After 32 years of IRS work \u2014 and more than $100 million in resolved tax debt \u2014 I've seen just about every version of the problem you're dealing with. I'm Darrin Mish, a tax attorney in Tampa. Here's what you should know.<\/p>\n
Looking back at the horrific events of that fateful Thursday morning February 18, Americans are divided over what to think of Joseph Stack, the angry man who flew his single engine Piper Cherokee airplane into the side of the 7 storey IRS building in Austin, Texas killing one man other than himself and injuring scores of others.\u00a0 Some see him as a hero, others as a washed up coward and anything in between.<\/p>\n
Stack\u2019s daughter, Samantha Bell said on ABC\u2019s \u2018Good Morning, America\u2019 while she viewed her father\u2019s actions as \u2018inappropriate\u2019, she nevertheless thought of him as a hero because \u2018now maybe people will listen\u2019.\u00a0 A survey of several Facebook groups Wednesday found many who looked at Stack with scorn or sympathy, some calling him a terrorist while others, a hero.\u00a0 But what if Joseph Stack was a middle-Eastern man with a mustache and beard dressed in a robe and skullcap and prays to Allah five times a day and not a white Caucasian American citizen?\u00a0 And what if his name was So-and-so Ben So-and-so?<\/p>\n
Would more Americans consider him a terrorist then?<\/p>\n
Are people now listening to the message of Al Qaeda because of what they did on September 11, 2001?\u00a0 Are people now listening to the message of Timothy McVeigh the Oklahoma City bomber because of what he did on April 19, 1995?\u00a0 Do Americans consider these people heroes?\u00a0 Do heroes destroy the lives of innocent people while on a personal vendetta?<\/p>\n
To some people, what Joseph Stack did was considered different from other acts of terrorism because he was a white Caucasian American and because his suicide note contained points they agreed with.\u00a0 Even the media has largely avoided branding Stack a terrorist.\u00a0 But Joseph Stack was a man who committed an act of terror.\u00a0 And a terrorist is a person who commits acts of terror.\u00a0 Just because Stack may not have been committing acts of terror as a lifestyle does not make him less a terrorist at the time of the act.<\/p>\n
The fact is that Joseph Stack had an issue with the American government, in particular the IRS.\u00a0 Likewise, the Al Qaeda terrorists did as well.\u00a0 The dictionary\u2019s definition of terrorism has always been the same regardless of what the issues are and who committed the act.\u00a0 We should call a spade a spade.<\/p>\n