David Cay Johnston on Joe Stack & Vernon Hunter

Practical and Practice issues for Professionals who practice in the area of taxation. Moral, social and economic issues relating to taxes, including international issues, the U.S. Internal Revenue Code, state tax issues, etc. Not for "tax protestor" issues, which should be posted in the "tax protestor" forum above. The advice or opinion given herein should not be relied on for any purpose whatsoever. Also examines cookie-cutter deals that have no economic substance but exist only to generate losses, as marketed by everybody from solo practitioner tax lawyers to the major accounting firms.
Famspear
Knight Templar of the Sacred Tax
Posts: 7668
Joined: Sat May 19, 2007 12:59 pm
Location: Texas

David Cay Johnston on Joe Stack & Vernon Hunter

Post by Famspear »

David Cay Johnston has an article on Joe Stack, Vernon Hunter, section 530 of the Revenue Act of 1978 as amended by section 1706 of the Tax Reform Act of 1986, and other things.

The article is called "Tax Favors, IBM, and the murder of Vernon Hunter" (March 3, 2010).

An excerpt (I assert the Fair Use doctrine):
Vernon Hunter served two tours of duty in Vietnam, raised a solid family, and, according to family and coworkers, had he not been killed when a tax denier flew his plane into an IRS office building in Austin, Texas, the 68-year-old collections manager would have rushed to save others without regard for his own life.

Go to the Internet, however, and the person you will see hailed as a hero by his family and a patriot by his fellow tax deniers is Joseph A. Stack III [sic; should read Andrew Joseph Stack III], who never served, who set his home ablaze, and then used his personal airplane to murder as many IRS workers as he could because of his rage against taxes generally, and in particular, a 1986 tax favor for IBM.

Stack’s daughter, on ABC, called her father a “hero,” a word she later took back. But she made clear that she, too, is angry at the American tax system, although she inexplicably now lives, of all places, in heavily taxed Norway.

[ . . . ]

The February 18 crash quickly faded from the news — treated as the deadly actions of a lunatic rather than what it really was: an early warning sign of deep trouble in America, a trouble rooted in Congress’s abuse of its power to tax.

[ . . . ]
Interesting read.

See:

http://www.niemanwatchdog.org/index.cfm ... ndid=00434
"My greatest fear is that the audience will beat me to the punch line." -- David Mamet
Number Six
Hereditary Margrave of Mooloosia
Posts: 1232
Joined: Fri Aug 29, 2008 6:35 pm
Location: Connecticut, "The Constitution State"

Re: David Cay Johnston on Joe Stack & Vernon Hunter

Post by Number Six »

Thanks, Famspear--David Cay Johnston is one of the most lucid writers on tax issues, good article!
'There are two kinds of injustice: the first is found in those who do an injury, the second in those who fail to protect another from injury when they can.' (Roman. Cicero, De Off. I. vii)

'Choose loss rather than shameful gains.' (Chilon Fr. 10. Diels)