IRS Apologizes for Targeting Conservative Groups

[Box]

The election was a long time ago...

...no democrats were harmed during the filming of the 2012 election.

[Dusty]

Originally Posted by Billy L-bach

The election was a long time ago...

...no democrats were harmed during the filming of the 2012 election.

That's a three-header.

[MR2]

Originally Posted by Billy L-bach

The election was a long time ago...

...no democrats were harmed during the filming of the 2012 election.

Send that to Leno! Too funny.

[tonyz]

"...initiated by low-level workers..."

Heard something similar in a little thing called Fast and Furious.

[T-Rock]

The truth is often said in jest…
> http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczyn...-auditing-joke

[dennisw]

Originally Posted by Airbornelawyer

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."

[Dusty]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013...vative-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

[Pete]

"..........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...-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.

[Box]

...more efforts by racist republicans trying to smear the POTUS

[ddoering]

Perhaps the Congress should ask the Attorney General to investigate.

[tonyz]

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_b...5/wsj-irs.html

[BKKMAN]

Originally Posted by tonyz

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...

Originally Posted by tonyz

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...

[Box]

So...
...whos getting fired over this?

[Team Sergeant]

Originally Posted by Dusty

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013...vative-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!!!!!"

[Dusty]

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