tryfuhl
02-19-2010, 12:18 AM
Interesting comment left on Austin Crash Pilot Called "Easy Going" - CBS News (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/02/18/national/main6220956.shtml?tag=topnews)
20 years ago I worked as an accounts payable clerk for a now-defunct software company.
I saw enormous amounts of abuse of the independent contractor status of programmers (yes, they like to call themselves software engineers but they are programmers) by managers in that company. Quite often during layoffs they would lay off programmers then managers would hire their buddies back as contractors. Quite often I would issue checks for many thousands of dollars of software programs and hardware that would be given to the contractors then disappear off company premises, never to be seen again. Contractors were given office space, telephones, network connectivity and many other perks. The so-called "independent" contractors ruled the roost, and I also saw the damage it did to regular company morale. The managers got away with it because since none of the business owners, CEO or President could write software themselves, or came from a programmers background, they were afraid to go up against the managers. This was a symptom of weak leadership and in fact the software company failed and got acquired by another software company in 1994 - but it was several years before that company reined in the abuses - and I heard rumors that they still were involved in this sort of thing a decade ago in Santa Monica. (by then I had been gone for years from the company for greener pastures)
This is why the IRS is so tough on the status of contractors in the software industry. Because it is so easy to hide dollar amounts of the tools (computers and software) that these people use to do their work in the general corporate expenses, independent contractors seek out weak managers who are easy to buffalo into giving them things, and software companies are so often funded by venture capitalists who go ballaistic when they see headcount counts rise that it is easier for the manager to use a contractor than try to justify to a VC why you need to hire another warm body. The IRS is right to break up these sweetheart arraingements, as they are tax dodges of the worst order.
I have read this guys writings and they are nothing more than a series of attempting to dodge taxes by playing
the "independent software engineer" game throughout his life. He really had no understanding of how much public funding has supported his industry and the companies that he worked for, and how critical it is for those industries. Even today, 3/4 of the Internet is partly supported by public funding in the form of government tax carveouts for large ISPs and networks, and if the Internet didn't exist, most of this guys software firms that he's worked for wouldn't have existed either.
This is exactly how your typical conservative thinks - they are more than happy to plunge both trotters into the trough and suck up all that government support of their stuff, but when it comes to paying taxes for it they are the first to cut and run.
20 years ago I worked as an accounts payable clerk for a now-defunct software company.
I saw enormous amounts of abuse of the independent contractor status of programmers (yes, they like to call themselves software engineers but they are programmers) by managers in that company. Quite often during layoffs they would lay off programmers then managers would hire their buddies back as contractors. Quite often I would issue checks for many thousands of dollars of software programs and hardware that would be given to the contractors then disappear off company premises, never to be seen again. Contractors were given office space, telephones, network connectivity and many other perks. The so-called "independent" contractors ruled the roost, and I also saw the damage it did to regular company morale. The managers got away with it because since none of the business owners, CEO or President could write software themselves, or came from a programmers background, they were afraid to go up against the managers. This was a symptom of weak leadership and in fact the software company failed and got acquired by another software company in 1994 - but it was several years before that company reined in the abuses - and I heard rumors that they still were involved in this sort of thing a decade ago in Santa Monica. (by then I had been gone for years from the company for greener pastures)
This is why the IRS is so tough on the status of contractors in the software industry. Because it is so easy to hide dollar amounts of the tools (computers and software) that these people use to do their work in the general corporate expenses, independent contractors seek out weak managers who are easy to buffalo into giving them things, and software companies are so often funded by venture capitalists who go ballaistic when they see headcount counts rise that it is easier for the manager to use a contractor than try to justify to a VC why you need to hire another warm body. The IRS is right to break up these sweetheart arraingements, as they are tax dodges of the worst order.
I have read this guys writings and they are nothing more than a series of attempting to dodge taxes by playing
the "independent software engineer" game throughout his life. He really had no understanding of how much public funding has supported his industry and the companies that he worked for, and how critical it is for those industries. Even today, 3/4 of the Internet is partly supported by public funding in the form of government tax carveouts for large ISPs and networks, and if the Internet didn't exist, most of this guys software firms that he's worked for wouldn't have existed either.
This is exactly how your typical conservative thinks - they are more than happy to plunge both trotters into the trough and suck up all that government support of their stuff, but when it comes to paying taxes for it they are the first to cut and run.