TX - IRS manager killed, 13 hurt in suicide plane crash, Austin, 18 Feb 2010

[KeenEyes]

local news reporting that there is a hero - I call him an angel - who saw the plane & then smoke from the building.

He is Iraq war vet who works for a glass company that installs glass windows like the ones on the Echelon bldg....he drove to the bldg before Fire & EMS got there...used his ladder to get 5 people off 2nd floor.

He had to break a glass window to get them out...(SBM)

I am in awe.:bananajump::Banane47::applause::gold_crown:

 

[Cher352]

What a horrible tragedy this has been and I believe it is one of God's miracles that more people were not killed or injured! Truly Amazing!!

As to his gripes with taxes and the IRS, if he was that upset he should have moved to another country and see what his tax dollars buys him there. Taxes are just one of the things we all have to put with to live in this great country.

 

[CountryGirl]

Nevermind, I found the answer: 1986.

So, he had been in business one year before the law changed and should have complied with the law.

In a nutshell, "Section 1706" made it so that the default presumption
for computer consultants was that they were employees, unless proved
otherwise.

~~
Bottom line: taxes (SS & Medicare) have to be paid. If self-employed, you pay both employee and employer percentages. I had to do quarterly payments when my small company was an LLC.

 

[justthinkin]

well this was news to me. from what i'd heard all day they were in the house and a neighbor got them out.

I live in Austin. I also heard that same story earlier in the day, but it was incorrect. The wife fled the house Wednesday night with her daughter because she was afraid of her husband's growing anger. She'd even spoken with her parents about him by phone. There are dozens of news reports out there stating the wife and daughter went to a hotel.

 

[justthinkin]

Nevermind, I found the answer: 1986.

So, he had been in business one year before the law changed and should have complied with the law.

In a nutshell, "Section 1706" made it so that the default presumption
for computer consultants was that they were employees, unless proved
otherwise.

~~
Bottom line: taxes (SS & Medicare) have to be paid. If self-employed, you pay both employee and employer percentages. I had to do quarterly payments when my small company was an LLC.

My understanding comes from the engineer I live with. He told me he knew exactly what the guy Stack was talking about, and that had Stack had his business incorporated he would have been off the hook. My understanding is that the ruling differed according to how the business was set up. I have to say, I may be wrong. A tax whiz I'm not!

 

[kbl8201]

i might have missed some of the articles when it was getting jangled up with diffrent threads........

 

[DEPUTYDAWG]

For no particular reason other than I'm compelled to look these things up, the FAA registration information on the plane:

http://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry/NNum_Results.aspx?NNumbertxt=2889D

Interesting, adnoid.

Wonder why he never changed his FAA registration to show his Texas address. It still lists the owner as Stack in Lincoln, CA.

 

[tk71texas]

This is a very sad story on so many levels, I know that I'm going to get yelled at for saying this but let me say first I do not at all agree with what this guy did, but I do totally understand where he is coming from. CNN has the suicide note posted and this guy made very valid points, actually the exact same points that I have made for years. This was not the rants of a mad man, this was a very intelligent man who was fed up and did something extremely stupid. He had written to his congressman, senator and just about everyone and everyone dismissed him. I know how he feels because I went through the EXACT same thing!!!!!!!!! I even once wrote to the white house and they put my letter on thier website and allowed people to comment, and they never bothered to remove my contact information. I was harrassed, and the other letters I had sent to my congressmen was responded with the cordial "thank you for writing" and never anything further.
There is NEVER a reason for murder and what he did was WRONG!!!!!!!! but what he went through is also wrong and nothing will ever be done about that, because it will never change, The government is NEVER held accountable for their actions, never ever, and what he said about their being two sets of laws one for the rich and the other for the rest of us, is exactly true!

Prayers tonight for those who suffered from this tragedy. Sadly if something isnt done to hold the government accountable. I feel there will be more of this.

i agree with you 100%

 

[DEPUTYDAWG]

Our fed agency received this email from an Austin IRS employee:



IRS CID Supervisory Agent Vern Hunter, 68 years old, was killed yesterday in the IRS building here in Austin that was struck by a small plane.

-----

Prayers and strength to Mr. Hunter's family. Mr. Hunter was 68 years old; just doing his job.


:furious:

 

[ziggy]

First - if you want to make it appear someone is crazy, call their writings "rambling" and label it a "manifesto".

Personally I find the man's writing very intelligent, cogent, and I can understand his pain. He is not crazy - he is a normal person pushed beyond limits by things he had no control over and after trying to gain control or make change in the conventional and acceptable method, just snapped when he realized it was futile and we are all living the lie.

For all of you who sit and criticize, I BET you've never had dealing of any significance with the IRS. Well, you're lucky; I've seen hard working and honest middle class people literally destroyed.

And he's right about one thing UNDENIABLY - you are locked into obeying a tax code that you and most people in this country will never even understand. Don't you find that criminal? The whole income tax idea is not what our founding fathers had imagined for our freedom and certainly not the "seize and freeze and find out later" ability of the IRS to presume guilt first when our society is about presumed innocence.

When people are pushed to a point of frustration that NO ONE WILL LISTEN and their voice in our supposedly free republic is not heard and no one give a ****, then this happens. It's not right, but I find it more a natural and foreseeable consequence of the corrupted and broken system we have allowed our representatives to create and to perpetuate.

These are foreseeable consequences my friends that our governement in its handling of the IRS can and should see - it is their duty to not drive normal hard working people to this disasterous point. Bailing out the big companies and letting the working people break their backs, force them to pay the government who uses their money to bail out the rich companies that are too big to fail. It's BS.

It's not the IRS fault, it's really the people who make these laws and vote on bills they cannot read and understand. The IRS is a body of the government that has to do the dirty work - I get that what he did was wrong, but objectively I understand and SOME liability should be leveled at our system in general and the corruption that we have come to see as "normal" in politics.


Rant off. sort of...

Having said that, I'm sorry people or person died. This poor guy died in vain as no one will ever look into the big picture and realize how out of control our tax system is and even our court system and family law system and CPS system and realize that unless changes are made, we can and should foresee more people going over the edge. When will our representatives wake up and see there is a causal connection?

 

[kbl8201]

this is why we have a ballot box.......this is why our troops fights (supposedly) to have the right to elect people to change the laws.

crasing into buildings, blowing up daycare centers, murdering atf agents, never change a darn thing

 

[Texas Mist]

More info on the Iraq war veteran hero

<snip>

The 28-year-old Iraq war veteran recalled Friday that he then saw black smoke billowing from the office building and rushed to the scene. A pilot furious at the Internal Revenue Service had slammed his plane into the building Thursday where about 200 IRS employees worked, killing himself and one other person.

De Haven said when he pulled up to the burning building he saw five people peeking through the broken glass. He hurled his 17-foot ladder off his truck and onto the building, helping to rescue them as thick smoke poured into the air.

"I wanted to go help," De Haven told The Associated Press. "I thought, 'I'm going to go ahead and do it.' I thought my boss would understand."
...........
Authorities have credited numerous stories of heroism for keeping the death toll so low in the crash. A glass workers union said Friday it wants to honor De Haven in Washington, D.C., and the company he works for said it has been flooded with phone calls and e-mails calling him a hero.

De Haven said after he extended his ladder and climbed to the second floor, he realized his ladder was unsteady and he couldn't help people down on it. So, he said he climbed inside the building and helped find a better escape route.

Once inside, he found four men and a woman were trapped inside and smoke was seeping in from the hallway.

De Haven and another man in the office broke open a window with an iron rod and made their way to a lower ledge where the ladder would be more secure.

"I don't feel like a hero," he said. "I was just trying to help," he said.

more here

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/state&id=7287259

 

[Betty P]

First - if you want to make it appear someone is crazy, call their writings "rambling" and label it a "manifesto".

Personally I find the man's writing very intelligent, cogent, and I can understand his pain. He is not crazy - he is a normal person pushed beyond limits by things he had no control over and after trying to gain control or make change in the conventional and acceptable method, just snapped when he realized it was futile and we are all living the lie.

For all of you who sit and criticize, I BET you've never had dealing of any significance with the IRS. Well, you're lucky; I've seen hard working and honest middle class people literally destroyed.

And he's right about one thing UNDENIABLY - you are locked into obeying a tax code that you and most people in this country will never even understand. Don't you find that criminal? The whole income tax idea is not what our founding fathers had imagined for our freedom and certainly not the "seize and freeze and find out later" ability of the IRS to presume guilt first when our society is about presumed innocence.

When people are pushed to a point of frustration that NO ONE WILL LISTEN and their voice in our supposedly free republic is not heard and no one give a ****, then this happens. It's not right, but I find it more a natural and foreseeable consequence of the corrupted and broken system we have allowed our representatives to create and to perpetuate.

These are foreseeable consequences my friends that our governement in its handling of the IRS can and should see - it is their duty to not drive normal hard working people to this disasterous point. Bailing out the big companies and letting the working people break their backs, force them to pay the government who uses their money to bail out the rich companies that are too big to fail. It's BS.

It's not the IRS fault, it's really the people who make these laws and vote on bills they cannot read and understand. The IRS is a body of the government that has to do the dirty work - I get that what he did was wrong, but objectively I understand and SOME liability should be leveled at our system in general and the corruption that we have come to see as "normal" in politics.


Rant off. sort of...

Having said that, I'm sorry people or person died. This poor guy died in vain as no one will ever look into the big picture and realize how out of control our tax system is and even our court system and family law system and CPS system and realize that unless changes are made, we can and should foresee more people going over the edge. When will our representatives wake up and see there is a causal connection?

This man deserves zero sympathy. He was a common, run of the mill tax cheat who made a conscious choice to harm and kill other people. He knew innocent human beings would be in the building when he chose to crash his plane. That makes him a selfish, psychopathic murderer.

 

[DEPUTYDAWG]

Our building janitor just came in and asked if we had heard the victim's name yet. I told her yes, our agency sent us the email rec'd from IRS. Her first comment? "Was it Vern?" Yes...turns out since he's a supervisor, he would come up to the Waco office several times a month, so she had met him. HE WAS JUST HERE IN WACO ON WEDNESDAY. The day before.

Said he was a kick, very polite, a joy to see. RIP, Vern.

 

[ziggy]

this is why we have a ballot box.......this is why our troops fights (supposedly) to have the right to elect people to change the laws.

crasing into buildings, blowing up daycare centers, murdering atf agents, never change a darn thing

You've made my point exactly - "supposedly" is the key. The frustration that nothing will ever change is what leads to desperate acts.

 

[ziggy]

This man deserves zero sympathy. He was a common, run of the mill tax cheat who made a conscious choice to harm and kill other people. He knew innocent human beings would be in the building when he chose to crash his plane. That makes him a selfish, psychopathic murderer.

Well that's your opinion, but I don't see the logical inference in a run of the mill tax cheat pouring his soul out about his frustrations - psychologically the two don't mix. moo

 

[sniperacer]

This man deserves zero sympathy. He was a common, run of the mill tax cheat who made a conscious choice to harm and kill other people. He knew innocent human beings would be in the building when he chose to crash his plane. That makes him a selfish, psychopathic murderer.

Let's not forget the history of America and the cause of the start American Revolutionary War.

 

[justthinkin]

Tax cheats: one's dead, one's Secretary of the Treasury.

 

[Chili Fries]

This is an amazing story. This is not civil disobedience...FWIW, it is simple murder.

It's terrorism, especially when you consider that by publishing his manifesto there has to be some intent to incite others. Also seems like there is a lot of self-pity involved. He's not that smart, certainly not enlightened. Some of us have been through much worse than him and haven't turned to random violence which is in reality pointless.

 

[JoeFromLB]

It's terrorism, especially when you consider that by publishing his manifesto there has to be some intent to incite others. Also seems like there is a lot of self-pity involved. He's not that smart, certainly not enlightened. Some of us have been through much worse than him and haven't turned to random violence which is in reality pointless.

I read somewhere (can't remember the source) that his plane was worth about $100,000. If that's true, he could have sold it to cover his debts.