"The Real I.R.S. Scandal"

[applegrove]

The Real I.R.S. Scandal

Posted by Jeffrey Toobin at the New Yorker

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/05/irs-scandal-tea-party-oversight.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter&mobify=0

"SNIP..........................


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.

It is certainly true that the I.R.S., and every other part of the government, should be evenhanded in how it applies the law, regarding liberal and conservative groups alike. If left-leaning organizations were disguising their true purposes to obtain 501(c)(4) status, the I.R.S. should have turned them down, too. And there will also be questions about how the Service, which is an independent agency, answered questions from Congress.

But let’s be clear on the real scandal here. The columnist Michael Kinsley has often observed that the scandal isn’t what’s illegal—it’s what’s legal. It’s what society chooses not to punish that tells us most about the prevailing ethical standards of the time. Campaign finance operates by shaky, or even nonexistent, rules, and powerful players game the system with impunity. A handful of I.R.S. employees saw this and tried, in a small way, to impose some small sense of order. For that, they’ll likely be ushered into bureaucratic oblivion.


.........................SNIP"

[applegrove]

1. I hope the issue of political groups and 501(c)(4) does come up for discussion in all this.

[Electric Monk]

4. Citizens United

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022846518

...when it comes to the IRS situation and the AP phone debacle, the Republicans created the chain-reactions that led to these scandals.

Let’s begin with the IRS scandal first.

While it looks really, really bad for one of the most feared agencies within the Democratically-controlled executive branch to have been exclusively scrutinizing conservative groups, we only need to rewind to the Supreme Court’s reprehensible Citizens United decision to figure out why all of this is going on. The conservative Roberts court not only opened the floodgates allowing unlimited and unregulated corporate money to flow into campaigns, but it also blurred the line between independent 527 political groups and non-profit social welfare groups, which are classified with the designation 501(c)(4). These social welfare groups can also apply for tax-exempt status from the IRS, a designation that used to be the strict privilege of groups that didn’t engage in political speech. But since Citizens United, it’s much more challenging to determine which social welfare groups are dealing in predominantly political speech.

So the IRS is faced with the unenviable challenge of filtering out groups that are stepping over the line and flagrantly abusing the social welfare moniker.

[Cooley Hurd]

2. K&R - a good article to send to conservatives you know...

It starts out sounding a bit critical of POTUS (this will suck your conservative acquaintances in) but then is a pretty brief, but solid indictment of the misuse of the 501c status. In the end, even your conservative acquaintances could not defend it.

[Auntie Bush]

3. This is our opportunity to publicize the fact that most/many

501(C)(4) organizations are crooked shams preforming illegal acts. If they don't want to pay taxes and want donation privacy they shouldn't be allowed to deal in ANY political activities without losing their status.

[amerciti001]

5. Review the links at this post

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022852472

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2853582

[siligut]

6. "The lady doth protest too much"

They are just diverting attention from the crime with this "scandal" crap.

Bunch of drama queens, the whole lot of them.

[ErikJ]

7. TEA Party=Taxed Enough Already Party.

Doesnt sound too social welfare-y to me.