Shut 'em Down!

Proves his point. never hear the end of it and Watergate was nothing compared to what this White House did with the IRS.

lol, now the IRS "scandal" that the WH had nothing to do with is worse than Watergate?

You cant prove that they didn't just like other can't prove that they did. Fact of the matter is no one will know how high up the chain that went, but I really doubt it was just someone from the IRS. That doesn't really make sense. It also wasn't just two grunts in a midwest office like they tried to say it was.

You should also be very upset about the IRS scandal. You may not agree with the antics of the Tea Party, can't say that I am, but that could happen to any group.

That is a huge deal for a non partisan agency to attack a partisan group.

According to the Treasury inspector general for tax administration, the I.R.S. received 199,689 applications for tax-exempt status between 2010 and 2012. In 2012 alone, the agency received 73,319, of which about 22,000 were not approved in the initial review process. The inspector general looked at 296 applications flagged as potentially being from political groups. That means most of the applications pulled aside for further scrutiny in those years had nothing to do with politics, conservative or liberal, just as most of the red flags thrown up by the I.R.S.’s lookout lists were not overtly political.

Not partisan. Many groups beyond the left-right politics in the US were targeted.

Also, the inspector general when he conducted his audit did not look for any of these groups because House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa specifically told him to focus on tea party groups. So this other BOLO information came out after the audit concluded that there was no political motivation.


http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/05/us/politics/irs-scrutiny-went-beyond-the-political.html?hp&pagewanted=all&_r=0

Except, they were targeted after gaining tax-exempt status.

There was a memo issued (and released to the public) that specifically targets any tax-exempt group for having the words "Tea Party" "Freedom" "Patriot" in their names.

And the whole issue? Those that were targeted were audited and then placed in limbo for months (sometimes years) before the issue that never really should have occurred is resolved.

Plus, IRS demanded illegal information, like donor lists and such.

Did they do that to everyone? No, just the targeted groups...

Erm, please give a link where they were targeted after gaining tax-exempt status. From all I've read it was before tax exempt was granted and this caused severe delays for groups to find out their status.

Yes, there were BOLO's that specifically targeted non-political groups. They also asked for information that was not allowed according to IRS rules.

What does non-partisian groups mean in your world?

The point is to water everything down after months of stonewalling and let the left-wing political hacks do the work for them with massive amounts of sarcasm and lies.

Not one left wing group was targeted. They were briefly flagged then granted status. Stop repeating the lie that left wing groups were targeted. You are either willingly repeating the lie or you don't know and once you actually learn maybe you will change your mind. Not one. The conservative groups were flagged and then never granted status, not outright denied. They just left their applications hanging out there indefinitely after inappropriate questioning and audits.

Many groups beyond the left-right politics in the US were targeted.

Chi Eta Phi Sorority, a mainly African-American nurses’ society that advertises its mission as “social change,” applied for 501(c)(3) charitable status on June 24, 2011, days before the I.R.S. tightened its scrutiny of tax exemption applications. The organization fell under a “group rulings” flag in one of the lookout lists. Two years and 73 questions later, Chi Eta Phi is still waiting for the I.R.S.’s Cincinnati office, which handles the tax exemption applications, to respond.

Among the requests for more information: Describe in detail any legislative activities, with percentage of time and money devoted. Explain the following programs: sisterhood/brotherhood, networking, collaboration with other organizations, loving and caring, and commitment and service.

In 2010, a tiny Palestinian-rights group called Minnesota Break the Bonds applied to the Internal Revenue Service for tax-exempt status. Two years and a lot of prodding later, the I.R.S. sent the group’s leaders a series of questions and requests almost identical to the ones it was sending to Tea Party groups at the time.

Sylvia Schwarz, a leader of a small Palestinian-rights group, said she was used to scrutiny like that meted out by the I.R.S.

What are “the qualifications and experience” of Break the Bonds instructors? Does the group “present a sufficiently full and fair explanation of the relevant facts” about the West Bank and Gaza? Provide copies of pamphlets, brochures or other literature distributed at group events? Reveal all fees collected and “any voluntary contributions” made at group functions? Provide a template of petitions, postcards and any other material used to influence legislation, and a detailed accounting of the time and money spent to influence state legislators?

Groups that produce and disseminate open source software — which is distributed at no cost to anyone for further software development — may have had it the roughest. A recent I.R.S. “be on the lookout” list warned screeners that such software groups “are usually the for-profit business or for-profit support technicians of the software.”

“If you see a case, elevate it to your manager,” the list orders.

That entreaty has proved to be the kiss of death, said Mr. Villa, of the Open Source Initiative. One group seeking a tax exemption was making software as a tool for political dissent abroad — with the blessing of the United States government. Another was making software, free, for struggling musicians seeking to distribute their work on the Internet. They were both rejected, unlike most of the political groups, which have secured their tax exemptions.

“None of the groups have been able to find the magic words to get over the hurdle,” Mr. Villa said.

Jesse von Doom, whose group CASH Music seeks to help musicians on the Internet, applied for 501(c)(3) status in February 2009. Finally, in June 2012, his application was rejected in a 13-page letter signed by Ms. Lerner, the I.R.S.’s director of tax-exempt organizations, who has been put on administrative leave.

I never said that they don't know how to use calculators.

sorry, but that is an oxymoron there.

The government never has any qualified people on staff. They are the C class people that private companies wouldn't hire.

Look at IRS as a prime example, they don't even know their own rules and regulations!

LOL

but you understand the point I was getting at right?

Ask

and you

shall receive.

The Committee has discovered that among the hastily approved applications for exempt status in the early summer of 2012, a large number were flagged for IRS surveillance by Washington, D.C. Of those flagged, more than eighty percent of the groups were right leaning. The IRS surveillance program, called a “Review of Operations,” is conducted by the EO Examinations unit in Dallas and involves the monitoring of a group’s activity. The consequence of being in the program is that surveillance can lead to an audit.

Additionally, we discovered that, through a process approved by Lerner, EO Examinations itself flags groups for surveillance based on complaints received from inside and outside the agency. Ninety-four percent of all organizations flagged for surveillance by the Examinations unit were right leaning. Most startling, of the organizations referred for audit from this process, 100 percent were right leaning.

To highlight the question of whether the examinations process is unbiased, the IRS informed the Committee two weeks ago that it had suspended both the surveillance orders from D.C. and the audits pending further review.

You are correct, it was beyond the left-right politics.

However, the point is, none of this should have happened at all.

Yeah, I see your point.

However, they accepted the job of being the demons of society. Kindof like bill collectors and car salesmen.

Dude, we can't kick someone in the balls over and over and over and over again and then expect them to just grin and bear it and "do their jobs"...

It goes all the way to the white house because NOBODY LIKES US!

We want them all to loose their jobs. Did you think they weren't going to take it personally!?

I don't think anyone is disputing that. Even the IRS admitted it was "heavy handed".

Dude, we can't kick someone in the balls over and over and over and over again and then expect them to just grin and bear it and "do their jobs"...

It goes all the way to the white house because NOBODY LIKES US!

We want them all to loose their jobs. Did you think they weren't going to take it personally!?

Except those who consider IRS scandal is a "phony scandal"

Thanks for the links. Your second one is not about following/potentially auditing after tax-exempt was granted.

I went to http://waysandmeans.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=350126 to read the source.
I would ideally like more than just percentages of a small period of time (80% of 5 is very different from 80% of 100) but that is interesting. I hope they publish this document or documents. And maybe give some context to the numbers (e.g. How many cases are usually flagged and how many of them have been political organizations).

Your last link is not surprising as we found out this summer that many agencies have been colluding. Whether it was based on political grounds or not I can't tell. Seems many agencies just like sharing information that they shouldn't be.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/07/us-dea-irs-idUSBRE9761AZ20130807

Edited~

Except those who consider IRS scandal is a "phony scandal"

Except those who consider IRS scandal is a "phony scandal"