IRS confesses to inappropriately targeting conservative groups.

[Balt]

You sound just like his Press Secretary Carney that said even though the head of the IRS admitted it and apologized for it, it doesn't mean it really happened. Maybe you're shopping for a new job since Carney lost all his meager credibility with the press with that claim.

Admitted and apologized for what? Obama using the IRS as a weapon to target Tea Party groups? I don't think he said that, and neither do you.

 

[michal1980]

Since you on the left like Iraq so much.

I give you the 'Baghdad Bob' award.

 

[BD2003]

Can someone explain to me what the actual scandal is here? As far as I can tell, its a big fuss over the IRS more closely scrutinizing the tea party. But the tea party's MO is about paying less taxes, their slogan is "taxed enough already" isn't it? So isn't a more watchful eye on a group that publicly proclaims their desire to pay less taxes just common sense?

Or is there some sort of hard evidence that there was foul play, a specific political motive, like watergate? I haven't been following it closely enough, from a distance it just seems like much ado about nothing, but I'm hoping someone can fill me in.

 

[monovillage]

Can someone explain to me what the actual scandal is here? As far as I can tell, its a big fuss over the IRS more closely scrutinizing the tea party. But the tea party's MO is about paying less taxes, their slogan is "taxed enough already" isn't it? So isn't a more watchful eye on a group that publicly proclaims their desire to pay less taxes just common sense?

Or is there some sort of hard evidence that there was foul play, a specific political motive, like watergate? I haven't been following it closely enough, from a distance it just seems like much ado about nothing, but I'm hoping someone can fill me in.

Why would anyone bother? You're obviously too stupid to read the half dozen or so articles posted about it here in this thread.

 

[Incorruptible]

More Truthiness!

Keep defending that piece of shit obama.

 

[nextJin]

Can someone explain to me what the actual scandal is here? As far as I can tell, its a big fuss over the IRS more closely scrutinizing the tea party. But the tea party's MO is about paying less taxes, their slogan is "taxed enough already" isn't it? So isn't a more watchful eye on a group that publicly proclaims their desire to pay less taxes just common sense?

Or is there some sort of hard evidence that there was foul play, a specific political motive, like watergate? I haven't been following it closely enough, from a distance it just seems like much ado about nothing, but I'm hoping someone can fill me in.

It's basically the latest in a string of failures with the the IRS issue by far the biggest one.

Fast and Furious
Benghazi
DoJ phone taps on AP
IRS targeting Tea Party
etc.

 

[waggy]

Can someone explain to me what the actual scandal is here? As far as I can tell, its a big fuss over the IRS more closely scrutinizing the tea party. But the tea party's MO is about paying less taxes, their slogan is "taxed enough already" isn't it? So isn't a more watchful eye on a group that publicly proclaims their desire to pay less taxes just common sense?

Or is there some sort of hard evidence that there was foul play, a specific political motive, like watergate? I haven't been following it closely enough, from a distance it just seems like much ado about nothing, but I'm hoping someone can fill me in.

fuck. stop being lazy and read the articles that have been linked.

 

[m8d]

So the Republicans knew all a long about the investigation.
http://news.yahoo.com/republicans-informed-irs-investigation-last-125615676--abc-news-politics.html

 

[piasabird]

Apology not accepted! How many people are in jail or fired? It is time to fire everyone in management in the IRS and start over.

 

[monovillage]

Apology not accepted! How many people are in jail or fired? It is time to fire everyone in management in the IRS and start over.

According to Obama aide Dan Pfeiffer the law is "irrelevant"
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/pfeiffer-irs-scandal-law-irrelevant_724883.html

"Look, I can't speak to the law here," he said. "The law is irrelevant. The activity was outrageous and inexcusable."

 

[piasabird]

Its so inexcusable that they promoted the person in charnge!

 

[Balt]

So the Republicans knew all a long about the investigation.
http://news.yahoo.com/republicans-informed-irs-investigation-last-125615676--abc-news-politics.html

Impossible. Everyone knows Obama personally threatened the investigators with decapitation if they shared information with Congress. After all, he had an election to win.

 

[Bowfinger]

Trying to catch up today and found this on NPR. It's a good summary of the Inspector General's report. Note that it is an op-ed rather than a hard news story, but it does cite its source within the report for each point:

10 Things We Learned from the IRS Inspector General Report

Scintillating isn't how you'd describe the report issued by the on the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of conservative groups.
It was written, after all, by government bureaucrats for government bureaucrats. Enough said.

Still, peel back the careful, cautious and colorless language and there are some eyebrow-raising tidbits in the report that give a sense of the dysfunction in the tax-exempt unit that allowed the controversial targeting to occur.

Here are 10 of them:

• The IG report was our first source without skin in the game (like IRS and White House officials) to report that agency employees said no outsiders influenced them to target conservative applicants. (Page 7)

• The IRS employees responsible for applying greater scrutiny to groups with "Tea Party" or "Patriots" in their names were evidently incorrigible. After their boss told them to cease and desist they did, temporarily. Then they went back to doing their own thing, which meant using inappropriate filters to select applicants for additional review. (Page 7)

• At one point, in an agency of 106,000 workers, just one, presumably very overwhelmed, bureaucrat had the job of reviewing applications for tax-exempt status that were selected for greater scrutiny because the information raised questions about their political activities. (Page 5, Footnote 14)

• The inspector general says "it's considering" following up its first evaluation with a deeper dive into exactly how the IRS unit it studied monitors the political activities of the "social welfare" groups it grants tax-exempt status. It wants to make sure the unit knows when such organizations cross the line to engage in too much politics. (Page 4, Footnote 12)

• Even employees in the IRS's tax-exempt unit were stupefied by the rules about which they had to make decisions. They were so confused, their bosses decided they needed hands-on training — after which an absurdly low and slow 2 percent application approval rate soared. Given the political sensitivity of this part of the IRS's work, you might have expected the training to happen sooner. The problems remain, however, according to the IG, and the guidance the workers labor under is vague at best. (Page 14)

• Some applications for tax-exempt status were, astonishingly, under review for as long as three years. What's even more remarkable is that even though the law gives applicants the right to sue the IRS if they failed to get a conclusive response from the agency within 270 days, none did, at least not during the two years of the IG's investigation. Maybe Americans aren't as litigious as they're often given credit for being. (Page 16)

• Even after the IG pointed out the error of their ways, IRS officials were, to some extent, still not seeing things as clearly as the IG thought they should. For instance, IRS officials said issues the IG raised had been resolved. The IG flatly contradicted them, saying no, they hadn't been fixed. (Opening memo)

• Some applications from groups with evidence of substantial political activity weren't forwarded to the team that had the task of giving applications extra scrutiny. Others that lacked evidence of significant political activity weren't sent to the IRS review team for further investigation. (Pages 9-10)

• IRS workers must watch a lot of TV cop dramas: They described their list of names to watch for as the "be on the lookout for" or BOLO list. (Page 6)

• When the agency asked for additional information — information the IG ultimately deemed to be irrelevant to the applications in question — the IRS would ask applicants to meet their requests within three weeks even though the IRS had essentially sat on some of the applications for more than a year. That's what New Yorkers would call chutzpah. (Page 18)

I think the first three bullets are especially relevant to some of the issues raised in this thread.

1. The Inspector General found no evidence of external influence to to use partisan criteria. This is no doubt a great disappointment to all the Obama haters who just know, deep down inside their partisan little minds, that Obama must have personally ordered this to "get" the Tea Party. Sadly for them, once again, the facts in evidence do not support their beliefs.

2. The IRS employees involved continued to pursue this biased approach even after their superiors told them to stop. This largely refutes the claims this was a widespread conspiracy across many offices.

3. There were very few IRS employees involved in screening these applications, at one point dropping to a single person. This also blows a gaping hole in those who insist it was some mass conspiracy.
​

I don't expect this inconvenient information will shake the Obama haters' faith in the slightest, of course. They believe, and that's all that matters. They cannot accept that they have been duped yet again by the RNC propaganda machine.

Finally, for those with short attention spans and/or the compulsion to deflect, I will again say none of this suggests that this targeting was appropriate or acceptable, However benign their intent may or may NOT have been, the results were politically biased and that is clearly wrong. Based on what we know so far, however, it is not the huge White House scandal the GOP so desperately craves.

 

[Bowfinger]

Jesus... you're truly delusional!

Apparently so is the Inspector General then. You might want to take it up with him. Of course I imagine since I've directly challenged your empty partisan BS, you'll probably cut and run again. Perhaps you can call him from under your bed.

 

[Bowfinger]

(C)(3) orgs must complete Form 1023: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1023.pdf

(C)(4) orgs must complete Form 1024: http://501cfreebook.com/501_c__4__Tipsheet.html

I.e., It's immediately evident which are which.

Given that there are about 30 different types of non-profits, all of which require different standards to qualify, I'm highly doubtful every staff is trained and works on any and all of them. No org processing such legal paperwork operates that way.

In fact, the IRS has long been organized along 'industrial classification' (I can't remember if that's the exact term). I.e., some would work on hospital apps, some on churches etc. But TBH, I don't have any exact info on the Exempt Orgs Division. But with 60,000 to 70,000 of apps coming in annually I can't imagine they are organized that differently than the rest of the IRS.

Fern

I certainly agree the two applications are visually distinct, but that doesn't mean they weren't handled with the same process. Based on the excerpts from the IG report, it sounds like it was only a small group reviewing these applications, or at least reviewing those with potential political activities. As mentioned, at one point it was down to a single person.

But I have no special inside knowledge about overall process for processing these applications at the IRS. I don't think SIC codes apply here, but they certainly could route the forms differently based on other criteria. I was a bit surprised at Form 1024. It covers a great many types of 501(C) applications, but requires little detail about them. I can see why follow-up reviews would be necessary for any applications that even hinted at political activities. Once again, however, that follow up must not be politically biased.

Thanks again for all the information.

 

[Fern]

This also blows a gaping hole in those who insist it was some mass conspiracy.

To be fair, the scope of the audit was restricted to HQ and the Cincinnati unit. That omits at least 2 units in CA who are alleged to have participated also.

Fern

 

[Bowfinger]

You're not too bright. It was brought up on Friday (today) what happened/was known in June 2012.

Dude, didn't you get the message? Even wing-nut hacks can learn to read. Granted it won't be easy for you, and you'll be horrified to learn most of what you believe is wrong, but you can do it. Maybe.

You didn't contradict what I said at all. Friday's testimony only confirms things we already knew. That there were inquiries into complaints of partisanship at the IRS was known a year or more ago. What we didn't know until recently is that the IRS itself had investigated internally and found those complaints had merit.

 

[Bowfinger]

To be fair, the scope of the audit was restricted to HQ and the Cincinnati unit. That omits at least 2 units in CA who are alleged to have participated also.

Fern

OK, fair enough. I can't speak to any other offices. I thought I read that all of the 501(C) applications were processed in Cincinnati, however, but I don't have a link handy. Even if so, that wouldn't preclude local prescreening or flagging (but I'm speculating).

 

[Fern]

Can someone explain to me what the actual scandal is here? As far as I can tell, its a big fuss over the IRS more closely scrutinizing the tea party. But the tea party's MO is about paying less taxes, their slogan is "taxed enough already" isn't it? So isn't a more watchful eye on a group that publicly proclaims their desire to pay less taxes just common sense?
-snip-

As others have stated there is plenty of available info to answer your question.

However, your post does repeat a common mistaken theme: That the group would be taxable if political etc., and thus not qualifying under section 501 (c)(4). That is incorrect.

Political PACs (section 527), heck even straight up campaigns, are tax exempt too.

And, similarly to PACs and political campaigns, contributions to 501 (c)(4) orgs are not deductible:

Donations to Section 501(c)(4) Organizations

Contributions to civic leagues or other section 501(c)(4) organizations generally are not deductible as charitable contributions for federal income tax purposes

http://www.irs.gov/Charities-&-Non-.../Donations-to-Section-501(c)(4)-Organizations

Contributions to TEA Party are advertised as non-deductible by the TEA Party itself:

Tea Party Patriots, Inc. operates as a social welfare organization organized under section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code. Contributions to Tea Party Patriots, Inc. are not deductible as charitable contributions for income tax purposes.

https://www.teapartypatriots.org/donations/

Thus, why all this extra scrutiny? It isn't because of being taxable versus nontaxable, or deductible versus nondeductible. So why?

Fern

 

[Fern]

OK, fair enough. I can't speak to any other offices. I thought I read that all of the 501(C) applications were processed in Cincinnati, however, but I don't have a link handy. Even if so, that wouldn't preclude local prescreening or flagging (but I'm speculating).

TBH, I thought all were handles out of Cinci, that's the only IRS office I recall dealing with since the IRS reorg when working on tax exempt orgs.

However, an attorney representing orgs now suing the IRS has publicly claimed that they received virtually identical inappropriate and intrusive demand requests for more additional info from two IRS offices in CA. Personally, I have no idea why CA would be involved.

Fern

 

[ivwshane]

As others have stated there is plenty of available info to answer your question.

However, your post does repeat a common mistaken theme: That the group would be taxable if political etc., thus not qualifying under section 501 (c)(4). That is incorrect.

Political PACs (section 527), heck even straight up campaigns, are tax exempt too.

And, similarly to PACs and political campaigns, contributions to 501 (c)(4) orgs are not deductible:



http://www.irs.gov/Charities-&-Non-.../Donations-to-Section-501(c)(4)-Organizations

Contributions to TEA Party are advertised as non-deductible by the TEA Party itself:



https://www.teapartypatriots.org/donations/

Thus, why all this extra scrutiny? It isn't because of being taxable versus nontaxable, or deductible versus nondeductible. So why?

Fern

The difference is that with a 501c4 the identity of your donors does not need to be disclosed.

 

[Fern]

Yep.

(And I note, the IRS was often requesting that info even as they considered their 501 (c)(4) application.)

Fern

 

[Bowfinger]

Wow! You must be extra butt-hurt to attack the same comment twice. Poor fella, I didn't realize you were such a fragile little flower. (Pansies are flowers, right?) I'm sure if you lock the door and watch Fox for a few hours, you'll feel all better.

I understand you have trouble with my phrases below. What you need to understand is it's because there are a couple of key differences between us. It's why I choose my words carefully while you just blow partisan bluster out of your rectum.

First, I value personal integrity. I accept accountability for my words. I try to never present speculation or wishful thinking as fact. If I don't know about a topic, I don't just make something up. I either read and learn, or at a minimum expressly state that I'm offering only opinion or speculation. Further, if I'm caught in an error, I will acknowledge it. I hate doing that, which is why I try to make sure I know what I'm talking about first.

Second, we use different thought processes. I like to get the facts first, then reach a conclusion. When facts are incomplete, I hedge my comments with phrases like, "based on what we know so far" or a simple "it appears". You, on the other hand, seem to draw your conclusions first, then belligerently proclaim them as fact. Actual facts have little place in your world of emotionally-driven faith. For you and those like you, wishful thinking is even better than fact.

So, with that in mind, let's look at your issues:

"Ill-considered shortcut"

First, let's be clear on the context. I said it was "possible", not that it was certain. Given that, the phrase is accurate. There are two factors to consider. First, why were these IRS employees using keywords to select applications? I think everyone agrees it was a shortcut to quickly find certain types of applications.

Second, there's the question of intent. Did these employees intend to discriminate based on partisan criteria or not? You insist that they did, based solely on your feelings. I do not claim to know one way or the other. IF that was indeed not their intent, however, then the shortcut they came up with was a poor choice. It was an ill-considered shortcut, creating a result they did not intend.

And not lies, but...

"plausible alternative explanations"

Ah, from the recent Benghazi thread. This one is a really poor choice for your crying given that we've subsequently learned I was right. The ABC email "quotes" turned out to be a Republican fabrication. Further, the actual emails show that contrary to the fevered imagination of you RNC drones, the upcoming election was not mentioned once while revising the talking points. The real focus was infighting between State and the CIA. It is now, therefore, much more than a plausible alternative explanation. It is the honest explanation, at least based on the evidence we have so far.

The only lie here was yours.

or
"handled communications poorly"

Also from the Benghazi threads, and also proven accurate. The nutters screeched that Obama and Rice invented the connection to the YouTube video. We now know they were wrong, that this talking point came straight from the CIA. They screeched that it was all about election. The emails show the election was never mentioned. They cried that the White House refused to allow any military response. We now know it was the Pentagon who made that call because they judged they didn't have the right resources in the right positions to respond. And so on ...

What Obama and the White House really fell short on was communicating what happened quickly and clearly. They accepted the official talking points -- pure pablum in their final form -- instead of being more open with their suspicions. While I understand the need to avoid prejudicing the investigation, and I acknowledge that most of the WH comments I saw mentioned the possibility of terrorist involvement, they should have emphasized that aspect more, and more quickly.

I'm beginning to see a trend in your posts...

It's called accuracy. You should try it.

 

[palehorse]

lol, the scary thing is that you honestly believe your own bullshit.

By the way, I voted for that f'n imbecile, Obama, so you're damn right I'll continue to criticize every mistake he and his admin make. He and his appointed staff have let me down in almost every conceivable way...

 

[BD2003]

As others have stated there is plenty of available info to answer your question.

However, your post does repeat a common mistaken theme: That the group would be taxable if political etc., and thus not qualifying under section 501 (c)(4). That is incorrect.

Political PACs (section 527), heck even straight up campaigns, are tax exempt too.

And, similarly to PACs and political campaigns, contributions to 501 (c)(4) orgs are not deductible:



http://www.irs.gov/Charities-&-Non-.../Donations-to-Section-501(c)(4)-Organizations

Contributions to TEA Party are advertised as non-deductible by the TEA Party itself:



https://www.teapartypatriots.org/donations/

Thus, why all this extra scrutiny? It isn't because of being taxable versus nontaxable, or deductible versus nondeductible. So why?

Fern

Then what am I missing here? Is it that they're alleging that the conservative groups were unfairly targeted from a purely political motive, because they were conservative? Is there any proof that it was specifically politically motivated, or is just an assumption the republicans are running with?