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IRS Apologizes For Targeting Conservative Political Groups In 2012 Ele (1 Viewer)

If the IRS had harassed liberal groups during the 2004 or 2008 elections, I'm sure nobody would have complained and everyone would be happy to let it go with a simply "Oops, my bad."

 
An IRS employee can be fired for merely threatening an audit for illegitimate reasons (which i would hope includes politcal targeting). So what should be the penalty when the threat is actually carried out?

 
IvanKaramazov said:
If the IRS had harassed liberal groups during the 2004 or 2008 elections, I'm sure nobody would have complained and everyone would be happy to let it go with a simply "Oops, my bad."
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Yea, because liberals aren't always whining about how they were mistreated, and how the conservatives tried, or did steal an/the election, or some other "we aren't treated fairly by republicans" BS..

This #### goes both ways... The whole system is crooked..

 
They were obviously wrong to do this. Whoever was doing it should be punished to the fullest extent allowed. I find it hard to believe this one rogue office was operating with no oversight. If that's true then the punishment should go up the ladder as well for incompetence and mismanagement. Can't be chilling political speech like this it's reprehensible.

 
NCCommish said:
NCCommish, on 10 May 2013 - 13:57, said:They were obviously wrong to do this. Whoever was doing it should be punished to the fullest extent allowed. I find it hard to believe this one rogue office was operating with no oversight. If that's true then the punishment should go up the ladder as well for incompetence and mismanagement. Can't be chilling political speech like this it's reprehensible.
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:goodposting:
 
So it was a single office - Cincinnati - largely because of a spike in exempt status applications that year?

 
The IRS should just target Democrats for a while until things are squared up. I remember when people were complaining when Obamas appointments weren't diverse enough, he said don't worry my upcoming appointments will be plenty diverse. He squared things up just as he said, I can't see why the IRS can't do the same thing..

 
saintfool said:
So it was a single office - Cincinnati - largely because of a spike in exempt status applications that year?
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Saying a "single office" seems to downplay it a bit. There are only like 3 or 4 main offices in the country, Cinci being one of them. They cover a pretty huge area.
 
GroveDiesel said:
saintfool said:
So it was a single office - Cincinnati - largely because of a spike in exempt status applications that year?
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Saying a "single office" seems to downplay it a bit. There are only like 3 or 4 main offices in the country, Cinci being one of them. They cover a pretty huge area.
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And every application for tax-exempt status gets mailed just across the river to Covington, KY. I'm not sure how much they then send elsewhere for review, but I've handled a few tax-exempt applications, and have always dealt with a reviewing agent there.

 
This news drops on a Friday. No surprise on this one, right or left. But in a similar vein to an earlier poster, I can't even imagine the media response to this if this would have been liberal/Democratic leaning groups. We'll have to see. The person overseeing the admission has even said this is worthy of a congressional investigation.

 
rockaction said:
otello said:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/08/opinion/the-irs-does-its-job.html?_r=1&

The I.R.S. Does Its Job
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I think Volokh might have linked to that today. That was a year ago, and on the op-ed page, but it sort of girds me for the typical treatment henceforth. Let's see how they cover this on the front pages, etc. I'm not holding my breath.
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I think that's part of the point. When Tea Party and other groups were complaining that they were being abused by the IRS, the NYT rolled its eyes and got on its ordinary soapbox about how we need more government regulation of political activity. Well, now even the IRS concedes that the these groups were right all along. We'll see if this causes the NYT editorial board to rethink its position, although I think we all know it won't.

 
IRS apology:

Between 2010 and 2012, the IRS saw the number of applications for section 501©(4) status double. As a result, local career employees in Cincinnati sought to centralize work and assign cases to designated employees in an effort to promote consistency and quality. This approach has worked in other areas. However, the IRS recognizes we should have done a better job of handling the influx of advocacy applications. While centralizing cases for consistency made sense, the way we initially centralized them did not. Mistakes were made initially, but they were in no way due to any political or partisan rationale. We fixed the situation last year and have made significant progress in moving the centralized cases through our system. To date, more than half of the cases have been approved or withdrawn. It is important to recognize that all centralized applications received the same, even-handed treatment, and the majority of cases centralized were not based on a specific name. In addition, new procedures also were implemented last year to ensure that these mistakes wont be made in the future. The IRS also stresses that our employees all career civil servants will continue to be guided by tax law and not partisan issues.

 
IvanKaramazov said:
IvanKaramazov, on 11 May 2013 - 05:43, said:

rockaction said:
rockaction, on 10 May 2013 - 19:44, said:

otello said:
otello, on 10 May 2013 - 19:41, said:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/08/opinion/the-irs-does-its-job.html?_r=1&

The I.R.S. Does Its Job
Click to expand...
I think Volokh might have linked to that today. That was a year ago, and on the op-ed page, but it sort of girds me for the typical treatment henceforth. Let's see how they cover this on the front pages, etc. I'm not holding my breath.
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I think that's part of the point. When Tea Party and other groups were complaining that they were being abused by the IRS, the NYT rolled its eyes and got on its ordinary soapbox about how we need more government regulation of political activity. Well, now even the IRS concedes that the these groups were right all along. We'll see if this causes the NYT editorial board to rethink its position, although I think we all know it won't.
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Of course these decisions should be, must be non partisan, but all of these applications by political groups for tax exempt status should be rejected! The problem being missed here is not that 9% of the clearly political organizations were singled out, but the other 91% were not. These groups spent a quarter billion dollars on the 2012 elections and this scandal is only going to make it less likely that this nonsense is going to be reigned in.I'm all for allowing free speech in the political realm, but don't make the next generations of tax payers pay for it. While a quarter billion might not go far in sixteen trillion dollar economy, lets at least not subsidize those lining up at the federal trough.

OPS: I might need to change my mind on this since I conveniently missed that the political activity expenditures are taxable. I'll leave the above up, but my point seems to be one of ignorance.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
“However, a section 501©(4) social welfare organization may engage in some political activities, so long as that is not its primary activity. However, any expenditure it makes for political activities may be subject to tax under section 527(f),”

While "may be" is a concern, as the edit above shows I missed the bolded. It does seem to invalidate the above post.

 
NCCommish said:
CrossEyed said:
NCCommish said:
CrossEyed said:
You elect a Chicago politician, you get Chicago politics.This is a surprise?
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Link to said Chicago politician being involved Fox News?
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Because the guy at the top is always directly involved, right?Are you really that naive?
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You're the one who said he is not me. And how much right wing crap do you have to have swallowed to think Obama is at the root of everything?
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Well he did capture Osama bin Laden and brought the stock market to 15,000; so :shrug:
 
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IvanKaramazov said:
otello said:
The plot thickens:

http://m.usatoday.com/article/news/2153007
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But of course we still need to give the government more ability to regulate interest groups. No way would that power ever get abused for partisan purposes.
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The timeline shows that on June 29, 2011, Lerner received a briefing on how IRS officials in Cincinnati were dealing with applications for tax-exempt status for Tea Party groups. The briefing paper showed that the IRS was subjecting certain groups to further investigation based on politically loaded terms in the tax-exempt application file. Groups were singled out for enhanced scrutiny if:

• The words "tea party," "patriots," or "9/12 project" appeared anywhere in the group name or case file;

• The group's stated issues included government spending, government debt or taxes;

• The organization had a goal of educating of the public via advocacy or lobbying to "make America a better place to live;"

• Any statements in the case file critical of how the country is being run.

Under those criteria, 100 groups had their applications sent to a dedicated team of specialists for further investigation -- adding months to the approval process, according to the report.

 
"I.R.S. is an independent enforcement agency," said Carney. "The -- which I believe, as I understand it, contains only two political appointees within it. The individual who is running the I.R.S. at the time was actually an appointee from the previous administration."

 
IvanKaramazov said:
otello said:
The plot thickens:

http://m.usatoday.com/article/news/2153007
Click to expand...
But of course we still need to give the government more ability to regulate interest groups. No way would that power ever get abused for partisan purposes.
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My impression is that federal employees act in a far less partisan manner than they did many years ago when the federal government was smaller. I don't see why this unfortunate incident requires us to stop regulation.
 
Bottomfeeder Sports said:
Of course these decisions should be, must be non partisan, but all of these applications by political groups for tax exempt status should be rejected! The problem being missed here is not that 9% of the clearly political organizations were singled out, but the other 91% were not. These groups spent a quarter billion dollars on the 2012 elections and this scandal is only going to make it less likely that this nonsense is going to be reigned in.I'm all for allowing free speech in the political realm, but don't make the next generations of tax payers pay for it. While a quarter billion might not go far in sixteen trillion dollar economy, lets at least not subsidize those lining up at the federal trough.

OPS: I might need to change my mind on this since I conveniently missed that the political activity expenditures are taxable. I'll leave the above up, but my point seems to be one of ignorance.
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I still don't understand this.

From this article.

The IRS admission comes amid a debate about when political groups on both sides deserve tax-exempt status — a complex question that turns on whether the group is working mainly to support a general philosophy or a specific party or candidate.

That can be particularly difficult to determine in the case of groups that operate under section 501©(4) of the Internal Revenue Code. The law grants them an exemption from income taxes on the contributions they receive if they are “social welfare” groups.

It also allows them to engage in political activity and advocacy as long as it is not their primary mission. And while donors to those organizations are not allowed a tax deduction for what they give, they can remain anonymous.
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Are we to believe that political activity and advocacy is not many of these groups primary mission? The fact that they were flagging key words seems reasonable although they should have also flagged liberal key words.

 
Pretty ridiculous that they would target based on a simple key word search. They should have cross referenced to blog postings and gun registration before flagging the files. Due diligence and all...

 
Juxtatarot said:
Bottomfeeder Sports said:
Of course these decisions should be, must be non partisan, but all of these applications by political groups for tax exempt status should be rejected! The problem being missed here is not that 9% of the clearly political organizations were singled out, but the other 91% were not. These groups spent a quarter billion dollars on the 2012 elections and this scandal is only going to make it less likely that this nonsense is going to be reigned in.I'm all for allowing free speech in the political realm, but don't make the next generations of tax payers pay for it. While a quarter billion might not go far in sixteen trillion dollar economy, lets at least not subsidize those lining up at the federal trough.

OPS: I might need to change my mind on this since I conveniently missed that the political activity expenditures are taxable. I'll leave the above up, but my point seems to be one of ignorance.
Click to expand...
I still don't understand this.

From this article.

>The IRS admission comes amid a debate about when political groups on both sides deserve tax-exempt status — a complex question that turns on whether the group is working mainly to support a general philosophy or a specific party or candidate.

That can be particularly difficult to determine in the case of groups that operate under section 501©(4) of the Internal Revenue Code. The law grants them an exemption from income taxes on the contributions they receive if they are “social welfare” groups.

It also allows them to engage in political activity and advocacy as long as it is not their primary mission. And while donors to those organizations are not allowed a tax deduction for what they give, they can remain anonymous.
Click to expand...
Are we to believe that political activity and advocacy is not many of these groups primary mission? The fact that they were flagging key words seems reasonable although they should have also flagged liberal key words.
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Oh, I still lean towards the side that this tax status shouldn't exists for groups that perform the "social welfare" mission of educating the masses of a political point of view. But if should a status does exists, without very clear guidelines of who qualifies and who doesn't I'd rather the IRS just rubber stamp the applications. Maybe randomly flagged a few, but I don't want to trust low level bureaucrats to devise "key word" mechanisms on their own. Because of course they would chose "keywords" likely used by anti-IRS groups, because like most others they know "just how important their job is".

 
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