What the IRS did right - By Joan Walsh

[DonViejo]

Turns out some of the conservative groups it scrutinized were actively and wrongly involved in partisan politics

BY JOAN WALSH

Outrage first, facts later. That’s often the way American political “scandals” unfold, and it seems to be the case with the news that the IRS targeted conservative political groups for extra scrutiny before granting them tax-exempt status as social-welfare organizations.

We knew from the beginning of the IRS mess that the only group actually denied tax-exempt status was the Maine chapter of a Democratic women’s group, Emerge America. Now we’re learning about some of the right-wing organizations that came in for extra scrutiny, as reported by the New York Times Monday: a conservative veterans’ group that only backed one candidate, a Republican, for Congress; an Alabama Tea Party group that took part in a “defeat Barack Obama” voter-turnout drive, and the “Ohio Liberty Coalition” led by a Republican activist who sent his members information on Mitt Romney campaign events and recruited them to volunteer for the GOP nominee.

Some former IRS officials are speaking out to defend the agency, and taking issue with parts of the critical inspector general’s report. Inspector General J. Russell George found evidence of inadequate management and supervision, and that the agency incorrectly used keywords like “Tea Party” or “patriots” to scrutinize applications. But the report also concluded that the agency acted inappropriately when it asked groups about their donors, or their leaders’ plans to run for public office – when in fact such questions can be perfectly appropriate when trying to discover if a political group is wrongly seeking “social welfare” status.

“The I.G. was as careless with terminology as the Cincinnati office was,” said Marcus S. Owens, former head of the IRS’s exempt organizations division. “Half of those questions have been found to be germane in court decisions.” Some election lawyers told the Times that they believed the IRS “scandal” was at least partly ginned up to derail audits and other scrutiny of the rising number of political groups seeking tax-exempt status as the 2014 midterms approach.

full article
http://www.salon.com/2013/05/28/what_the_irs_did_right/

[Just Saying]

1. Of course they were!

This scandal is making me crazy because we all know they had reasons to look at the Tea Party. I had a Republican tell me they targeted people and I had to explain that they reviewed a group and did not audit individuals in this case. Facts mean nothing with the right though.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

5. It's simple

the IRS has uncovered something

[Nye Bevan]

2. That's like the police justifying an arbitrary stop-and-frisk policy

by pointing out that some of the people they stopped and frisked did, indeed, turn out to be criminals.

I fully believe there was some fraud going on. This does not excuse targeting groups based upon their name. Which is why President Obama apologized.

[xtraxritical]

3. That "apology" was a big mistake on the President's part. He should have stood up for his people.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

4. I think it is more to do that the IRS has uncovered a 'large can of worms'

and the GOP is trying to cover the tracks because if this got out the GOP scandal would be HUGE!