IRS Apologizes for Targeting Conservative Groups

[Dusty]

I'm sure this happens all the time, and the motivation wasn't political, or anything..

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/irs-a...rvative-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

[Pete]

"............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]

Originally Posted by Pete

"............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....

[MR2]

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...

[Team Sergeant]

Originally Posted by MR2

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!!!!!!!!!!!

[Dusty]

Originally Posted by Team Sergeant

WHAT DOES IT MATTER NOW!!!!!!!!!!!

Doesn't matter to any Obamabot who doesn't pay taxes, anyway.

[medic&commo]

Originally Posted by Team Sergeant

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

[cbtengr]

Originally Posted by MR2

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......................

[JimP]

Same thing happened during whistledick's regime (Clinton), they routinely used the IRS to audit/attack conservatives and conservative organizations. Effers....

[Dusty]

Originally Posted by Pete

"............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."

[ddoering]

Originally Posted by Pete

"............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...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.....

[tonyz]

"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.

[Flagg]

Originally Posted by ddoering

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.

[cedsall]

Originally Posted by ddoering

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]

Hit the delete button....