When a Tennessee lawyer asked the IRS for tax-exempt status for a mentoring group that trained high school and college students about conservative political philosophy, the agency responded with a list of 95 questions in 31 parts, including an ultimatum for a list of everyone the group had trained, or planned to train.
'Provide details regarding all training you have provided or will provide,' the IRS demanded. 'Indicate who has received or will receive the training and submit copies of the training material.'
That question was part of the tax collection agency's February 14, 2012 letter to Kevin Kookogey. founder of the group Linchpins of Liberty. He had submitted his application 13 months earlier.
'Can you imagine my responsibility to parents if I disclosed the names of their children to the IRS?' he asked MailOnline.
It's 'an impossible question to answer fully and truthfully,' he said, 'without disclosing the names of anyone I ever taught, or would ever teach, including students.'

Like the leaders of many tea party-affiliated groups whose tax-exemption applications have become the subject of angry complaints, Kookogey called the IRS's inquisition an overreach, 'especially considering that my organization mentors high school and college students.'
It 'should send chills through your spine,' he told MailOnline, 'that the government would ask me to identify those I teach, and to provide details of what I teach them.'
The 13-month delay, while burdensome, was far shorter than those some other groups endured. According to a report released late Tuesday by the IRS's Office of Inspector General, the average delay at one point was 574 days.

But Kookogey said a $30,000 grant was canceled as a result of the IRS's months-long radio silence, when he couldn't tell his donor that Linchpins had earned its 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status.
That money would have made a significant difference to the group, judging from its public filings in Tennessee. In 2011, Linchpins of Liberty reported collecting just $3,460 in contributions, and spending $7,328 on its programs.

The group's online materials refer to it as 'an American leadership development enterprise.' Its stated purpose is to mentor high school and college students, placing an emphasis on Western civilization and an old-style core curriculum - what previous generations called the 'great books.'
'Our ideas are opposed to the Obama administration, but we’re not tea party,' Kookogey told The Tennessean.
It's that lack of a tea party connection, he said, that makes his predicament so maddening.
He told MailOnline that nothing about his group - 'not our name or our description or our website, or anything' - should have placed it among the organizations the IRS chose to scrutinize closely by using key words like 'tea party,' '9/12,' and 'patriots' as qualifiers.
'I'm not a Tea Party group. I'm not a Patriot group by name' he told NewsChannel 5 in Nashville.
'We mentor high school and college students in conservative political philosophy. It's a one on one relationship.'

Kookogey summed it up in an interview with MailOnline as 'unethical, unconstitutional, and unfair,' later asserting in an email that '[w]e were targeted by the IRS based on our political beliefs and the content of our speech.'
The American Center for Law and Justice, which represents 27 conservative groups including Linchpins of Liberty, is planning to file suit against the IRS.
Jay Sekulow, that organization's chief counsel, wrote on Tuesday that 'the IRS abuse is ongoing.'
'Even though the IRS admitted wrongdoing,' Sekulow wrote in an essay for FoxNews.com, even though the Inspector General’s report indicates that wrongdoing was widespread, the IRS still hasn’t withdrawn its overbroad and unconstitutional questions, and it still hasn’t granted the exemptions it should grant, despite the fact that some applications have been pending for more than two years.'
The Inspector General's report includes a list of 'the seven questions' the IRS asked right-wing groups that were later 'identified as being unnecessary.'
Its request for the list of students trained by Linchpins of Liberty was not among them.
The report also largely exonerates political appointees in the Treasury Department and at the top of the IRS, instead blaming mid-level bureaucrats for providing 'ineffective management' and using 'inappropriate criteria' to red-flag conservative groups.
It makes no mention of anyone in the White House directing the IRS to play political favorites. But The Washington Post has reported that 'senior IRS officials' in Washington, D.C. were notified of the practice in 2011.



In December of that year, Kookogey says, he called the IRS's nonprofit evaluation arm in Cincinnati, Ohio, to find out why his group's application had taken so long.
The agent on the other end of the line, he said, told him, 'We are waiting on guidance from our superiors as to your organization and similar organizations.'
Attorney General Eric Holder has said that he ordered the FBI to initiate a criminal probe on Friday, when he learned about the IRS's practices.
The IRS's actions, he said, were, 'certainly outrageous and unacceptable, but we are examining the facts to see if there were criminal violations.'
Holder is expected to testify in a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday in Washington. On Friday the House Ways and Means Committee will hear testimony from acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller and Treasury Inspector General J. Russell George.
Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio has called for Miller to lose his job

'At a bare minimum, those involved with this deeply offensive use of government power have committed a violation of the public trust that has already had a profoundly chilling effect on free speech,' Rubio wrote Monday in a letter to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew. 'Such behavior cannot be excused with a simple apology.'
'It is clear the IRS cannot operate with even a shred of the American people’s confidence under the current leadership,' Rubio continued. 'Therefore, I strongly urge that you and President Obama demand the IRS Commissioner’s resignation, effective immediately.'
On Friday, Sekulow demanded that the IRS immediately approve the tax-exempt status applications of his organization's 10 legal clients, including Linchpins of Liberty, that are still waiting. He issued the agency an ultimatum: Grant the requests by noon on May 17, or prepare to fight in court.
'We are demanding that the IRS grant our remaining clients tax-exempt status immediately,' Sekulow said in a statement. 'If that does not occur by Friday, we will advise our clients of their right to sue the IRS for the redress of their grievances.'

The Internal Revenue Service wrote to the Richmond Tea Party last year demanding to know the names of all its financial donors and volunteers, as part of a 55-question inquisition into its application for tax-exempt status, MailOnline has learned. (http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/05_02/Richmond%20tea%20party%20IRS%20letter.pdf)
The agency wanted to know 'the names of the donors, contributors, and grantors' for every year 'from inception to the present.'
It also demanded 'the amounts of each of the donations, contributions, and grants and the dates you received them.'
'How did you use these donations, contributions, and grants?' the IRS asked. 'Provide the details.'

And in addition to the names of board members, officers and employees, the nation's taxing authorities insisted on knowing the names of everyone who helped the Richmond Tea Party without compensation.
'Please identify your volunteers,' the January 9, 2012 letter from the IRS read.
The agency also required the Virginia conservative group to provide copies of sections of its website that only its members can access.

The IRS came under fire on Friday when its Office of Inspector General released a draft of an investigative timeline showing that the agency had played political favorites with nonprofit groups seeking tax-exempt status.
In 2010, according to that investigation, the Cincinnati-based IRS office responsible for vetting tax-exempt applications began targeting groups with 'Tea Party or similar' words in their names – including words like 'patriots' and '9/12' – for tighter scrutiny

The IRS ultimately identified approximately 300 such organizations, many of which were independently organized in 2009 and 2010 under the larger 'tea party' banner. Those groups had a decisive impact in the 2010 midterm congressional elections, and became a thorn in the side of the Democratic party, costing it race after race, especially in the House of Representatives, which shifted to Republican control.
In the nearly three years since the IRS began looking more closely at conservative nonprofit groups than others, 125 of the 300 target organizations have been approved for tax-exempt status. Another 25 withdrew their applications. The remainder are still waiting.
The Office of Inspector General's timeline shows that in Washington, senior officials with the IRS were made aware of the practice by at least August 4, 2011. On that date, the chief counsel of the IRS met with the agency's Rulings and Agreements unit 'so that everyone would have the latest information on the issue.'
But during a press gaggle about Air Force One on Monday, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney insisted the White House was unaware of the investigation or its political implications until last month.

'My understanding,' Carney told reporters while en route to New York City for the president's appearance at political fundraising events, 'is that the White House Counsel’s Office was alerted in the week of April 22nd of this year, only about the fact that the IG was finishing a review about matters involving the office in Cincinnati. But that’s all they were informed as a normal sort of heads-up.'
'And we have never – we don’t have access to, nor should we, the IG’s report or any draft versions of it.'
Asked whether heads would roll at the IRS if the IG's report concludes that there was substantial wrongdoing, Carney was cautious.
'I think you’re getting ahead of it,' he told a reporter, according to a transcript released by the White House. 'I think you heard from the President on this today and how he feels about it. But the "if" is very important, so we’re not going to start predicting outcomes if we don’t know what the conclusions of the IG report are.'
The Washington Post reported on Friday that the IRS has apologized for its practices, which sought to scrutinize conservative nonprofit groups 'that criticized the government and sought to educate Americans about the U.S. Constitution.'
In early 2012 a group of tea party organizations refused the IRS's requests for what they considered overreaching information about their operations, instead asking the House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee to investigate.
That committee wrote in June 2012 to the IRS inspector general, asking for 'periodic updates' on its investigation.

California Republican Rep. Darrel Issa, who chairs the committee, has promised it will 'aggressively follow up' on the IG's findings. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said in a statement Friday that the IRS 'cannot target or intimidate any individual or organization based on their political beliefs.'
'The House will investigate this matter,' Cantor promised.
Add appearing on the Fox News Channel on Sunday, Michigan Republican Rep. Mike Rogers said the IRS had 'agents who were engaged in intimidation of political groups.'
'I don't care if you're a conservative, a liberal, a Democrat or a Republican,' he said. 'This should send a chill up your spine. It needs to have a full investigation.'
President Obama echoed that sentiment during a press conference on Monday, sayign any IRS personnel who played political favorites 'have to be held fully accountable. ... And you should feel that way regardless of party. I don't care whether you're a Democrat, independent or a Republican.'
'At some point, there are going to be Republican administrations. At some point, there are going to be Democratic ones. Either way,' the president said, 'you don't want the IRS ever being perceived to be biased and anything less than neutral in terms of how they operate.'

Richmond Tea Party Executive Director Larry Nordvig did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But in 2012 his organization lashed out at the IRS for making 'unreasonable documentation requests.'
'This illustrates everything the American people find unacceptable from their government,' the group said in a press release. 'A simple request for tax-exempt status should not take years to complete, involve hundreds of pages of documentation, require hundreds of volunteer hours, and request private information we should never have to disclose.'
'This grants the Federal Government the dangerous power to selectively stymie those voices with which they disagree, bogging them down in endless paperwork and compliance costs so that they are unable to spend time serving the principles they founded their organization to advance.'
The Virginia organization said it applied for 501(c)(4) tax-exempt status on December 28, 2009 and waited nearly 10 months for a response, which consisted of 17 questions and a two-week deadline. That demand was made on the opening day of the Virginia Tea Party Convention, which the Richmond Tea Party organized in large part.
'We fully complied,' the group wrote, 'providing over 500 pages of documentation. We received no response for over a year. Eventually the IRS sent a letter dated January 9, 2012, thanking us for our "complete and thorough responses" from the first request,' but then asking 55 more questions in 12 parts – 'including the totally inappropriate request for a full list of our donors and volunteers. We were given the same two-week timeframe for completion.'

Alan P. Dye, a nonprofit attorney with the Washington, D.C. firm of Webster, Chamberlain & Bean, told MailOnline that he represents six tea party groups that have been waiting for periods of up to 30 months for the IRS to issue rulings.
'They're very pissed off,' he said, 'and they have every right to be pissed off.'
He advises his clients to refuse to answer invasive questions about their donors and volunteers, he said, since information they provide would be made available to the public.
'Everything these groups tell the IRS is open to public inspection once their exempt status is granted,' Dye explained.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio demanded the ouster of acting IRS commissioner Steven T. Miller on Monday. President Obama called the IRS's alleged conduct 'outrageous,' and said the bureaucrats responsible would be 'held accountable.'

The scandal-plagued Internal Revenue Service demanded Tea Party groups tell them everything from what they were posting on Facebook to what they read to even what they were thinking, a startling report has claimed.
The Justice Department has opened a criminal probe of the agency as a separate investigation found that lax management enabled agents to improperly target Tea Party groups for extra scrutiny when they applied for tax exempt status.
A new evaluation of IRS documents has found that there was little that the tax-collecting agency did not ask of Tea Party groups

The Politico review found that IRS demands included copies of their websites, donor information, minutes from all meetings, political goals of its members and print-outs of posts and comments on social media sites - each with a 'penalty of perjury' warning that left people spooked.
Toby Marie Walker, the president of the Waco Tea Party, told the site: 'They were asking for a U-Haul truck’s worth of information.'
Politico reported that one group, the Ohio-based American Patriots Against Government Excess was asked to provide summaries or copies of all material passed out at meetings.

Group president Marion Bower said that they were reading the U.S. Constitution and a copy of The 5000 Year Leap, a book by Cleon Skousen, so she sent a copy of each.
She told Politico: 'I don’t have time to write a book report for them.'
In the face of the hassle, some groups just dropped their tax exempt status request altogether.

Also today, House Speaker John Boehner asked the question: 'Who's going to jail over this scandal?'
He told reporters at the Capitol: 'There are laws in place to prevent this type of abuse. Someone made a conscious decision to harass and to hold up these requests for tax exempt status.
'I think we need to know who they are and whether they violated the law. Clearly someone violated the law.'
Earlier this week, MailOnline learned that the IRS wrote to the Richmond Tea Party last year demanding to know the names of all its financial donors and volunteers, as part of a 55-question inquisition into its application for tax-exempt status.
The agency wanted to know 'the names of the donors, contributors, and grantors' for every year 'from inception to the present.'
It also demanded 'the amounts of each of the donations, contributions, and grants and the dates you received them.'
'How did you use these donations, contributions, and grants?' the IRS asked. 'Provide the details.'

And in addition to the names of board members, officers and employees, the nation's taxing authorities insisted on knowing the names of everyone who helped the Richmond Tea Party without compensation.
'Please identify your volunteers,' the January 9, 2012 letter from the IRS read.
The agency also required the Virginia conservative group to provide copies of sections of its website that only its members can access.
Yesterday, a Tennessee Tea Party leader told MailOnline that he was given a 95-question document when he asked the IRS for tax-exempt status for a mentoring group that trained high school and college students about conservative political philosophy.
The questionnaire included an ultimatum for a list of everyone he had trained and was planning to train.

'Provide details regarding all training you have provided or will provide,' the IRS demanded. 'Indicate who has received or will receive the training and submit copies of the training material.'
That question was part of the tax collection agency's February 14, 2012 letter to Kevin Kookogey, founder of the group Linchpins of Liberty.
He had submitted his application 13 months earlier.
'Can you imagine my responsibility to parents if I disclosed the names of their children to the IRS?' he asked MailOnline.
It's 'an impossible question to answer fully and truthfully,' he said, 'without disclosing the names of anyone I ever taught, or would ever teach, including students.'
Like the leaders of many tea party-affiliated groups whose tax-exemption applications have become the subject of angry complaints, Kookogey called the IRS's inquisition an overreach, 'especially considering that my organization mentors high school and college students.'

It 'should send chills through your spine,' he told MailOnline, 'that the government would ask me to identify those I teach, and to provide details of what I teach them.'
The 13-month delay, while burdensome, was far shorter than those some other groups endured.
According to a report released late Tuesday by the IRS's Office of Inspector General, the average delay at one point was 574 days.

But Kookogey said a $30,000 grant was canceled as a result of the IRS's months-long radio silence, when he couldn't tell his donor that Linchpins had earned its 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status.
That money would have made a significant difference to the group, judging from its public filings in Tennessee.
In 2011, Linchpins of Liberty reported collecting just $3,460 in contributions, and spending $7,328 on its programs.

The group's online materials refer to it as 'an American leadership development enterprise.' Its stated purpose is to mentor high school and college students, placing an emphasis on Western civilization and an old-style core curriculum - what previous generations called the 'great books.'
'Our ideas are opposed to the Obama administration, but we’re not tea party,' Kookogey told The Tennessean.
It's that lack of a tea party connection, he said, that makes his predicament so maddening.
He told MailOnline that nothing about his group - 'not our name or our description or our website, or anything' - should have placed it among the organizations the IRS chose to scrutinize closely by using key words like 'tea party,' '9/12,' and 'patriots' as qualifiers.
'I'm not a Tea Party group. I'm not a Patriot group by name' he told NewsChannel 5 in Nashville.
'We mentor high school and college students in conservative political philosophy. It's a one on one relationship.'

Kookogey summed it up in an interview with MailOnline as 'unethical, unconstitutional, and unfair,' later asserting in an email that '[w]e were targeted by the IRS based on our political beliefs and the content of our speech.'
The American Center for Law and Justice, which represents 27 conservative groups including Linchpins of Liberty, is planning to file suit against the IRS.
Jay Sekulow, that organization's chief counsel, wrote on Tuesday that 'the IRS abuse is ongoing.'
'Even though the IRS admitted wrongdoing,' Sekulow wrote in an essay for FoxNews.com, even though the Inspector General’s report indicates that wrongdoing was widespread, the IRS still hasn’t withdrawn its overbroad and unconstitutional questions, and it still hasn’t granted the exemptions it should grant, despite the fact that some applications have been pending for more than two years.'
The Inspector General's report includes a list of 'the seven questions' the IRS asked right-wing groups that were later 'identified as being unnecessary.'
Its request for the list of students trained by Linchpins of Liberty was not among them.

The report also largely exonerates political appointees in the Treasury Department and at the top of the IRS, instead blaming mid-level bureaucrats for providing 'ineffective management' and using 'inappropriate criteria' to red-flag conservative groups.
It makes no mention of anyone in the White House directing the IRS to play political favorites. But The Washington Post has reported that 'senior IRS officials' in Washington, D.C. were notified of the practice in 2011.
In December of that year, Kookogey says, he called the IRS's nonprofit evaluation arm in Cincinnati, Ohio, to find out why his group's application had taken so long.
The agent on the other end of the line, he said, told him, 'We are waiting on guidance from our superiors as to your organization and similar organizations.'
Attorney General Eric Holder has demanded a joint Justice Department and FBI criminal probe against the IRS.
He said that he first learned about the IRS's practices on Friday.

The IRS's actions, he said, were, 'certainly outrageous and unacceptable, but we are examining the facts to see if there were criminal violations.'
Florida Sen Marco Rubio has ordered Treasury Secretary Jack Lew to fire acting IRS director Steven Miller over the scandal.
'At a bare minimum, those involved with this deeply offensive use of government power have committed a violation of the public trust that has already had a profoundly chilling effect on free speech,' Rubio wrote Monday in a letter to Lew.
'Such behavior cannot be excused with a simple apology.'
'It is clear the IRS cannot operate with even a shred of the American people’s confidence under the current leadership,' Rubio continued. 'Therefore, I strongly urge that you and President Obama demand the IRS Commissioner’s resignation, effective immediately.'
On Friday, Sekulow demanded that the IRS immediately approve the tax-exempt status applications of his organization's 10 legal clients, including Linchpins of Liberty, that are still waiting. He issued the agency an ultimatum: Grant the requests by noon on May 17, or prepare to fight in court.
'We are demanding that the IRS grant our remaining clients tax-exempt status immediately,' Sekulow said in a statement. 'If that does not occur by Friday, we will advise our clients of their right to sue the IRS for the redress of their grievances.'

 whembly wrote:
Whoa...

Steven Miller was set to resign in JUNE!

But in an email to IRS employees, Miller claimed he would only be leaving next month because his assignment would be over.

The feth?

IronWarLeg wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Whoa...

Steven Miller was set to resign in JUNE!

But in an email to IRS employees, Miller claimed he would only be leaving next month because his assignment would be over.

The feth?

True, I received this email today, what is being sent to IRS employees, such as myself, and what is being portrayed in the media are 2 separate things. Miller is on an acting assignment that ends in June, the timing is just convenient to make him a scapegoat. And he was not Acting Commish when all this went down, that was the previous actual Commish...

I would post the emails that I have received from NTEU, the Acting Commish and others if I knew it was ok to do so, I will check in the AM and see so that all here on Dakka can make their own guesses.

 whembly wrote:
I, for one would love to see it... but, if you have any doubt if you should do it, don't. I work in the healthcare industry, and that would be grounds for termination.

So.. the whole accountability thing so far doesn't mean gak so far.

 whembly wrote:

IronWarLeg wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Whoa...

Steven Miller was set to resign in JUNE!

But in an email to IRS employees, Miller claimed he would only be leaving next month because his assignment would be over.

The feth?

True, I received this email today, what is being sent to IRS employees, such as myself, and what is being portrayed in the media are 2 separate things. Miller is on an acting assignment that ends in June, the timing is just convenient to make him a scapegoat. And he was not Acting Commish when all this went down, that was the previous actual Commish...

I would post the emails that I have received from NTEU, the Acting Commish and others if I knew it was ok to do so, I will check in the AM and see so that all here on Dakka can make their own guesses.

I, for one would love to see it... but, if you have any doubt if you should do it, don't. I work in the healthcare industry, and that would be grounds for termination.

So.. the whole accountability thing so far doesn't mean gak so far.

IronWarLeg wrote:

Spoiler:

NTEU IRS Members:

There has been a tremendous amount of speculation in the media about the IRS and the organizations applying for tax-exempt 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) status. And, while some excerpts of the TIGTA report were shared with the media, the complete report was not released until last night.

IRS employees are dedicated and committed public servants who perform vital work on behalf of the American people. And in my experience, you do so without partisan considerations. The findings of the report confirm that.

The report showed no indication of improper political motives or intentional wrongdoing on the part of employees. The report also noted that IRS officials stated that the criteria were not influenced by any individual or organization outside the IRS.

The report states that TIGTA conducted the audit based on concerns expressed by members of Congress. The overall objective was to determine: "whether allegations were founded that the IRS: 1) targeted specific groups applying for "tax-exempt status, 2) delayed processing of targeted groups’ applications, and 3) requested unnecessary information from targeted groups."

TIGTA reported that it determined that "the IRS used inappropriate criteria that identified for review Tea Party and other organizations applying for tax-exempt status based upon their names or policy positions instead of indications of potential political campaign intervention. Ineffective management: 1) allowed inappropriate criteria to be developed and stay in place for more than 18 months, 2) resulted in substantial delays in processing certain applications, and 3) allowed unnecessary information requests to be issued."

The report also found that contributing to the problem were a lack of training, a lack of criteria and procedures, a lack of guidance for specialists on how to process requests for tax-exempt status involving potentially significant campaign intervention, a lack of sufficient oversight and a lack of direction from Treasury on how to measure the primary activity of 501(c)(4) social welfare organizations.

In response to TIGTA, the IRS stated, "We believe the front line career employees that made the decisions acted out of a desire for efficiency and not out of any political or partisan viewpoint."

The IRS has stated that no one intentionally did anything wrong and I believe that to be the case.

The release of the TIGTA report follows an announcement by Attorney General Eric Holder that he has ordered an investigation into whether criminal activity took place at the IRS.
In addition, several Congressional committees are scheduling hearings. On Friday, the House Ways and Means Committee will be holding a hearing on the report.

Front line IRS employees do important work for our country every day. These are challenging times for all federal employees, particularly IRS employees, and I know you will continue to focus on serving the American people. For its part, NTEU will work to ensure that front line employees are not treated unfairly. We will continue to support you and will keep you informed as the situation develops.

That is from Colleen Kelley

Take from it what you will, a bit different and less ERRRHHMEERRGEERRD than whats in the media I suppose..

IronWarLeg wrote:
NOTE: I appreciate the concern, I will only post what I know can be shared.

 whembly wrote:

IronWarLeg wrote:

Spoiler:

NTEU IRS Members:

There has been a tremendous amount of speculation in the media about the IRS and the organizations applying for tax-exempt 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) status. And, while some excerpts of the TIGTA report were shared with the media, the complete report was not released until last night.

IRS employees are dedicated and committed public servants who perform vital work on behalf of the American people. And in my experience, you do so without partisan considerations. The findings of the report confirm that.

The report showed no indication of improper political motives or intentional wrongdoing on the part of employees. The report also noted that IRS officials stated that the criteria were not influenced by any individual or organization outside the IRS.

The report states that TIGTA conducted the audit based on concerns expressed by members of Congress. The overall objective was to determine: "whether allegations were founded that the IRS: 1) targeted specific groups applying for "tax-exempt status, 2) delayed processing of targeted groups’ applications, and 3) requested unnecessary information from targeted groups."

TIGTA reported that it determined that "the IRS used inappropriate criteria that identified for review Tea Party and other organizations applying for tax-exempt status based upon their names or policy positions instead of indications of potential political campaign intervention. Ineffective management: 1) allowed inappropriate criteria to be developed and stay in place for more than 18 months, 2) resulted in substantial delays in processing certain applications, and 3) allowed unnecessary information requests to be issued."

The report also found that contributing to the problem were a lack of training, a lack of criteria and procedures, a lack of guidance for specialists on how to process requests for tax-exempt status involving potentially significant campaign intervention, a lack of sufficient oversight and a lack of direction from Treasury on how to measure the primary activity of 501(c)(4) social welfare organizations.

In response to TIGTA, the IRS stated, "We believe the front line career employees that made the decisions acted out of a desire for efficiency and not out of any political or partisan viewpoint."

The IRS has stated that no one intentionally did anything wrong and I believe that to be the case.

The release of the TIGTA report follows an announcement by Attorney General Eric Holder that he has ordered an investigation into whether criminal activity took place at the IRS.
In addition, several Congressional committees are scheduling hearings. On Friday, the House Ways and Means Committee will be holding a hearing on the report.

Front line IRS employees do important work for our country every day. These are challenging times for all federal employees, particularly IRS employees, and I know you will continue to focus on serving the American people. For its part, NTEU will work to ensure that front line employees are not treated unfairly. We will continue to support you and will keep you informed as the situation develops.

That is from Colleen Kelley

Take from it what you will, a bit different and less ERRRHHMEERRGEERRD than whats in the media I suppose..

 whembly wrote:

IronWarLeg wrote:
NOTE: I appreciate the concern, I will only post what I know can be shared.

no problemo.

We're a cool little community here and truly don't want anyone to inadvertently hurt themselves.

 Mannahnin wrote:
I wish the IRS were more strict on 501(c)(4) status in general. Not targeted at any particular political bent, but just not letting transparently political organizations get tax exempt status pretending to be something they're not.

 Mannahnin wrote:
I wish the IRS were more strict on 501(c)(4) status in general. Not targeted at any particular political bent, but just not letting transparently political organizations get tax exempt status pretending to be something they're not.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

You really seem to be struggling with this concept of just cause so let me put it another way - police right to target specific groups of people based on race/religion/etc. for investigations without any evidence of a crime being committed?

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

The problem here is that the IRS very obviously haven't given the same level of scrutiny to left leaning groups as they have to those leaning right.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

You mean other than the head of the tax-exempt division publicly admitting that policy was breached, right?

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

If it is politically motivated how can you then claim that the IRS is being reasonable, much less impartial?

 Valion wrote:
Do we take your word that you were saying the same thing and condemning the Bush impeachment calls even when you were stroking out on a daily basis over things he did?

 whembly wrote:
Without the corporate income tax, most of the incentive for lobbying would go away... not all of it, I'm sure. But the vast amount of effort that goes into lobbying for tax laws, and politicians often reward favored constituent businesses with little sweetheart deals to the tax code.

 sebster wrote:
Please go and find all the instances of me saying Bush should be impeached. Or, alternatively you can feel free to make up whatever random gak in your head that helps you pretend you're right.

 Valion wrote:
Please read a little more closely next time. I didn't suggest you were saying Bush should be impeached, I suggested you probably weren't riding in on the high horse of arch-morality and condemning the people who were saying it.

 Newabortion wrote:
Why not just eliminate taxes? America survived without this bull skat until the great depression and then it was WW2 that ultimately revived our economy(Opinion, I know.), income tax should've died there. Why would CEOs give a crap about how much taxes their businesses have to pay when they themselves don't have to pay taxes?

 dogma wrote:
*snip*

 Mr Hyena wrote:
This seems like a massive breach of rights and an infringement on democracy.

IRS officials refused to grant tax exempt status two pro-life organizations because of their position on the abortion issue, according to a non-profit law firm, which said that one group was pressured not to protest a pro-choice organization that endorsed President Obama during the last election.

“In one case, the IRS withheld approval of an application for tax exempt status for Coalition for Life of Iowa. In a phone call to Coalition for Life of Iowa leaders on June 6, 2009, the IRS agent ‘Ms. Richards’ told the group to send a letter to the IRS with the entire board’s signatures stating that, under perjury of the law, they do not picket/protest or organize groups to picket or protest outside of Planned Parenthood,” the Thomas More Society announced today. “Once the IRS received this letter, their application would be approved.”

whembly wrote: In fact, protests against Planned Parenthood by this group would be exactly the kind of “social welfare” protected by an exemption.

 azazel the cat wrote:

whembly wrote: In fact, protests against Planned Parenthood by this group would be exactly the kind of “social welfare” protected by an exemption.

How so?

whembly wrote:

 azazel the cat wrote:

whembly wrote: In fact, protests against Planned Parenthood by this group would be exactly the kind of “social welfare” protected by an exemption.

How so?

That's the point.

"Social welfare" is ambiguous as hell. So, that determination is left to the decision makers within the IRS. This should be made crystal clear.

 azazel the cat wrote:

whembly wrote:

 azazel the cat wrote:

whembly wrote: In fact, protests against Planned Parenthood by this group would be exactly the kind of “social welfare” protected by an exemption.

How so?

That's the point.

"Social welfare" is ambiguous as hell. So, that determination is left to the decision makers within the IRS. This should be made crystal clear.

Care to explain on what grounds you would consider a protest against planned parenthood to be for the benefit of society?

 Frazzled wrote:
Same grounds any free speech is permitted as a benefit to society.