IRS Targeted Conservative Groups for Audit in 2012

[deacon blues]

From Fox News:

Tea Party leaders refused to accept an apology from the IRS Friday in which the agency acknowledged that it inappropriately flagged conservative groups for additional review during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status...

Jenny Beth Martin, national coordinator for Tea Party Patriots, said she wants to see resignations over what she called the "disturbing, illegal and outrageous abuse of government power."..

Republican lawmakers also seized on the acknowledgment, after having complained about the suspected harassment more than a year ago. Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell called for a "government-wide review" to assure "these thuggish practices" are not in use elsewhere...House Republican Leader Eric Cantor later said the House would investigate...

Reaction was swift and harsh after Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt groups, acknowledged the issue at a conference Friday sponsored by the American Bar Association...

She confirmed that organizations were singled out because they included the words "tea party" or "patriot" in their applications for tax-exempt status...

In some cases, groups were asked for their list of donors, she said...

"That was wrong. That was absolutely incorrect, it was insensitive and it was inappropriate," Lerner said. "The IRS would like to apologize for that."..

Lerner said the practice was initiated by low-level workers in Cincinnati and was not motivated by political bias. After her talk, she told The Associated Press that no high-level IRS officials knew about the practice. She did not say when they found out...

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney later said the agency's inspector general was investigating, calling the agents' actions "inappropriate" and saying "there needs to be action taken" if wrongdoing is found...

As conservatives condemned the IRS for the additional scrutiny, IRS officials after the conference tried to offer a fuller explanation of what happened...

The IRS put out a written statement saying protocol was changed at the Cincinnati office in response to the rising number of applications for 501(c)(4) groups. This classification grants tax-exempt status to social welfare groups. Unlike other charitable groups, these organizations are allowed to participate in political activities but their primary activity must be social welfare...

The agents tried to "centralize work" in response to the applications, the IRS said, leading to problems the agency claims have since been fixed...

"Mistakes were made initially, but they were in no way due to any political or partisan rationale. We fixed the situation last year and have made significant progress in moving the centralized cases through our system," the IRS said...

On a hastily arranged conference call Friday, Lerner said that the staffers who flagged those groups did so as "short-hand" to deal with the "great number" of cases in the system...

She acknowledged that some of the letters sent were "far too broad" and that asking for donors is "generally not what we do."..

"We made some mistakes, some people didn't use good judgment," she said, while claiming the reviews were not partisan...

During the conference earlier Friday, Lerner said the number of groups filing for the tax-exempt status more than doubled from 2010 to 2012, to more than 3,400. To handle the influx, the IRS centralized its review of these applications in the office in Cincinnati...As part of the review, staffers look for signs that groups are participating in political activity. If so, IRS agents take a closer look to make sure that politics isn't the group's primary activity, Lerner said...

In all, about 300 groups were singled out for additional review, Lerner said. Of those, about a quarter were singled out because they had "tea party" or "patriot" somewhere in their applications. Lerner said 150 of the cases have been closed and no group had its tax-exempt status revoked, though some withdrew their applications...

Many conservative groups complained during the election that they were being harassed by the IRS. They accused the agency of frustrating their attempts to become tax exempt by sending them lengthy, intrusive questionnaires...

The forms, which the groups made available at the time, sought information about group members' political activities, including details of their postings on social networking websites and about family members...

Groups shared some of those forms with FoxNews.com back in February 2012, when the complaints first surfaced. In letters sent from IRS offices in Cincinnati, chapters including the Waco (Texas) Tea Party and the Ohio Liberty Council were asked to provide a list of donors, identify volunteers, financial support for and relationships with political candidates and parties, and even printed copies of their Facebook pages...

"Some of what they (the IRS) asked was reasonable, but there were some requests on there that were strange," Toby Marie Walker, president of the Waco Tea Party, told FoxNews.com last year...

A dozen Republican senators wrote to the IRS in March 2012 expressing concerns about various accounts that the IRS inquiries were "perceived to be excessive."..

IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman told Congress in March 2012 that the IRS was not targeting groups based on their political views...

"There's absolutely no targeting. This is the kind of back and forth that happens to people" who apply for tax-exempt status, Shulman told a House Ways and Means subcommittee...

On Friday, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said he's "glad" to see the IRS apologize but said it's not good enough...

"We need to have ironclad guarantees from the IRS that it will adopt significant protocols to ensure this kind of harassment of groups that have a constitutional right to express their own views never happens again," he said, adding that he would be discussing the matter with the IRS commissioner...

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said "the fact that Americans were targeted by the IRS because of their political beliefs is unconscionable." ....

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

[deacon blues]

This is as big a story as Benghazi.

[Dedicated Mind]

media circus sideshow. something to entertain the masses while nothing gets done in washington. nothing will come of it except low level dismissals. won't help the republicans one bit.

[n david]

DM: You say Benghazi is a non-story, even though the first Ambassador in decades was tortured and murdered while the President slept, then went campaigning in Vegas; and even though emails and hearings have proven the WH, Obama, Jay Carney, the State Dept, Hilary Clinton and Susan Rice all lied about what caused the attack.

Now it looks like you're saying the IRS targeting of ONLY conservative groups is a non-story as well...am I reading that right?

You do realize that one of the articles of impeachment drafted against Nixon was for using the IRS to target political opponents, right?

Impeachment Article 2.1 against Nixon:

He has, acting personally and through his subordinates and agents, endeavoured to obtain from the Internal Revenue Service, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, confidential information contained in income tax returns for purposed not authorized by law, and to cause, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, income tax audits or other income tax investigations to be intitiated or conducted in a discriminatory manner.

I'm not sure you realize how serious this is. Read the articles of impeachment against Nixon. They could well be the foundation for the articles of impeachment against Obama. Lies, cover-up, use of government agencies as political weapons, withholding documentation and evidence,

Article 1.8

making or causing to be made false or misleading public statements for the purpose of deceiving the people of the United States into believing that a thorough and complete investigation had been conducted with respect to allegations of misconduct on the part of personnel of the executive branch of the United States and personnel of the Committee for the Re-election of the President, and that there was no involvement of such personnel in such misconduct

It's all there. The only reason Obama will survive is because of the msm being connected to his admin (ABC & CBS Presidents have relatives in the Obama admin who are tied to Benghazi)

CBS News President David Rhodes’ brother is Obama Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes, who was instrumental in rewriting the Benghazi talking points.

ABC President Ben Sherwood’s sister, Dr. Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, is a Special Assistant to Barack Obama on national security affairs.

CNN’s deputy bureau chief, Virginia Moseley, is the wife of Tom Nides, who until February was Hillary Clinton’s deputy.

And Democrats wonder why conservatives don't trust the news, and say it's biased against them?

[n david]

LINK
I really hope any and every single group singled out goes ahead and sues the IRS and Obama admin for this.

[n david]

LINK

AG Eric Holder announced the DOJ will be launching a probe and investigating the IRS targeting scandal.

I predict in a week or so, Holder will have a press conference stating the IRS is clean and didn't do anything wrong; that the WH was not aware of what was happening; and that the IRS would continue BAU.

It's time for an independent counsel to investigate...not an Obama crony.

[MawMaw]

Originally Posted by Dedicated Mind

media circus sideshow. something to entertain the masses while nothing gets done in washington. nothing will come of it except low level dismissals. won't help the republicans one bit.

Isn't that also what your president called the speaking points made
about Benghazi?

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013...ersy-sideshow/

[n david]

Jay Carney in full blame mode. It's not the President's fault...even though Obama joked about auditing political opponents. It's the treasury's issue - ask them.

A reporter brought up a great point. One of the only two people appointed to the IRS by the President has meetings with the President. The IG report states this issue was known in 2011. The reporter asked if Obama was told about it during one of the meetings; and if not, why he wasn't told?

Again, Carney said the President didn't know, no one in the WH knew until Friday.

The President has an easy out here. Fire the guy he appointed who knew and did nothing about it in 2011. If he continues to support this, while mouthing "concern" about what happened, it weakens his credibility.

[canam]

but liberal 501c requests were fast tracked and obamas uncle who was illegally fundraising for two years was approved and given retro active status !!!!! and this doesnt even begin to cover the illegal fundraising from foreigners which is is being done for obam care !!!! MOST CORRUPT ADMIN. IN HISTORY !!!!!! who is going to jail and when does the impeachment and removal start ?

[deacon blues]

Hahahahaha! DM a NON STORY???? Why is the president calling a press conference at 6 pm??? The White House is in full scandal mode.