I do recall a case where a bunch of contractors working for Microsoft. They wanted to get the same retirement plan treatment as regular employees and sued.
Contract and outsourced employees are one of the main reasons for high unemployment. All corporate officers have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to maximize return on investment. Minimizing the payroll is the easiest and most visible cost cutting measure to increase profits. It is cheaper to replace a $60K position with a team of 3 $10 / hr overseas consultants. No benefits, employment taxes or lawsuits to deal with plus you have an eqiavalent 24 hour a day - 7 days a week worker. This 50 year old software engineer is competing with overseas talent that will work for $5 an hour. There is substantial hiring going on... just not in the US. The US tax code is a joke. Each and every person who signs a tax return is knowingly committing tax fraud. Technically every form of consideration is required to be reported. The taxing issues will never be fixed because 50% of our work force are government and / or prime contractors paid out of the tax kitty.
according to his own words, he was part of those nuts that pay no tax claiming to be a 'religion' these folks are 100% dingbats.
This is what he is up against for being an Independent Contract engineer. He was trying to be a church. The Church exempt status is mentioned in passying only. http://www.synergistech.com/ic-taxlaw.shtml
The IRS is relentless so I can certainly understand getting to the point of thinking of the relationship with the IRS as mortal combat. But going to this extreme without thinking of the consequences to your family and to others is a bit off the wall. Besides, I don't think God goes for this sort of stuff so he's probably worse off now. What he should have done is just purchased a huge electromagnet (truck size) and driven it around his regional IRS office wiping out their electronic data. I'm surprised no one has tried this.