IRS Admits They Targeted Conservative Groups

[Dirty Penguin]

Sorry Charlie. As we commonly see that their are those that demand separation of church and state and the left screamed when the Catholic Church went against the ACA as a violation of this. Yet, we see you and those that screamed the loudest supporting a church that was doing the same thing. The only difference is that the church was supporting the ideals of the screamers.

What are you going on about...

It wasn't so much about separation of church and state as much as it had to do with the IRS looking into this church/pastor because of their political views. The IRS felt as though they could because the church, like others, normally apply for tax exempt status. The fact of the matter is...this, by the IRS, isn't all that unusual. Even this current story or IRS "targeting" conservative groups is pretty much fizzling out....

 

[esmith]

The fact of the matter is...this, by the IRS, isn't all that unusual. Even this current story is pretty much fizzling out....

You, the White House, and others wish it were true, but it isn't. This issue will continue to haunt the current Administration and possibly have serious ramifications on the ACA.

 

[Dirty Penguin]

You, the White House, and others wish it were true, but it isn't. This issue will continue to haunt the current Administration and possibly have serious ramifications on the ACA.

Oh please.....This has virtually noting to do with the White House. And trying to make it so is foolish. And as far as the ACA is concerned...What role do you think the IRS is going to play here? I familiar with their role and I can tell you....it ain't going to be what republicans are trying to spin it into being. Their role overall is going to be small.....:sarcastic

 

[tytlyf]

You, the White House, and others wish it were true, but it isn't. This issue will continue to haunt the current Administration and possibly have serious ramifications on the ACA.

Why aren't the "liberal" groups 'targeted' by the IRS up in arms over this? Because it's another manufactured controversy by the right-wing GOP owned media that is extremely desperate considering the outlook on 2014 midterms.

 

[Valjean]

This is a tempest in a teakettle. No one was targeted for political reasons. Even the Inspector General admits: "There was no evidence of political motivation or White House involvement."

First, the (c)4's were originally to apply to: "civic leagues or organizations not organized for profit but operated exclusively to promote social welfare..."
In 1959 the IRS took it on itself to clarify what was already clear and unambiguous on its face, and reinterpreted ""exclusively" to mean "primarily."
This reinterpretation is legally questionable. The original, legal mandate still reads "exclusively to promote social welfare..."

Second, here's what happened:
After the Citizen's United decision, corporations realized they could funnel money anonymously to political Super PACs through social welfare groups. A downsized IRS was suddenly overwhelmed with a tidal wave of new (c)4 applications. After slogging through a number of them they realized that many appeared to be questionable, if not fraudulent applications from primarily political organizations. In an effort to set these aside for further review more efficiently they began to sort them by certain common features they'd noticed, ie: terms like Tea party," "patriot," "we the people," &c. That was their job. They were doing their due diligence.
Note also that it wasn't just right wing, tea party type group applications that were set aside for further review. Any application that smelled of politics was flagged, right or left.

A bunch of right wing, primarily political organizations flooded the IRS with (c)4 applications peppered with glaring red flags. Many didn't even bother to remove "party" from their names. When the IRS quite rightly flagged these for review, the corporations screamed discrimination.

The "Tea Party" groups did not have to flood the IRS with applications. They could have just begun operating as (c)4s and later filed their tax returns as tax exempt social welfare groups.
So why the flood of clearly provocative applications?

Not to be paranoid, but it smells like a set-up.

 

[Revoltingest]

This is a tempest in a teakettle. No one was targeted for political reasons. Even the Inspector General admits: "There was no evidence of political motivation or White House involvement."

to say there's no evidence for a motive does not mean the motive isn't there.
But I speculate that it's a more benign bias than what happened under Nixon or Kennedy.

First, the (c)4's were originally to apply to: "civic leagues or organizations not organized for profit but operated exclusively to promote social welfare..."
In 1959 the IRS took it on itself to clarify what was already clear and unambiguous on its face, and reinterpreted ""exclusively" to mean "primarily."
This reinterpretation is legally questionable. The original, legal mandate still reads "exclusively to promote social welfare..."

Since the IRS doesn't have the power to alter law, how did they manage this change without objection?
What were the when & who of the change?

Second, here's what happened:
After the Citizen's United decision, corporations realized they could funnel money anonymously to political Super PACs through social welfare groups. A downsized IRS was suddenly overwhelmed with a tidal wave of new (c)4 applications. After slogging through a number of them they realized that many appeared to be questionable, if not fraudulent applications from primarily political organizations. In an effort to set these aside for further review more efficiently they began to sort them by certain common features they'd noticed, ie: terms like Tea party," "patriot," "we the people," &c. That was their job. They were doing their due diligence.
Note also that it wasn't just right wing, tea party type group applications that were set aside for further review. Any application that smelled of politics was flagged, right or left.

I note that the Citizen's United is a phony controversy stirred up by the left with false claims that "Corporations are people!", when in fact the decision simply upheld centuries of law that corporations are associations of people, which have some of the rights of people, eg, speech, contractual agreement, suing in court. So if this decision inspired many more on either side of the aisle to get involved in politics (supported by tax deductable contributions), there is nothing fundamentally wrong with that. What's wrong is that the IRS is the gatekeeper for access to cheap money.

A bunch of right wing, primarily political organizations flooded the IRS with (c)4 applications peppered with glaring red flags. Many didn't even bother to remove "party" from their names. When the IRS quite rightly flagged these for review, the corporations screamed discrimination.
The "Tea Party" groups did not have to flood the IRS with applications. They could have just begun operating as (c)4s and later filed their tax returns as tax exempt social welfare groups.
So why the flood of clearly provocative applications?

It isn't the IRS's function to decide that a particular political orientation, religion, race, etc deserves special scrutiny.
Sure, sure, it can be efficient to profile, eg, stopping black drivers in white neighborhoods, but that always ends up
being rife with mischief....& it's illegal.

Not to be paranoid, but it smells like a set-up.

Paranoia, when not running wild, can be useful. After all, sometimes they really are out to get you. In my case, my
paranoia tells me there is partisan mischief, but I get more worked up over the badly designed tax code which creates
the environment conducive to corruption.

 

[Valjean]

to say there's no evidence for a motive does not mean the motive isn't there.
But I speculate that it's a more benign bias than what happened under Nixon or Kennedy.

Its motive, its job persuant to its mandate, was to prevent PACs, for-profit corporations and corporate support groups from shifting their tax burdens onto you and me. "Social welfare groups" means rehab centers, fire departments, and soup kitchens, not super PACs.

Since the IRS doesn't have the power to alter law, how did they manage this change without objection?
What were the when & who of the change?

They didn't change the law. They changed their internal "interpretation" of "exclusively" to mean "primarily" and labeled it a "regulation." [full disclosure, I recently invested with Quotation marks, Ltd ] No-one granted (c)4 status under the expanded interpretation complained or filed suit.
It happened way back in '59, likely corporate influence behind it. I'd have to research the specifics. If I can find something without too much trouble I'll post it.

I note that the Citizen's United is a phony controversy stirred up by the left with false claims that "Corporations are people!", when in fact the decision simply upheld centuries of law that corporations are associations of people, which have some of the rights of people, eg, speech, contractual agreement, suing in court. So if this decision inspired many more on either side of the aisle to get involved in politics (supported by tax deductable contributions), there is nothing fundamentally wrong with that. What's wrong is that the IRS is the gatekeeper for access to cheap money.

A corporation with more "free speech" than 10,000 middle class voters seems to me cause for concern. Congressmen listen to Banks and corporations, their jobs depend on corporate donations.
Citizens United is hardly a phoney controversy. It's a landmark case on the order of Dred Scott v Sandford or Roe v Wade. It allows unlimited corporate funding of political special interests. It potentially puts government in the pocket of private corporations.
Corporations as people is not a hallowed, centuries old tradition. It's more like a 127 year old misapplication of a transcription of a judge's casual remark (if you really want more details):"Unequal Protection": The Deciding Moment

It isn't the IRS's function to decide that a particular political orientation, religion, race, etc deserves special scrutiny.
Sure, sure, it can be efficient to profile, eg, stopping black drivers in white neighborhoods, but that always ends up
being rife with mischief....& it's illegal.

The special scrutiny was to weed out political organizations masquerading as social welfare groups -- which they were finding. That was their job.
Why the sudden influx of applications right after the Citizens United decision, especially considering they could have accomplished the same thing just by checking a box on their next tax form ?
Keep in mind the IRS was drowning in applications. They'd been defunded and were undermanned. They were desperate to find ways of speeding things along. They needed some kind of filter or triage algorithm and they found one. There is no evidence of political bias.

Paranoia, when not running wild, can be useful. After all, sometimes they really are out to get you. In my case, my
paranoia tells me there is partisan mischief, but I get more worked up over the badly designed tax code which creates
the environment conducive to corruption.

If you want political mischief recall the attempt to purge the Justice department of 26+ federal attorneys deemed unco-operative with the right-wing agenda, back in '06 or '07, or Monica Goodling's similar shenannigans in '07, I think.
That's partisan political manipulation.
As for tax codes I agree. They're deliberately byzantine. I see no reason they couldn't be distilled down to a dozen pages.

 

[Titanic]

Does anyone actually like the IRS?

 

[Revoltingest]

Its motive, its job persuant to its mandate, was to prevent PACs, for-profit corporations and corporate support groups from shifting their tax burdens onto you and me. "Social welfare groups" means rehab centers, fire departments, and soup kitchens, not super PACs.

Of course, I was referring to their motives for partisan disparate effect in targeting groups, rather than their motives for doing what they should be doing.

They didn't change the law. They changed their internal "interpretation" of "exclusively" to mean "primarily" and labeled it a "regulation." [full disclosure, I recently invested with Quotation marks, Ltd ] No-one granted (c)4 status under the expanded interpretation complained or filed suit.
It happened way back in '59, likely corporate influence behind it. I'd have to research the specifics. If I can find something without too much trouble I'll post it.

If they meet the law, then how do we know that "primarily" is incorrect, & that "exclusively" is correct?
And if it's been that way since 1959, then this might point towards it being acceptable. I've no dog
in this race, so I don't really care which interpretation would implement the law. (My problem is with
the entire tax code.)

A corporation with more "free speech" than 10,000 middle class voters seems to me cause for concern. Congressmen listen to Banks and corporations, their jobs depend on corporate donations.
Citizens United is hardly a phoney controversy. It's a landmark case on the order of Dred Scott v Sandford or Roe v Wade. It allows unlimited corporate funding of political special interests. It potentially puts government in the pocket of private corporations.
Corporations as people is not a hallowed, centuries old tradition. It's more like a 127 year old misapplication of a transcription of a judge's casual remark (if you really want more details):"Unequal Protection": The Deciding Moment

Whether or not corporate speech is a good idea, the court has spoken. Personally, I prefer to er on the side of liberty, so
if people want to get together to pool their money & their voices, then good for them....unless I disagree with them.

The special scrutiny was to weed out political organizations masquerading as social welfare groups -- which they were finding. That was their job.
Why the sudden influx of applications right after the Citizens United decision, especially considering they could have accomplished the same thing just by checking a box on their next tax form ?
Keep in mind the IRS was drowning in applications. They'd been defunded and were undermanned. They were desperate to find ways of speeding things along. They needed some kind of filter or triage algorithm and they found one. There is no evidence of political bias.

I've already covered why I don't believe their story that they were trying to cope with their workload by taking steps which increased
their workload. The proper approach would be to scrutinize all applications by the same standard, & to review all filings for compliance.

If you want political mischief recall the attempt to purge the Justice department of 26+ federal attorneys deemed unco-operative with the right-wing agenda, back in '06 or '07, or Monica Goodling's similar shenannigans in '07, I think.
That's partisan political manipulation.
As for tax codes I agree. They're deliberately byzantine. I see no reason they couldn't be distilled down to a dozen pages.

Yes, partisan politics rains down injustice continually. But that isn't in dispute.

 

[Valjean]

Of course, I was referring to their motives for partisan disparate effect in targeting groups, rather than their motives for doing what they should be doing.

But was there partisan, disparate targeting?
72 Tea Party applications were flagged, but 202 non Tea Party groups were also flagged. Of all the flagged groups only Emerge -- a left wing group -- was denied (c)4 status.

If they meet the law, then how do we know that "primarily" is incorrect, & that "exclusively" is correct?

If it's been that way since '59, then obviously "primarily" has been acceptable, if only in a 'nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more' sort of way.
The actual law is pretty clear, as laws go. "Exclusively" is pretty unambiguous (of course, I also think "all men are created equal" is unambiguous, so perhaps I'm not that good a judge...) "Primarily" was more an internal memorandum that pleased a lot of influential interests. No-one chose to rock the boat, so it persisted.

Whether or not corporate speech is a good idea, the court has spoken. Personally, I prefer to er on the side of liberty, so
if people want to get together to pool their money & their voices, then good for them....unless I disagree with them.

I'm hoping that once the effects become obvious the court will overturn it. it's happened before.

I've already covered why I don't believe their story that they were trying to cope with their workload by taking steps which increased
their workload. The proper approach would be to scrutinize all applications by the same standard, & to review all filings for compliance.

I suspect they were just looking for a quick way of decreasing their caseload by sorting out the less suspicious applicants for quick disposition.

 

[Revoltingest]

But was there partisan, disparate targeting?
72 Tea Party applications were flagged, but 202 non Tea Party groups were also flagged. Of all the flagged groups only Emerge -- a left wing group -- was denied (c)4 status.

Without speaking to your unsourced numbers, the IRS itself claims improper targeting in its apology.

If it's been that way since '59, then obviously "primarily" has been acceptable, if only in a 'nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more' sort of way.
The actual law is pretty clear, as laws go. "Exclusively" is pretty unambiguous (of course, I also think "all men are created equal" is unambiguous, so perhaps I'm not that good a judge...) "Primarily" was more an internal memorandum that pleased a lot of influential interests. No-one chose to rock the boat, so it persisted.

I find it hard to believe that the IRS has been flouting the law for over half a century, & the first objection
I see is in a backwater forum populated by kibitzers like us. Have any illuminating supporting links?
But even so, the IRS rules are what we must follow, & the IRS should enforce them without partisan preferences.

I'm hoping that once the effects become obvious the court will overturn it. it's happened before.

Hmmm....the courts might see that after so long an established practice, that the supposed 54 year old interpretation is quasi-stare decisis.

I suspect they were just looking for a quick way of decreasing their caseload by sorting out the less suspicious applicants for quick disposition.

But their disposition wasn't so quick according to reports of scrutiny rising to the level of a full blown audit. Nah....I smell harassment when the approval process triggers an audit.

 

[dust1n]

It isn't the IRS's function to decide that a particular political orientation, religion, race, etc deserves special scrutiny.
Sure, sure, it can be efficient to profile, eg, stopping black drivers in white neighborhoods, but that always ends up
being rife with mischief....& it's illegal.

Wait? It isn't the IRS's job to audit and investigate a surge of groups so that none of them are engaging in fraud?

So when this is a consistent message from the Office of the Taxpayer Advocacy:

January 2012 - Nina E. Olson: IRS Budget Too Small For The Agency To Do Its Job

"WASHINGTON (AP) — The Internal Revenue Service can't keep up with surging tax cheating and isn't sufficiently collecting revenue or helping confused taxpayers because Congress isn't giving it enough money to do its job, a government watchdog said Wednesday.

To cope with its growing and increasingly complex tasks, the agency is relying more on computer software designed to weed out fraud, Nina E. Olson, the national taxpayer advocate, said in her annual report to lawmakers.


But errors are abundant, creating even more work for the agency when taxpayers dispute its findings, the report said. In addition, it said the agency is increasingly relying on computer systems to evaluate tax returns that sometimes end up eroding taxpayers' rights, and people are having a harder time getting through to the IRS by telephone or letter, she said.


"The overriding challenge facing the IRS is that its workload has grown significantly in recent years while its funding is being cut," said Olson, an independent watchdog within the IRS. "This is causing the IRS to resort to shortcuts that undermine fundamental taxpayer rights and harm taxpayers — and at the same time reduces the IRS' ability to deliver on its core mission of raising revenue."

What other government organizations are you having in mind for insuring fraudulent claims aren't being made?


And that is comparable to racial profiling how exactly? I'm starting to understand why Libertarianism has less black people in it then the general population...

 

[Revoltingest]

Wait? It isn't the IRS's job to audit and investigate a surge of groups so that none of them are engaging in fraud?

I've been wondering if the IRS does normally investigate applications, or if they just approve/disapprove based upon
the info supplied with the application itself. Whatever the standard procedure is, it should be applied regardless of
perceived political orientation. The issue here is disparate treatment, for which the IRS apologized.
This raises questions:
- Is this kind of profiling OK because conservatives, especially Tea Party types, are more prone to fraud than their more saintly opponents?
- Is other profiling OK too if it leads to claimed efficiencies, eg, race, religious affiliation, gender?
- Is there no profiling at all, as some would say?

So when this is a consistent message from the Office of the Taxpayer Advocacy:
January 2012 - Nina E. Olson: IRS Budget Too Small For The Agency To Do Its Job
"WASHINGTON (AP) — The Internal Revenue Service can't keep up with surging tax cheating and isn't sufficiently collecting revenue or helping confused taxpayers because Congress isn't giving it enough money to do its job, a government watchdog said Wednesday.

If they cannot do their job because of the heavy work load, then does this justify illegally profiling 501 applicants
based upon political leanings? Would we allow other branches of gov to profile based upon a group's propensity for
violations in the interest of efficiency? No, we wouldn't. And we shouldn't allow the IRS this kind of illegal leeway.
But I don't believe the excuse, since the extensive auditing of applicants actually increased work.

To cope with its growing and increasingly complex tasks, the agency is relying more on computer software designed to weed out fraud, Nina E. Olson, the national taxpayer advocate, said in her annual report to lawmakers.

I've run across this before with our local tax assessors, who use software which illegally raises property assessments
far above what they should be. One cannot pass off responsibility to the computer, since ultimately it is just a tool
wielded by humans who operate it.

It reminds me of an apocryphal story:
An article in a newspaper criticized the design of a building as "designed by a computer".
The architect responded by criticizing the article, dismissing it as being "written by a word processor".

But errors are abundant, creating even more work for the agency when taxpayers dispute its findings, the report said. In addition, it said the agency is increasingly relying on computer systems to evaluate tax returns that sometimes end up eroding taxpayers' rights, and people are having a harder time getting through to the IRS by telephone or letter, she said.

The IRS is an inscrutable & impenetrable bastion of caprice & error. I have my CPA deal with their bone headed missives, since
only his hard won skill gives results. The only reasonable human contact I have with them is when I meet with an auditor.
Anyway, their budget & labor problems are their own. If they can't do a proper job, that shouldn't allow illegal behavior.

"The overriding challenge facing the IRS is that its workload has grown significantly in recent years while its funding is being cut," said Olson, an independent watchdog within the IRS. "This is causing the IRS to resort to shortcuts that undermine fundamental taxpayer rights and harm taxpayers — and at the same time reduces the IRS' ability to deliver on its core mission of raising revenue."

See above.

What other government organizations are you having in mind for insuring fraudulent claims aren't being made?

This isn't clear.

And that is comparable to racial profiling how exactly? I'm starting to understand why Libertarianism has less black people in it then the general population...

We don't have many white or black folk. Racial profiling is wrong in the same way that political profiling is wrong, ie, it's illegal & it leads to injustice.

I brought up racial profiling because that is universally considered wrong on RF, while political profiling is acceptable to many lefties so long as the right is the subject.

 

[dust1n]

I've been wondering if the IRS does normally investigate applications, or if they just approve/disapprove based upon
the info supplied with the application itself.

Every single application? No... generally, they are examined and are looking for all sorts of flags or incorrect data. The process obviously can't examine every tax form in the fullest detail and check for the veracity of each and every statement.

Whatever the standard procedure is, it should be applied regardless of
perceived political orientation. The issue here is disparate treatment, for which the IRS apologized.
This raises questions:
- Is this kind of profiling OK because conservatives, especially Tea Party types, are more prone to fraud than their more saintly opponents?
- Is other profiling OK too if it leads to claimed efficiencies, eg, race, religious affiliation, gender?
- Is there no profiling at all, as some would say?

And what has established that only conservative groups were targeted? Has that been established yet by any document or release of all the names of all the groups? If not, then I still have no reason to believe conservatives are being particularly singled out.

If they cannot do their job because of the heavy work load, then does this justify illegally profiling 501 applicants
based upon political leanings? Would we allow other branches of gov to profile based upon a group's propensity for
violations in the interest of efficiency? No, we wouldn't. And we shouldn't allow the IRS this kind of illegal leeway.
But I don't believe the excuse, since the extensive auditing of applicants actually increased work.

So, I must be misunderstanding... where is this evidence that IRS "illegally" profiled 501(c)(4) applicants based upon political leanings and not for having political leanings?

I've run across this before with our local tax assessors, who use software which illegally raises property assessments
far above what they should be. One cannot pass off responsibility to the computer, since ultimately it is just a tool
wielded by humans who operate it.

It reminds me of an apocryphal story:
An article in a newspaper criticized the design of a building as "designed by a computer".

The architect responded by criticizing the article, dismissing it as being "written by a word processor".

The IRS is an inscrutable & impenetrable bastion of caprice & error. I have my CPA deal with their bone headed missives, since
only his hard won skill gives results. The only reasonable human contact I have with them is when I meet with an auditor.
Anyway, their budget & labor problems are their own. If they can't do a proper job, that shouldn't allow illegal behavior.

See above.

This isn't clear.

So the current ethos presides... if the IRS can't do their job, they just shouldn't attempt to do it.

We don't have many white or black folk. Racial profiling is wrong in the same way that political profiling is wrong, ie, it's illegal & it leads to injustice.

I brought up racial profiling because that is universally considered wrong on RF, while political profiling is acceptable to many lefties so long as the right is the subject.

I know, and I only made fun of it because the equation between the two is, hilarious at best and rather dismissive of the problems associated with racial profiling at its worst.

 

[dust1n]

Oh darn, look at some of these groups for being targeted unfair for their political leanings:

True The Vote/King Street Patriots: True the Vote was among the active conservative groups that sought to police the polls during the 2010 and 2012 elections to root out alleged voter fraud. The group was created by the King Street Patriots, a Houston-based tea party organization and a 501(c)(4). But True the Vote is a 501(c)(3), a tax-exempt designation that allows a group's donors to write off their contributions but also has strict rules prohibiting electioneering and partisan political activity. True the Vote and King Street share board members and often co-sponsored events.


True the Vote trained volunteers to go into predominantly minority neighborhoods across the country and keep an eye on potential violations by presumed Democratic voters. Its activities drew accusations of voter intimidation; in Ohio, its volunteers were banned from Franklin County polling places amid allegations that it had forged signatures to secure poll-watcher status. In Texas, True the Vote's alleged partisan activity included a poll-watching guide instructing trainees to consult the Harris County Republican Party website for advice on voting rules, and the group only invited Republicans to its candidate forums.


Catherine Engelbrecht, True the Vote's president, is among those now complaining that her group was inappropriately targeted. "The IRS treatment of us lends to the appearance of a politically-motivated abuse of power and an assault on free speech," she told Breitbart News. (She did not respond to a request for comment.)


Engelbrecht has released a letter from the IRS requesting extensive documentation and information from True the Vote as part of its nonprofit application. But the IRS' requests point to concerns that critics have long raised about the organization. In 2010, an ethics complaint and lawsuit against King Street Patriots alleged illegal political activity, and last year a Texas judge agreed, ruling that the organization was not a nonprofit but in fact was operating like a political action committee and illegally helping the GOP. In August 2012, True the Vote donated $5,000 to the Republican State Leadership Committee, a 527 group that raised nearly $30 million dollars to elect GOP candidates in state legislatures.


TheTeaParty.net/Stop This Insanity: TheTeaParty.net/STI is a 501(c)(4) group incorporated in Arizona in early 2010 by Todd Cefaratti, who runs a "lead generation" company that provides contact information to reverse-mortgage companies, some of whose operations have been compared to those of the subprime lending industry. The group advertises under a number of variations on the tea party name, and some other tea partiers have complained almost from its inception that the group is nothing more than a data harvesting operation. (Cefaratti defended himself against the criticism in a long post here.) FEC filings show that a "leadership fund" set up by the group raised almost $1.2 million in 2012, and gave only $52,000 to candidates for federal office.



TheTeaParty.net/STI has not yet received non-profit status approval; Dan Backer, the group's lawyer, says he is now considering suing the IRS for targeting his clients. Yet, Backer also describes the group's founders as neophytes, and he acknowledges that some tea party groups may haverun in to trouble trying to properly manage grassroots organizing around politics. "These are folks who are not lawyers, they're not part of the political establishment," he says. "In fact they deeply reject the political establishment, so they're trying to navigate a system designed by the establishment."


More than one aspect of TheTeaParty.net/STI's forays into politics might have triggered a closer look from the IRS. Its founders initially set up the group as both a 501(c)(4) and a political action committee that it registered with the FEC—as a single entity. That was a clear violation of the non-profit rules on political activity, as Backer himself acknowledged to me. (The group eventually shut down the PAC.) In 2012, when the group sought to create a "leadership fund" in hopes of collecting unlimited campaign contributions, it ran afoul of federal campaign finance rules; it ended up suing the FEC, arguing that the agency should be prevented from enforcing those laws against it (and it lost).


Tea Party Patriots: One of the largest tea party umbrella groups that formed as a 501(c)(4), it was co-founded by Mark Meckler, a former high-level distributor for Herbalife, a multilevel marketing company that has repeatedly been accused of operating in a manner similar to a pyramid scheme. (Meckler, who left TPP in February 2012, has long refused to talk to Mother Jones and never responded to requests for comment on his past business enterprise when we first exposed it in 2010.) In 2009, the organization raised $12 million in fiscal 2010. But only about $3 million of that went to its "social welfare" mission, according to an IRS 990 form filed in May 2012. Millions more went to professional telemarketing firms, which in some cases cost more than they raised; extensive travel costs; and legal fees incurred as the group sued competitors over its claim to own the "tea party" franchise.



Some conservative leaders came to the tea party with significant tax or financial problems of their own. Another TPP founder is Jenny Beth Martin, a Georgia-based political activist. When she started TPP in 2009, her husband Lee Martin had a half-million dollars in federal tax liens against him; he went on to serve as the group's "assistant secretary" in 2010 and 2011 and was intimately involved with the group's financial management.


(cont.)

 

[dust1n]

(cont.)

Other tea party leaders with tax problems include:


Michael Patrick Leahy, a management consultant who organized the National Tea Party Coalition, had $150,000 worth of IRS tax liens and court judgments to his name.


Judson Phillips, the founder of the (for-profit) Tea Party Nation filed for bankruptcy in 1999, and had $22,000 in federal tax liens in his past. After Tea Party Nation planned a July 2010 tea party convention in Las Vegas and then canceled due to lack of interest, the organization stiffed the Venetian Hotel for more than 1,500 rooms it had reserved. That resulted in a judge ordering the organization to repay the hotel nearly $750,000.


And then there was tea partier Christine O'Donnell, the Senate candidate from Delaware whose IRS tax lien for nearly $12,000 came to light during her 2010 campaign.


Conservatives now say there was a partisan motive behind the IRS targeting of tea party groups. (An Inspector General's report released Tuesday did not find any evidence to that effect.) As evidence, they point to a lack of similar scrutiny directed at liberal groups. But it is also true that the tea party movement does not have an equivalent on the left; the Occupy Wall Street movement, perhaps the closest parallel, did not receive financial support on the scale that tea party organizations did, nor did it spawn legions of aspiring tax-exempt groups. When Occupy groups did seek out formal structure, they tended to use the traditional charitable 501(c)(3) status, which bars all political activity.


The tea partiers, on the other hand, went for the c(4) designation for political non-profit organizations, helping make them the focus, as we now know, of IRS staffers.

Actually, Tea Party Groups Gave the IRS Lots of Good Reasons to Be Interested | Mother Jones

 

[Dirty Penguin]

(cont.)

Other tea party leaders with tax problems include:


Michael Patrick Leahy, a management consultant who organized the National Tea Party Coalition, had $150,000 worth of IRS tax liens and court judgments to his name.


Judson Phillips, the founder of the (for-profit) Tea Party Nation filed for bankruptcy in 1999, and had $22,000 in federal tax liens in his past. After Tea Party Nation planned a July 2010 tea party convention in Las Vegas and then canceled due to lack of interest, the organization stiffed the Venetian Hotel for more than 1,500 rooms it had reserved. That resulted in a judge ordering the organization to repay the hotel nearly $750,000.


And then there was tea partier Christine O'Donnell, the Senate candidate from Delaware whose IRS tax lien for nearly $12,000 came to light during her 2010 campaign.


Conservatives now say there was a partisan motive behind the IRS targeting of tea party groups. (An Inspector General's report released Tuesday did not find any evidence to that effect.) As evidence, they point to a lack of similar scrutiny directed at liberal groups. But it is also true that the tea party movement does not have an equivalent on the left; the Occupy Wall Street movement, perhaps the closest parallel, did not receive financial support on the scale that tea party organizations did, nor did it spawn legions of aspiring tax-exempt groups. When Occupy groups did seek out formal structure, they tended to use the traditional charitable 501(c)(3) status, which bars all political activity.


The tea partiers, on the other hand, went for the c(4) designation for political non-profit organizations, helping make them the focus, as we now know, of IRS staffers.

Actually, Tea Party Groups Gave the IRS Lots of Good Reasons to Be Interested | Mother Jones

Thank you so much for posting this detailed list. Many of us have been trying to say that the cries and complaints coming from the right isn't what they're projecting. Many swear the IRS is just out to get them and is somehow controlled by the Obama Admin.....but if they had your list above they might think differently. It's obvious the IRS had good reasons for their scrutiny but many don't see it and/or refuse to see it. You laid it out well because many of us have been trying to express this throughout this thread...all the way down to presenting the actual 501 c 4 law vs. the IRS's interpretation of the of the law and some still don't get it.

 

[Revoltingest]

Every single application? No... generally, they are examined and are looking for all sorts of flags or incorrect data. The process obviously can't examine every tax form in the fullest detail and check for the veracity of each and every statement.
And what has established that only conservative groups were targeted?
Has that been established yet by any document or release of all the names of all the groups? If not, then I still have no reason to believe conservatives are being particularly singled out.

Whether other groups were targeted strikes me as a red herring. The IRS admitted targeting nominally conservative groups, & went so far as to apologize for it. Thus, it is this agenda for which I take them to task. Are you trying to convince me that the IRS did not do that for which it apologized?

So, I must be misunderstanding... where is this evidence that IRS "illegally" profiled 501(c)(4) applicants based upon political leanings and not for having political leanings?

This is not clear.

So the current ethos presides... if the IRS can't do their job, they just shouldn't attempt to do it.

That is a silly question. They should do their job the best they can, but staying within the law. This means not profiling based upon political orientation.

Do you believe that partisan profiling by the IRS is acceptable or not?
If not, then does the claim of efficiency make it acceptable?

I know, and I only made fun of it because the equation between the two is, hilarious at best and rather dismissive of the problems associated with racial profiling at its worst.

Then do you believe that profiling isn't inherently wrong, but only in the case of race & cops it is? So other gov agencies may treat groups differently, based upon things like party affiliation?

 

[Revoltingest]

Thank you so much for posting this detailed list. Many of us have been trying to say that the cries and complaints coming from the right isn't what they're projecting. Many swear the IRS is just out to get them and is somehow controlled by the Obama Admin.....but if they had your list above they might think differently. It's obvious the IRS had good reasons for their scrutiny but many don't see it and/or refuse to see it. You laid it out well because many of us have been trying to express this throughout this thread...all the way down to presenting the actual 501 c 4 law vs. the IRS's interpretation of the of the law and some still don't get it.

Hah! You'd fall all over yourself in a rush to condemn Fox if ever cited as a source, yet you embrace red herrings & innuendo from their evil twin Mother Jones.
Despite all those many artfully arranged words in MJ, we still have this inconvenient admission from the IRS itself....

Lerner acknowledged it was wrong for the agency to target groups based on political affiliation."That was absolutely incorrect, it was insensitive and it was inappropriate. That's not how we go about selecting cases for further review," Lerner said at a conference sponsored by the American Bar Association.
"The IRS would like to apologize for that," she added.

IRS apologizes for targeting tea party groups

 

[Alceste]

Thank you so much for posting this detailed list. Many of us have been trying to say that the cries and complaints coming from the right isn't what they're projecting. Many swear the IRS is just out to get them and is somehow controlled by the Obama Admin.....but if they had your list above they might think differently. It's obvious the IRS had good reasons for their scrutiny but many don't see it and/or refuse to see it. You laid it out well because many of us have been trying to express this throughout this thread...all the way down to presenting the actual 501 c 4 law vs. the IRS's interpretation of the of the law and some still don't get it.

It's funny, if a huge majority of inappropriate applications were COMING from conservative political groups, and a list was prepared to expedite the process of flagging inappropriate applications, wouldn't that list necessarily contain a majority of trigger words that are associated with conservative political groups? Was the IRS targeting conservative political organizations, or were conservative political organizations targeting an inappropriate tax exemption category?