Austin, Independent Contractors and Section 1706

From Slate: Alleged Austin attacker Joe Stack's suicide note railed broadly against the government and the IRS, but it also had a very specific piece of legislation in mind, the New York Times reports: Section 1706 of the 1986 Tax Reform Act, which Stack blamed for leaving him bankrupt. According to the Times, the law makes it nearly impossible for software engineers to earn a living as independent contractors and forces most freelancers into joining companies or going broke. The law was initially introduced as a favor to IBM (they wanted a tax break), and a number of lawmakers have made unsuccessful attempts to repeal it over the years. According to a Washington, D.C., lawyer, up to 100,000 engineers are currently affected by the legislation. "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," Harvey J. Shulman told the Times. While some critics—like Shulman—say that repealing the law would be good for the economy, others worry that it would "open a Pandora's box of other independent contractor issues."