The press pretends irrelevance when discussing the IRS "scandal".

[kentuck]

They pretend it is irrelevant whether or not the Tea Party applications for tax exemptions should be scrutinized. They pretend that they should be rubber stamped by the IRS. They pretend the rules in the statute are irrelevant. But they know as well as everyone else that the Tea Party groups were not legitimate "social welfare" entities. They were created for political purposes. Perhaps distinctions were made between conservative groups and liberal groups because there were distinctions?

The press can pretend that these conservative groups were all above board and legal. But the fact is that most of them were tax scams. This is not irrelevant information. This has to be part of the discussion.

edit for this cartoon:

[Kolesar]

1. Spats and tails

Horsey must have moved from Seattle to LA :kick:

[brooklynite]

2. That's not the issue...

The issue is not whether the Tea Party Groups abused their 501(c)(4) status, it's that the IRS investigated them for violations EXCLUSIVELY BASED ON THEIR NAME, with no specific allegations made. That's unacceptable, and is a concept easily understood by the public, which is what makes the story so damaging.

[kentuck]

3. If their name had been "Government Haters of America".... ?

it would have raised the red flag also. Their names were not irrelevant to their being scrutinized.

There was good reason to believe they were political in nature.

Personally, I think the IRS approved too many of these scams. They should have denied more of the applications. In my opinion, the IRS failed to do their job.

[magellan]

4. I'm not getting why it's unacceptable

As a self-employed small business owner I know I'm more of a target for an IRS audit than others simply because most tax cheats are self-employed. Why is it acceptable to single me out for an audit based solely on my employment category, but not investigate Tea Party Group applications for tax-exempt status based on their name?

[kentuck]

6. Obviously, they would receive less scrutiny if their name had been Boy Scouts of America...

So, yes, the name is relevant but not necessarily definitive.

[magellan]

8. Exactly

They scrutinized Tea Party applications more closely, just as they scrutinize my self-employed returns more closely.

It's a distinction without much in the way of a difference.

[TheKentuckian]

25. I think you are comparing apples with oranges here.

All these groups are in the same class so you still have to account for the filtering within the same class of organization and there your analogy collapses.

It isn't enough to say that self employed people are subject to extra scrutiny because for the comparison to be apt, you'd also have to say it is then acceptable to use politics as a filter between self employed people.

I don't think ANY of these groups should have tax advantages but if they are the class should be treated equally and I have no idea what is hard to grasp about that. It is self employed status that brings the additional scrutiny not politics, here we are not discussing additional review because of 501 (c) status at large but rather the politics of individual organization seeking the status and that is a problem.

I will say my belief is this had nothing to do with Democratic/TeaPubliKlan partisan politics but rather it was an effort to kneecap the Teabaggers in favor of establishment TeaPubliKlans with the advantage of Democrats getting the heat because a Democrat is in the White House which gave the Bush appointee a no lose scenario in going Nixon on his party undesirables without putting the establishment wing at risk from blow back from their dumber cousins.

I suggest full prosecutions for those who perpetrated the scheme and expose their asses so the civil war goes into full swing.

[magellan]

26. Politics wasn't used as a filter by the IRS in this matter

From their own report:

Figure 4 shows that approximately one-third of the applications identified for processing by the team of specialists included Tea Party, Patriots, or 9/12 in their names, while the remainder did not. According to the Director, Rulings and Agreements, the fact that the team of specialists worked applications that did not involve the Tea Party, Patriots, or 9/12 groups demonstrated that the IRS was not politically biased in its identification of applications for processing by the team of specialists.

Those names were selected due to their political nature and the potential for political campaign activity that would stop the groups getting the tax-exempt status they were seeking. And the majority of those applicants were investigated and denied on those grounds.

So it's really no different than the IRS flagging my return for audit just because I'm self-employed.

[TheKentuckian]

28. Then what was with the keyword search? We are not discussing due diligence when evaluating a kind

of filing (self employed like you weirdly keep trying to compare this to) but applying particular scrutiny WITHIN this subset meaning that different groups within this same subset were specifically searched for based on identifiers in name and espoused mission.

It isn't the same. It might make you more comfortable to pretend it but it isn't so by admission not speculation. The defense is not viable.

[magellan]

31. The keyword search was for efficiency, I believe

"Tea Party", "Patriots", etc, are words that are linked to political groups, so the IRS used those words to find applications that had a likelihood of engaging in political activity. It didn't matter that they were conservative groups; they could have been affiliated with any political persuasion. It just happens that many conservative groups made it easy for the IRS to pull their applications by using those words in their names.

And I maintain that it's no different than pulling self-employed tax returns for further review. You can dismiss it however you like.

[kentuck]

27. And when the TeaPubliklans find out the truth...

They are going to be pissed!

[brooklynite]

9. So you'll have no objection when a Republican Administration goes after "Progress" groups?

Sorry - whatever you think about the performance of Tea Party Groups, very few espouse illicit goals in their name or charter, and the last time I checked "we all know" wasn't a legal principle.

[kentuck]

10. "very few espouse illicit goals in their name or charter"

Only in their actions and campaign contributions?

[brooklynite]

11. But THAT's the problem

The IRS WASN'T investigating allegations of illegal action. It was reviewing applications for new groups that had no track record whatsoever, solely based on their name.

[kentuck]

12. "that had no track record whatsoever..."

??? They had a track record a mile long. They were at every rally with their anti-tax and anti=government signs, brandishing their weapons as a threat to those that did not agree with them, anti-Obamacare, anti-liberal, anti-gay, etc...

There was every reason in the world for them to be scrutinized. I have not seen the numbers but I wonder what percentage of these "Tea Party-Patriot" groups were not primarily "political" in nature?? Maybe 5%?

[brooklynite]

13. So, anti-tax protests are illegal?

ditto, being "anti-Obamacare, anti-liberal, anti-gay"?

Thanks for clearing that up. I always thought that was covered by the First Amendment.

[kentuck]

14. No, they are not illegal...

But they may get you flagged by the IRS if you apply for tax-exemption 501(c)4? And you should be. Being scrutinized is not the same as being denied. Liberals groups were denied also.

[brooklynite]

15. USA Today: "IRS approved liberal groups while Tea Party in limbo"

WASHINGTON -- In February 2010, the Champaign Tea Party in Illinois received approval of its tax-exempt status from the IRS in 90 days, no questions asked.

That was the month before the Internal Revenue Service started singling out Tea Party groups for special treatment. There wouldn't be another Tea Party application approved for 27 months.

In that time, the IRS approved perhaps dozens of applications from similar liberal and progressive groups, a USA TODAY review of IRS data shows.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/05/14/irs-tea-party-progressive-groups/2158831/

[kentuck]

17. Yep...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022845939

[kentuck]

19. Also this:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/05/irs-scandal-tea-party-oversight.html

<snip>


It’s important to review why the Tea Party groups were petitioning the I.R.S. anyway. They were seeking approval to operate under section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code. This would require them to be “social welfare,” not political, operations. There are significant advantages to being a 501(c)(4). These groups don’t pay taxes; they don’t have to disclose their donors—unlike traditional political organizations, such as political-action committees. In return for the tax advantage and the secrecy, the 501(c)(4) organizations must refrain from traditional partisan political activity, like endorsing candidates.

If that definition sounds murky—that is, if it’s unclear what 501(c)(4) organizations are allowed to do—that’s because it is murky. Particularly leading up to the 2012 elections, many conservative organizations, nominally 501(c)(4)s, were all but explicitly political in their work. For example, Americans for Prosperity, which was funded in part by the Koch Brothers, was an instrumental force in helping the Republicans hold the House of Representatives. In every meaningful sense, groups like Americans for Prosperity were operating as units of the Republican Party. Democrats organized similar operations, but on a much smaller scale. (They undoubtedly would have done more, but they lacked the Republican base for funding such efforts.)

So the scandal—the real scandal—is that 501(c)(4) groups have been engaged in political activity in such a sustained and open way. As Fred Wertheimer, the President of Democracy 21, a government-ethics watchdog group, put it, “it is clear that a number of groups have improperly claimed tax-exempt status as section 501(c)(4) ‘social welfare’ organizations in order to hide the donors who financed their campaign activities in the 2010 and 2012 federal elections.”

Some people in the I.R.S. field office in Cincinnati took the names of certain groups—names that included the terms “Tea Party” and “patriot,” among others, which tend to signal conservatism—as signals that they might not be engaged in “social welfare” operations. Rather, the I.R.S. employees thought that these groups might be doing explicit politics—which would disqualify them for 501(c)(4) status, and set them aside for closer examination. This appears to have been a pretty reasonable assumption on the part of the I.R.S. employees: having “Tea Party” in your name is at least a slight clue about partisanship. When the inspector-general report becomes public, we’ll surely learn the identity of these organizations. How many will look like “social welfare” organizations—and how many will look like political activists looking for anonymity and tax breaks? My guess is a lot more of the latter than the former

[magellan]

21. Are you suggesting THIS administration deliberately targeted the tea party?

And my tax returns are clean; that doesn't remove me from extra scrutiny. If they have a reason to look more carefully, they will.

[brooklynite]

23. They've ADMITTED that...

[magellan]

24. The Administration has NOT admitted it deliberately targeted conservative groups

Neither has the IRS. It targeted them due to the nature of their NAMES because those names suggested the potential for political campaign activity that would preclude the groups from gaining the tax-exempt status they were seeking. It was a matter of expediency, not of bias.

From their own report:

Figure 4 shows that approximately one-third of the applications identified for processing by the team of specialists included Tea Party, Patriots, or 9/12 in their names, while the remainder did not. According to the Director, Rulings and Agreements, the fact that the team of specialists worked applications that did not involve the Tea Party, Patriots, or 9/12 groups demonstrated that the IRS was not politically biased in its identification of applications for processing by the team of specialists.

iow the groups using "Tea Party", "Patriots" and "9/12" in their names could have been left-leaning organizations and they still would have been flagged. And since the IRS went on to find the majority of the groups that applied under those names to be engaging in significant political campaign activity, it wasn't a futile exercise. It stopped a good number of groups from gaining a tax-exempt status they didn't qualify for.

[JHB]

5. A point I'd like to see cleared up is just how many of these groups applied in that period...

...in terms of raw numbers, percentage of total applications, compared to identifiable "liberal" counterparts, and compared to similar periods previously.

According to reports, there was a flood of such applications. What are the odds it started out as an ad-hoc triage for dealing with a ballooning workload? A clearer picture of the numbers would help clarify that.

[kentuck]

7. That would be good info to have...

I saw some numbers that showed a small percentage were denied tax exemption, many more were approved, and a similar large number are still on hold, something like 160 groups, as I recall?

[brooklynite]

16. "Ad hoc triage" would be just as irresponsible

[JHB]

22. Of course, but that doesn't mean it couldn't have happened...

...and produce the very same result without any intent to persecute a group.

But poor decisions of bureaucrats trying to handle an unusual workload isn't as sexy as jumping to the conclusion that it was someone using the offices of the IRS to carry out a political vendetta. It's too early to rule out the vendetta angle (especially the question of "by who?&quot , but one possibility gets a lot more play than the other.

[Chathamization]

30. According to the report...

The majority of the applications identified as potential cases were not Tea Party groups.

The BOLO list that included the Tea Party also included other names, that the report didn't bother to look at those because...well, they don't give any reason.

Now I'm not saying that this whole thing is a political witch hunt initiated by members of congress to take down the administration. Just that according to the report, the review was on behalf of members of congress, and looked at the treatment of Tea Part groups, but not other groups. And even then the report found that there wasn't any political motivation for it. Which is why we have to send people to prison.

[timdog44]

20. The real issue here

is that all applicants should be scrutinized regardless of name and regardless of how long the application took. This aside from the fact that 501(c)(4) is a bunch of bull shit. But the reality is that a name gets extra scrutiny. Muslim names get put on no fly lists just because of their name. Blacks get pulled over by police more than whites. The Tea Bag party has not been without intimidation in its actions with guns abounding, target range emblems used on candidates pictures. No so subtle wording in there denunciation of the government. I would like to see the numbers. How many right wing groups applied for this tax free crap status versus left wing groups. Then you can determine statistics of numbers approved and numbers not.

[flamingdem]

18. The first time I admired the IRS

was when I found out they wanted to kick teaparty azz!

[TheKentuckian]

29. I'm glad for illegitimate ones being knocked out, that is entirely beside my point

other than having trouble discerning how any of them are legitimate in any real way but since we have dodgy scams then I'll stick to my guns that they should all enjoy EQUAL scrutiny regardless of political bent and don't see how that is something to apologize for or hedge on.

The whole area is a scam as Colbert has gone to great lengths to demonstrate but there is no argument to be made that I'm going to buy that it is okay to filter as has been admitted. This isn't a blame Obama deal, I don't think he had any knowledge or any real reason to know. I think the practice is unacceptable and those behind it should be prosecuted and/or discharged from duty and that is it.