Is This Big Tea Party Group Really an Innocent Victim of the IRS?

[G_j]

http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2013/05/tea-party-patriots-irs-complaint



Is This Big Tea Party Group Really an Innocent Victim of the IRS?

The tax agency may have had good reason to scrutinize Tea Party Patriots—including a formal complaint I filed in 2011.

By Stephanie Mencimer on Wed. May 22, 2013 3:00 AM PDT

Tea Party Patriots co-founder Jenny Beth Martin has been all over the airwaves since the IRS story broke, talking about how her group was among those whose applications for nonprofit status were unfairly targeted for extra scrutiny. She has called the IRS' actions a "disturbing, illegal, and outrageous abuse of government power." She told Fox News that Tea Party Patriots wants the agency repay it for expenses it incurred as a result of the "intrusive" questions it asked, including requests for "every single post on Facebook" and "every comment that any person who's a fan of ours on Facebook had ever made." On Friday, lawyers for her group sent a letter to the IRS alerting the agency to coming lawsuits over its "illegal" conduct.

But while the IRS has admitted to unfairly targeting some conservative groups, Tea Party Patriots, a national umbrella organization for the grassroots movement, may not have been one of them. As I reported last week, although IRS officials engaged in misconduct, they also may have had good reason in some cases to scrutinize groups whose financial and tax histories raised questions, including Tea Party Patriots. The group engaged in a type of creative accounting that the IRS said it specifically planned to crack down on, and TPP drew criticism from some of its own constituents for a lack of financial transparency. Moreover, the IRS received a formal complaint about TPP—when I filed one in 2011 after the group refused to provide me with a financial disclosure required by law.

When I first started covering the tea party movement in mid-2009, TPP had quickly emerged as one of its biggest players. It began in February 2009 as a loosely organized group of activists, officially incorporating that June as a self-identified 501(c)4 tax-exempt organization. (Nonprofits can self-designate their status even before applying officially with the IRS.) The group got heavily involved in the 2010 midterm elections: In September 2010, TPP announced that it had been given a $1 million anonymous donation to "get out the vote" during the campaign, while another wealthy anonymous donor—whom I later identified as conservative Montana millionaire Raymon Thompson—lent the group's leaders his private jet. (See this video of Martin and TPP co-founder Mark Meckler jetting around the country to rally the tea party troops just ahead of the election.)

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[Scuba]

1. They love playing the victim.

[warrior1]

2. so they are breaking the law

[northoftheborder]

3. Thank you for this post.

This supposed IRS "scandal" has been totally distorted. Thanks to Mother Jones for so much truth and factual information on many many topics.

[datasuspect]

4. this is all intentional

our owners are using the media to rehabilitate the tea party image in time for the mid term elections.

they want another 2010.

persecution narratives play well with the rubes.

it's all planned, it's all marketing.

most of the tea party groups out there are just a website with links to MLM schemes and a way to donate money.

investigation of this fraudulent movement should be of paramount importance to the IRS.

[siligut]

7. ^This

[G_j]

8. as the TP's popularity

was at an an all tone low...
perfect timing...

[libodem]

5. Anti tax bastages

Go figure?

[Javaman]

6. I bet you the koch brothers are going to make hay over this.

they are the winners here, no one else.

the tea ball licking party halfwits are just continuing their role as willing puppets.