View Full Version : IRS Apologizes for Targeting Conservative Groups
I'm sure this happens all the time, and the motivation wasn't political, or anything.. :rolleyes:
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/irs-apologizes-targeting-conservative-groups
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Internal Revenue Service inappropriately flagged conservative political groups for additional reviews during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status, a top IRS official said Friday.
Organizations were singled out because they included the words "tea party" or "patriot" in their applications for tax-exempt status, said Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt groups.
In some cases, groups were asked for their list of donors, which violates IRS policy in most cases, she said.
"That was wrong. That was absolutely incorrect, it was insensitive and it was inappropriate. That's not how we go about selecting cases for further review," Lerner said at a conference sponsored by the American Bar Association.
"The IRS would like to apologize for that," she added.
Lerner said the practice was initiated by low-level workers in Cincinnati and was not motivated by political bias. After her talk, she told The AP that no high level IRS officials knew about the practice. She did not say when they found out.
Many conservative groups complained during the election that they were being harassed by the IRS. They accused the agency of frustrating their attempts to become tax exempt by sending them lengthy, intrusive questionnaires.
The forms, which the groups made available at the time, sought information about group members' political activities, including details of their postings on social networking websites and about family members.
Certain tax-exempt charitable groups can conduct political activities but it cannot be their primary activity.
IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman told Congress in March 2012 that the IRS was not targeting groups based on their political views.
"There's absolutely no targeting. This is the kind of back and forth that happens to people" who apply for tax-exempt status, Shulman told a House Ways and Means subcommittee.
Shulman was appointed by President George W. Bush. His 6-year term ended in November. President Barack Obama has yet to nominate a successor. The agency is now being run by acting Commissioner Steven Miller.
Snip
"............Lerner said the practice was initiated by low-level workers in Cincinnati and was not motivated by political bias................"
Yeah, right.
What was it then? Accident?
Team Sergeant
05-10-2013, 11:42
"............Lerner said the practice was initiated by low-level workers in Cincinnati and was not motivated by political bias................"
Yeah, right.
What was it then? Accident?
Yeah, not politically motivated.
And no one will be losing their gov job over it.......
Let me know when the shooting starts....:munchin
So when there is a mistake made by a taxpayer, they face fines, penalties, and jail time. When the IRS violates the law, they get to apologize...
"............Lerner said the practice was initiated by low-level workers in Cincinnati and was not motivated by political bias................"
Yeah, right.
What was it then? Accident?
LIke Leno says, "Hope and Change the Subject."
Team Sergeant
05-10-2013, 12:07
So when there is a mistake made by a taxpayer, they face fines, penalties, and jail time. When the IRS violates the law, they get to apologize...
WHAT DOES IT MATTER NOW!!!!!!!!!!!
WHAT DOES IT MATTER NOW!!!!!!!!!!!
Doesn't matter to any Obamabot who doesn't pay taxes, anyway.
So when there is a mistake made by a taxpayer, they face fines, penalties, and jail time. When the IRS violates the law, they get to apologize...
The apology seemed sincere to me. They were low level employees, I mean c'mon cut them some slack......................
:mad:Same thing happened during whistledick's regime (Clinton), they routinely used the IRS to audit/attack conservatives and conservative organizations. Effers....
ddoering
05-10-2013, 14:13
Hence the need for the 2d Amendment.:lifter
Airbornelawyer
05-10-2013, 14:18
What is that expression? "It is easier to do what you want and apologize than to ask permission first". Or something like that?
The excuse is that there were a large number of applications from organizations which might potentially cross thew line between providing information and engaging in political activity, so some minor official decided to set aside in a special file organizations with either "tea party" or "patriot" in their name, because apparently the word "patriot" makes some bureaucrat automatically think "partisan" (I will stipulate that "tea party" might raise flags, since it does have "party" in its name). There was, they claim, no political motive, since those terms were flagged not because of the particular political leanings, but because of the large number of applications, it was convenient to sort out these terms.
Using the search tool on the IRS's Exempt Organizations Select Check website, I find that there are about ten times as many tax-exempt organizations with the word "progressive" in their name than such organizations with either "tea party" or "patriot" in their name. Why do I suspect that these organizations were not also set aside in their own file for extra scrutiny?
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/carney-irs-run-bush-political-appointee_722149.html
medic&commo
05-10-2013, 15:02
WHAT DOES IT MATTER NOW!!!!!!!!!!!
TS, you took the thoughts right out of my mind.
This Administration is good for getting a pass for anything up to & including murder.
m&c
Paragrouper
05-10-2013, 17:09
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/carney-irs-run-bush-political-appointee_722149.html
A political appointee who knows who butters his bread, how unique.
I wonder if I need to prepare for my IRS audit/body cavity search too?
TS, you took the thoughts right out of my mind.
This Administration is good for getting a pass for anything up to & including murder.
m&c
HRC is well schooled in covering up murders..How about close friend committing suicide in the White House (Vince Foster) and never fully explained...or the timely death of James McDougal just months before he was going to be released from prison and ready to testify about the Rose Law Firm.... just a coincidence...these people play for keeps...(buy more ammo.
The election was a long time ago...
...no democrats were harmed during the filming of the 2012 election.
The election was a long time ago...
...no democrats were harmed during the filming of the 2012 election.
That's a three-header. :D:D:D
The election was a long time ago...
...no democrats were harmed during the filming of the 2012 election.
Send that to Leno! Too funny.
"...initiated by low-level workers..."
Heard something similar in a little thing called Fast and Furious.
The truth is often said in jest…
> http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/the-time-president-obama-made-an-auditing-joke
What is that expression? "It is easier to do what you want and apologize than to ask permission first". Or something like that?
The excuse is that there were a large number of applications from organizations which might potentially cross thew line between providing information and engaging in political activity, so some minor official decided to set aside in a special file organizations with either "tea party" or "patriot" in their name, because apparently the word "patriot" makes some bureaucrat automatically think "partisan" (I will stipulate that "tea party" might raise flags, since it does have "party" in its name). There was, they claim, no political motive, since those terms were flagged not because of the particular political leanings, but because of the large number of applications, it was convenient to sort out these terms.
Using the search tool on the IRS's Exempt Organizations Select Check website, I find that there are about ten times as many tax-exempt organizations with the word "progressive" in their name than such organizations with either "tea party" or "patriot" in their name. Why do I suspect that these organizations were not also set aside in their own file for extra scrutiny?
I believe it is: "It's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission."
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/05/11/house-republicans-swiftly-announce-hearing-on-irs-targeting-conservative-groups/
The IRS acknowledging that it targeted conservative political groups during the 2012 election season has sparked bipartisan calls for investigation -- with House Republicans already saying they will hold a hearing on the issue.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said Friday the Republican-led chamber would investigate the tax-collecting agency for flagging the groups for additional review to see whether they were violating their tax-exempt status.
“The IRS cannot target or intimidate any individual or organization based on their political beliefs,” the Virginia Republican said.
Cantor’s comments were followed within minutes by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp saying he would hold a hearing.
Snip
"..........Yesterday it was just some “low level” employees involved. Now AP is reporting that senior IRS officials were aware of the targeting............"
http://legalinsurrection.com/2013/05/irs-anti-tea-party-scandal-gets-real-senior-irs-officials-aware-of-targeting/
".......... Among the other revelations, on Aug. 4, 2011, staffers in the IRS’ Rulings and Agreements office “held a meeting with chief counsel so that everyone would have the latest information on the issue.”
On Jan, 25, 2012, the criteria for flagging suspect groups was changed to, “political action type organizations involved in limiting/expanding Government, educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, social economic reform/movement,” the report says............."
Sounds like targeting conservatives to me.
...more efforts by racist republicans trying to smear the POTUS
ddoering
05-11-2013, 18:51
Perhaps the Congress should ask the Attorney General to investigate.
Links to various stories on the matter are contained in a popular tax professor blog. A portion of the blog is provided below for your convenience.
<snip>
May 11, 2013
WaPo and WSJ Agree: IRS Targeting of Conservatives Is Appalling
Washington Post editorial, Playing Politics With Tax Records:
A bedrock principle of U.S. democracy is that the coercive powers of government are never used for partisan purpose.
The law is blind to political viewpoint, and so are its enforcers, most especially the FBI and the IRS.
Any violation of this principle threatens the trust and the voluntary cooperation of citizens upon which this democracy depends.
So it was appalling to learn Friday that the IRS had improperly targeted conservative groups for scrutiny. It was almost as disturbing that President Obama and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew have not personally apologized to the American people and promised a full investigation.
“Mistakes were made,” the agency said in a statement. IRS official Lois Lerner explained that staffers used a “shortcut” to sort through a large number of applications from groups seeking tax-exempt status, highlighting organizations with “tea party” or “patriot” in their names. The IRS insisted emphatically that partisanship had nothing to do with it. However, it seems that groups with “progressive” in their titles did not receive the same scrutiny.If it was not partisanship, was it incompetence? Stupidity, on a breathtaking scale? At this point, the IRS has lost any standing to determine and report on what exactly happened. Certainly Congress will investigate, as House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) promised. Mr. Obama also should guarantee an unimpeachably independent inquiry.
Wall Street Journal editorial, The IRS Targets Conservatives:
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean the IRS isn't out to get you. We only wish that were a joke. On Friday, an IRS official disclosed for the first time, and by way of apologizing, that the agency that wields the taxing power of the federal government had targeted conservative groups for special scrutiny during the 2012 election season. Apology or not, that can't be the end of the matter.
The stunning admission didn't emerge in an official statement by a senior official at the Treasury Department, which supervises the IRS. Instead, IRS Director of Exempt Organizations Lois Lerner disclosed it on Friday in response to a question from the audience at a meeting of American Bar Association tax lawyers in Washington, D.C.
Ms. Lerner acknowledged that the agency had flagged groups with the words "tea party" or "patriot" to have their tax returns inspected, presumably with an eye on the legality of their tax exemption. Ms. Lerner called this "inappropriate," which it certainly was, and she said it wasn't done "out of any political bias," which is hard to believe. If there was no political bias, why were only conservative groups targeted? White House spokesman Jay Carney also called the IRS actions "inappropriate" on Friday, which makes that the word of the day.
Ms. Lerner added the tax inspections were carried out entirely by low-level workers in Cincinnati without any direction from Washington. Forgive us if we also don't take that claim as gospel.
Even if the idea did arise as some kind of spontaneous Cincinnati political combustion, where could they possibly have come up with the idea that targeting the tea party might be a good career move? That certainly was the uber political message coming out of the White House, even if it wasn't a directive from the top of the IRS. Another question is who stopped the "inappropriate" requests once they were discovered. Was anyone punished? And how far up the chain of command did knowledge go? ...
Republicans were up in arms Friday about the IRS disclosure, and rightly so. We assume they will use their oversight power in the House to find out what happened, and whether these Cincinnati kids were really operating on their own.
Other than the power to prosecute, the taxing authority is the most awesome power the government has. It can ruin people and companies. When wielded for political purposes, it is a violation of the basic contract the American people have with their government. The abuse admitted by Ms. Lerner can't be dismissed in a casual apology on a casual Friday as no big deal. It's a very big and bad deal.
<snip>
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2013/05/wsj-irs.html
A bedrock principle of U.S. democracy is that the coercive powers of government are never used for partisan purpose.
The law is blind to political viewpoint, and so are its enforcers, most especially the FBI and the IRS.
Any violation of this principle threatens the trust and the voluntary cooperation of citizens upon which this democracy depends.
Seems to be a lot of violations of our trust these days...
Other than the power to prosecute, the taxing authority is the most awesome power the government has. It can ruin people and companies. When wielded for political purposes, it is a violation of the basic contract the American people have with their government...
Yes. Yes it is.
I liken this succession of scandals (Fast & Furious, Benghazi, Gosnell, IRS, etc.) as well as the mindless assault on 2nd Amendment rights, which have been dutifully ignored and/or supported by the impotent and complicit Administration mouthpieces (AKA the MSM), to a pedophile banging small boys on the front lawn...at some point, even those rabidly liberal lapdogs have to put down their pom poms and admit that there is something wrong with what is going on...
So...
...whos getting fired over this?
Team Sergeant
05-12-2013, 07:57
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/05/11/house-republicans-swiftly-announce-hearing-on-irs-targeting-conservative-groups/
The IRS acknowledging that it targeted conservative political groups during the 2012 election season has sparked bipartisan calls for investigation -- with House Republicans already saying they will hold a hearing on the issue.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said Friday the Republican-led chamber would investigate the tax-collecting agency for flagging the groups for additional review to see whether they were violating their tax-exempt status.
“The IRS cannot target or intimidate any individual or organization based on their political beliefs,” the Virginia Republican said.
Cantor’s comments were followed within minutes by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp saying he would hold a hearing.
Snip
"WHAT DOES IT MATTER!!!!!"
http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/11/irs-mess/
President Barack Obama is seen silhouetted as he walks up the stairs to board Air Force One before his departure from Andrews Air Force Base,Thursday, May 9, 2013.
The Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative groups is outrageous. Those who did this should be fired immediately. That’s obvious.
It continues a slovenly week for Barack Obama. The President has been very proud of the absence of scandal in his administration, and rightly so. The inability of his opponents to find any significant corruption in the historic $800 billion stimulus package was a real achievement, given the speed of the payout. None of his top aides have been caught up in taking bribes while in office–although their race through the revolving door into lucrative private sector positions is well beyond nauseating.
As in most presidencies, there have been an awful lot of political hacks populating the mid-reaches of this Administration. In the Obama instance, these have shown an anachronistic, pre-Clinton liberal bias when it comes to the rules and regulations governing many of our safety net programs, like social security disability. And now they have violated one of the more sacred rules of our democracy: you do not use the tax code to punish your opponents.
Lois G. Lerner, the IRS official who oversees tax-exempt groups, said the “absolutely inappropriate” actions by “front-line people” were not driven by partisan motives.
Does anyone actually believe this?
Yet again, we have an example of Democrats simply not managing the government properly and with discipline. This is just poisonous at a time of skepticism about the efficacy of government. And the President should know this: the absence of scandal is not the presence of competence. His unwillingness to concentrate–and I mean concentrate obsessively–on making sure that government is managed efficiently will be part of his legacy.
Previous Presidents, including great ones like Roosevelt, have used the IRS against their enemies. But I don’t think Barack Obama ever wanted to be on the same page as Richard Nixon. In this specific case, he now is.
Snip
Klein is defiantly a worm; interesting to see him turning - even if it is only faint criticism.
Unless I'm mistaken, the impetuous of this revelation was derived from comments made by some IRS official at a ABA conference. Why? Some IRS person just blurts out,"We've been targeting conservative tax exempt organizations." I mean it didn't stem from a congressional investigation, a heated grand jury investigation, from lengthy sessions of water boarding:)? Seems odd to me.
The only thing I know for sure is that the IRS scandal will not lead to Hillary; whereas the Benghazi issue nails her on the way up to Obama. The breaking of this story just doesn't ring true.
We may be too busy watching the empty hand to notice the dove is now out of sight.
Unless I'm mistaken, the impetuous of this revelation was derived from comments made by some IRS official at a ABA conference. Why? Some IRS person just blurts out,"We've been targeting conservative tax exempt organizations." I mean it didn't stem from a congressional investigation, a heated grand jury investigation, from lengthy sessions of water boarding:)? Seems odd to me.
The only thing I know for sure is that the IRS scandal will not lead to Hillary; whereas the Benghazi issue nails her on the way up to Obama. The breaking of this story just doesn't ring true.
We may be too busy watching the empty hand to notice the dove is now out of sight.
Good theorem, but I believe if they were canny enough to pull that off, they'd have been to smart to keep their asses out of either crack.
Could be they just ran out of good cards.
I believe the two events are different creatures. Using the IRS to reduce your opponents access to campaign funds is a planned event. Hiding a planned event is just a part of the planning process. Benghazi was unplanned. No contingency plans in effect. Pure adrenalin reaction.
So, how did they get the CIA to sign off on the doctored talking points? Hope they didn't have any dirt on the director. Show him the dirt, make him authorize the change. Once it's changed, expose the dirt and discredit the man. Brilliant.
I believe the two events are different creatures. Using the IRS to reduce your opponents access to campaign funds is a planned event. Hiding a planned event is just a part of the planning process. Benghazi was unplanned. No contingency plans in effect. Pure adrenalin reaction.
So, how did they get the CIA to sign off on the doctored talking points? Hope they didn't have any dirt on the director. Show him the dirt, make him authorize the change. Once it's changed, expose the dirt and discredit the man. Brilliant.
You may be right.
Badger52
05-12-2013, 11:05
So, how did they get the CIA to sign off on the doctored talking points? Hope they didn't have any dirt on the director. Show him the dirt, make him authorize the change. Once it's changed, expose the dirt and discredit the man. Brilliant.It would be interesting then to see if the lady biographer's friend ends up on a witness list.
Edit: Sorry, back to the IRS.
Trapper John
05-12-2013, 11:14
I believe the two events are different creatures. Using the IRS to reduce your opponents access to campaign funds is a planned event. Hiding a planned event is just a part of the planning process. Benghazi was unplanned. No contingency plans in effect. Pure adrenalin reaction.
So, how did they get the CIA to sign off on the doctored talking points? Hope they didn't have any dirt on the director. Show him the dirt, make him authorize the change. Once it's changed, expose the dirt and discredit the man. Brilliant.
Chicago politics - that's how they roll. ;) An effective short-term tactic, IMO (I don't advocate here - just observe). But, when this transcends to an operating strategy that's where it fails. No one person, no one group has been able to operate this way without being exposed and taken down. Sort of goes along with the old adage of "you can fool all the people some of the time, some of the people all the time, but you can't fool all the people all the time. I think we are watching the beginning of the end - or at least I hope so!
ddoering
05-12-2013, 18:14
So...
...whos getting fired over this?
Nobody. Now if the tea party was a black organization you would see a different out come.
ddoering
06-13-2014, 18:33
"............Lerner said the practice was initiated by low-level workers in Cincinnati and was not motivated by political bias................"
Yeah, right.
What was it then? Accident?
We will never know now: IRS says it cannot locate Lois Lerner emails prior to 2011
The Internal Revenue Service told Congress Friday it has lost a trove of emails to and from Lois Lerner, a central figure in the agency's Tea Party controversy, sparking outrage from congressional investigators who have been probing the agency for more than a year.
The IRS said it cannot locate many of Lerner's emails prior to 2011 because her computer crashed during the summer of that year.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/06/13/irs-says-it-cannot-locate-lois-lerner-emails-prior-to-2011/
Since when does email only reside on a personal computer? All they have to do is ask the NSA for the missing emails but that might violate her rights.....
"The IRS said it cannot locate many of Lerner's emails prior to 2011 because her computer crashed during the summer of that year."
Well, isn't that convenient.
Kinda makes the Nixon 18 minute gap look like nothing out of the ordinary.
And we trust these folks with managing our healthcare.
Since when does email only reside on a personal computer? All they have to do is ask the NSA for the missing emails but that might violate her rights.....
Comedy gold.
We will never know now: IRS says it cannot locate Lois Lerner emails prior to 2011
The Internal Revenue Service told Congress Friday it has lost a trove of emails to and from Lois Lerner, a central figure in the agency's Tea Party controversy, sparking outrage from congressional investigators who have been probing the agency for more than a year.
The IRS said it cannot locate many of Lerner's emails prior to 2011 because her computer crashed during the summer of that year.
Hmmm. I'm tempted to call bullshit on this one.
I don't recall anywhere I've worked anywhere in the past 15 years where the user mailbox was maintained on the user's PC. I've worked in numerous commercial verticals, and in the Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, and Defense and have yet to see an email system that doesn't store the user's email on the server side.
It would take a pretty clueless IT staff to want to store emails on the user PC without any plan for backup. Hell, just buy them all $20 USB sticks and write a backup script that runs every Thursday night.
But OK, the IRS is clueless so let's assume they actually were storing the mailbox on the PC and weren't backing it up somehow.
It was such a catastrophic failure that there was zero data recovery from the PC? What did she do, drop it in the toilet? Go swimming with it?
ddoering
06-14-2014, 15:51
Hit the delete button....
No emails, no hard drive to conduct forensic recovery...voilà...not a smidgen of evidence.
And, continuation of a narrative that simple mismanagement at the local rogue office was to blame...or a Youtube video...or a vast right wing conspiracy...
I'd have put that in pink but...voilà.
This behavior is the stuff of third world countries. Unreal.
Dean Jarvis
06-19-2014, 08:57
This behavior is the stuff of third world countries. Unreal.
Couple that with no voter ID, specifically not required to allow voter fraud. The double standards when it comes to who has to pay taxes, not Tom Daschal, Charlie Rangel or Turbo Tax Tim Geithner but they catch you making the wrong tax deduction there's hell to pay. Hundreds of IRS employees delinquent in paying their taxes but they get a bonus. The Justice Dept. not pursuing voter intimidation because they're Black Panthers doing the intimidating. Or investigating Fast and Furious because it's the Government plan for use in justifying stricter gun control. And the list goes on and on and on.
Welcome to the Banana Republic of the United States. :mad:
Dean Jarvis
06-19-2014, 09:38
No one person, no one group has been able to operate this way without being exposed and taken down.
And the reason why they may very well get away with this and every other phony scandal is the total lack of the alphabet channels to provide any coverage. The primary reason for this countries downward slide to third world status is first the total corruption of our politicians and second the news media's supporting roll in transforming our country into a socialist state.