Guardian UK The IRS should do more, not less, scrutinizing of political groups

[madfloridian]

Everyone is out and about attacking the IRS for doing what it should be doing...scrutinizing groups that apply for tax exempt status. I'm with the Guardian on this.

The IRS should do more, not less, scrutinizing of political groups

The recent IRS admissions about the use of "tea party" or "patriot" labels to flag applications for nonprofit status for additional scrutiny raise serious questions about political bias, and should receive a thorough and independent investigation.

There is rightly a growing call for House and Senate hearings to answer those questions, but any investigations must delve deeper into the bigger problem facing our democracy after the Supreme Court's decision in Citizen United: the dramatic surge in the misuse of nonprofits to hide political spending by billionaires and corporations from American voters, and the lack of any meaningful enforcement response.

Although the IRS must enforce the law impartially, the agency should not abrogate its responsibility to enforce it in the first place. While Common Cause strongly supports an investigation, we are concerned that partisans on both sides will use this tempest to cow the IRS and forestall enforcement of the tax code.

Reported political spending by 501(c)4s – the kind of non-profit groups at the focus of this controversy – surged to $254m in 2012, almost matching spending by political parties ($255m), according to the Center for Responsive Politics, thanks in large part to the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United. The vast majority of that spending – 85% – came from conservative organizations, led by Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS group and Americans for Prosperity, backed by the Koch brothers. Given this disproportionate spending on behalf of conservative candidates at this point in history, most of the groups flagged will logically be conservative organizations, even using impartial criteria.

The comments after the article are most interesting.

[patrice]

1. Republicans don't like the light on all of this CORPORATE PERSONHOOD stuff. Follow the money. nt

[KoKo]

2. Recommend!

[Quixote1818]

3. Kick

[Curmudgeoness]

4. But the IRS investigations were just fine

when it was the NAACP being investigated, under Bush.

It was largely forgotten until last week, but during the middle years of the Bush era, the IRS looked into the tax status of the NAACP. Under the leadership of Julian Bond and Kweisi Mfume, both former legislators, the group had become more outspoken on partisan political topics. Boom—the IRS showed up. In a February 2005 interview with NPR's Ed Gordon, Bond explained why this was so chilling.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2013/05/14/former_naacp_head_once_investigated_by_irs_basically_fine_with_irs_going.html

[adieu]

5. What's funny is that the NAACP

is pretty clear as a non-profit 501(c)(4) type social-good charitable organization. Now, it's fair to investigate the organization if there were some unethical fiscal behaviors conducted by the people involved, much like how some churches do some pretty quasi-legal activities with their tithes. But there should be no argument that the NAACP is a charitable social-good organization.