stack (I could care less), but for the window it opens into the daily struggle many Americans must engage in to comply with the myriad demands of the tax code. This is just one section of a massive code book, yet the statute's simple words effectively narrow the job opportunities of thousands of IT guys. They are utterly forestalled from selling their services directly, but are instead forced to go through an entirely superfluous third-party to what benefit I have no idea. It seems there was some concern that "corporations" were hiring independent contractors to avoid paying employee overhead like health benefits. Horrors! If you know how to swing it, the tax code can achieve all sorts of "social justice!"

Big government isn't just about teeming ranks of bureaucrats overseeing the expenditure of trillions of dollars in appropriations. It's also about the narrowing of opportunity in the name of equality. Someone, whether at the IRS or elsewhere, didn't like the fact that there were talented IT guys making their own deals and setting their own rates, rather than becoming corporate drones and getting "benefits." Forget Joe Stack, right now there are thousands of talented people who are unable to sell their services to the highest bidder because of this little provision in the tax code. Imagine how frustrating that must be. Now, imagine that repeated a thousand times, as the code is undoubtedly riddled with little nasties like this.

It's a portrait in miniature of our lost economic freedom.