Austin-Crash Pilot Possibly Angered by Contract-Worker Tax Issue

MARTIN VAUGHAN
Wall Street Journal
Friday, February 19, 2010

WASHINGTON—Andrew Joseph Stack, identified as the pilot of a plane that slammed into an Austin, Texas, Internal Revenue Service office Thursday, apparently took issue with the agency in the 1980s over the proper tax treatment of independent contractors–a topic that to this day remains a sore point between the IRS and businesses.

Earlier Thursday, Mr. Stack is believed to have posted a seven-page screed on the Internet that describes his outrage over a provision in the 1986 tax-reform law which he said unfairly targeted software engineers like himself.

The posting also describes a more recent incident in which during an IRS audit it came to light that Mr. Stack had failed to report $12,700 of his wife’s income.

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“Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS man, let’s try something different; take my pound of flesh and sleep well,” the manifesto concludes.

The tax treatment of independent contractors remains an important enough that President Barack Obama sought to address it with a legislative budget proposal released this month.

• A d v e r t i s e m e n t

The proposal, which the White House estimated would raise $7.3 billion for government coffers through 2020, is a version of legislation Mr. Obama sponsored when he was in the Senate.

Full story here.

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