It's widely known in Washington that the tax laws granting tax-exempt status under the '501(c)4' rule to incent groups 'for social welfare', not intended for political campaign groups specifically prohibited from tax-exempt status, are widely abused by campaign groups.
A 'real scandal' is the under-policing of these laws evan as their use has exploded as money increases in political campaigns.
However, the IRS has mishandled this investigation not ony by under-investigatng the abuse - but in a scandal revealed Friday, by targetting right-wing groups for investigation.
The IRS apologized Friday for the fact that is searched for 501(c)4 groups to investigate by searching for a variety of words in the name it felt suggested more likely political activity - which have a right-wing orientation. They looked for words such as 'tea party' and anti-tax themese.
Every political commentator I've seen on the right and left has condemned this. The ACLU has spoken out about the dangers it poses to political speech.
Unfortunately, some of the outrage might be misplaced. Some investigation sounds overly intrusive, big-brother like as the IRS investigates the political activities of these organizations precisely because that's exactly what they SHOULD be investigating when looking to see if political groups are breaking the rules to get tax-exempt status.
The real scandal here is when those investigations have a partisan political filter.
There is a legitimate issue that it's the right that has seen an explosion in these groups that make the focus of the investigations look at them more heavily. But it's a delicate issue when the legitimate investigations of the exploding right-wing groups overlaps closely with what a list of illegal and corrupt focus on right-wing groups for political reasons would look like.
It's a bit like if the police had to investigate an explosion in suspected fraudulent claims against the police department, that would look about the same as if they were targetting people who had legitimate claims against them. This is the sort of political delicacy that comes with the territory when the tax laws make these distinctions.
The motivations of the IRS staff involed are not known and investigation is needed. It appears very likely inappropriate processes were used.
In the best case, I suspect a war of words coming between people making a case for legitiimate investigation of these groups against the right claiming persecution.
It'll be about the reason for selective targetting - legitimate correlated to the numbers being much higher on the right, or partisan witch hunt.
There is no information reported the White House had any knwoeldege of or direction of the activities. But of course, they are responsible for the IRS actions.
Columnist Ezra Klein wrote a column both condemning inappropriate filtering and pointing out that there is a large scandal involving the abuse of this exemption largely ignored.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...ea-party-they-shouldve-gone-after-all-501c4s/
A 'real scandal' is the under-policing of these laws evan as their use has exploded as money increases in political campaigns.
However, the IRS has mishandled this investigation not ony by under-investigatng the abuse - but in a scandal revealed Friday, by targetting right-wing groups for investigation.
The IRS apologized Friday for the fact that is searched for 501(c)4 groups to investigate by searching for a variety of words in the name it felt suggested more likely political activity - which have a right-wing orientation. They looked for words such as 'tea party' and anti-tax themese.
Every political commentator I've seen on the right and left has condemned this. The ACLU has spoken out about the dangers it poses to political speech.
Unfortunately, some of the outrage might be misplaced. Some investigation sounds overly intrusive, big-brother like as the IRS investigates the political activities of these organizations precisely because that's exactly what they SHOULD be investigating when looking to see if political groups are breaking the rules to get tax-exempt status.
The real scandal here is when those investigations have a partisan political filter.
There is a legitimate issue that it's the right that has seen an explosion in these groups that make the focus of the investigations look at them more heavily. But it's a delicate issue when the legitimate investigations of the exploding right-wing groups overlaps closely with what a list of illegal and corrupt focus on right-wing groups for political reasons would look like.
It's a bit like if the police had to investigate an explosion in suspected fraudulent claims against the police department, that would look about the same as if they were targetting people who had legitimate claims against them. This is the sort of political delicacy that comes with the territory when the tax laws make these distinctions.
The motivations of the IRS staff involed are not known and investigation is needed. It appears very likely inappropriate processes were used.
In the best case, I suspect a war of words coming between people making a case for legitiimate investigation of these groups against the right claiming persecution.
It'll be about the reason for selective targetting - legitimate correlated to the numbers being much higher on the right, or partisan witch hunt.
There is no information reported the White House had any knwoeldege of or direction of the activities. But of course, they are responsible for the IRS actions.
Columnist Ezra Klein wrote a column both condemning inappropriate filtering and pointing out that there is a large scandal involving the abuse of this exemption largely ignored.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...ea-party-they-shouldve-gone-after-all-501c4s/
Facebook
Twitter