Even Newer Disclosures on IRS Conduct

[eeyore1954]

That's not actually what's in the article. The article says that "progressive" groups were simply marked for screeners, "tea party" groups were sent to a whole separate Group for extra scrutiny. And that's false, since "progressive" groups were also sent to a separate Group for extra scrutiny (as were a number of other groups whose political affiliation could not be determined by the keyword used).

What the Fivethirtyeight blog is doing is tabulating the number of "progressive" versus "tea party" groups that were approved for tax exempt status after that scrutiny-sorting was done.

Where do you get the information that progressive groups were sent to a separate group? Maybe they were but I don't see that indication in the document.

The blog attempted to find out how many liberal versus tea party(conservative) groups were approved. As I pointed out the difference was dramatic in the period in question.

Probably because the tea party groups were trying to abuse the system while the progressive ones were not.

 

[A'isha]

Where do you get the information that progressive groups were sent to a separate group? Maybe they were but I don't see that indication in the document.

As I noted in my post above, at least one issue generally associated with "progressive" politics, medical marijuana, was listed on the document as having all applicants referred to Group 7888.

 

[eeyore1954]

As I noted in my post above, at least one issue generally associated with "progressive" politics, medical marijuana, was listed on the document as having all applicants referred to Group 7888.

But what about the term progressive which is the one the article said was not required to be sent on for further review.

Medical marijuana is probably a separate issue as it is still illegal as far the Federal government is concerned.

 

[A'isha]

But what about the term progressive which is the one the article said was not required to be sent on for further review.

From the text in the document, it appears to be a blanket recognition that groups which use the word "progressive" are usually inherently political, and groups that submit Form 1023 (which is used for 501(c)(3) exemption) with the word "progressive" in the name aren't suitable for 501(c)(3) recognition ("Their 'progressive' activities appear to show that (c)(3) may not be appropriate"), because 501(c)(3) groups are flat-out prohibited from engaging in any political activity.

The Tea Party groups are mentioned as applying for exemption under either 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4), not just 501(c)(3). The more politically-allowable nature of 501(c)(4) is apparently why these applicants were sent for further review by Group 7822, rather than being automatically labeled as "inappropriate" for 501(c)(3) as the "progressive" groups were.

The document appears to indicate that groups labeled "progressive" who applied for 501(c)(3) were pretty much rejected outright because of their political advocacy stance, while groups engaged in specific-issue political advocacy (such as medical marijuana, healthcare legislation, "disputed territories in the Middle East, or tea party groups) which applied for the more political-activity-permissible 501(c)(4) were forwarded on special Groups for review of their applications (Groups 7888, 7821, 7830, and 7822, respectively).

If anything, it's the groups labeled "progressive" that are treated more harshly than any of the other groups, since they don't get the additional review of their applications that the others do.

Medical marijuana is probably a separate issue as it is still illegal as far the Federal government is concerned.

That has no bearing on the tax status of advocacy groups, though.

EDIT: Again, as the OP says, "It wasn't political at all, it was directed at what looked like political advocacy groups": the IRS marked the obviously-partisan "progressive" groups as unsuitable for 501(c)(3), and treated all the other non-party-aligned political advocacy groups, from the tea party to groups concerned about healthcare legislation, the exact same way as each other.

 

[Dr. Keith]

Meanwhile, Colbert never even asked for the status and just operated under the status based on advice of counsel. Can the real right not afford attorneys like the fake right?

 

[BenBurch]

Meanwhile, Colbert never even asked for the status and just operated under the status based on advice of counsel. Can the real right not afford attorneys like the fake right?

Most tea party groups are bumpkins.

 

[A'isha]

"Our applications weren't rejected out of hand because our activities were partisan and leaned toward a political party, but instead were treated the exact same way as the applications of a bunch of other political advocacy groups covering the whole political spectrum!" is a pretty weak thing to hang a persecution and victimization complex on.

 

[eeyore1954]

From the text in the document, it appears to be a blanket recognition that groups which use the word "progressive" are usually inherently political, and groups that submit Form 1023 (which is used for 501(c)(3) exemption) with the word "progressive" in the name aren't suitable for 501(c)(3) recognition ("Their 'progressive' activities appear to show that (c)(3) may not be appropriate"), because 501(c)(3) groups are flat-out prohibited from engaging in any political activity.

The Tea Party groups are mentioned as applying for exemption under either 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4), not just 501(c)(3). The more politically-allowable nature of 501(c)(4) is apparently why these applicants were sent for further review by Group 7822, rather than being automatically labeled as "inappropriate" for 501(c)(3) as the "progressive" groups were.

The document appears to indicate that groups labeled "progressive" who applied for 501(c)(3) were pretty much rejected outright because of their political advocacy stance, while groups engaged in specific-issue political advocacy (such as medical marijuana, healthcare legislation, "disputed territories in the Middle East, or tea party groups) which applied for the more political-activity-permissible 501(c)(4) were forwarded on special Groups for review of their applications (Groups 7888, 7821, 7830, and 7822, respectively).

If anything, it's the groups labeled "progressive" that are treated more harshly than any of the other groups, since they don't get the additional review of their applications that the others do.



That has no bearing on the tax status of advocacy groups, though.

EDIT: Again, as the OP says, "It wasn't political at all, it was directed at what looked like political advocacy groups": the IRS marked the obviously-partisan "progressive" groups as unsuitable for 501(c)(3), and treated all the other non-party-aligned political advocacy groups, from the tea party to groups concerned about healthcare legislation, the exact same way as each other.

Because the progressive applicants were treated more harshly many more of them were approved for 501(c)(4) than the tea party applications.


ETA "Their progressive activities appear to show that (c)(3) may not be appropriate" is not the same as marking them as unsuitable

 

[A'isha]

Because the progressive applicants were treated more harshly many more of them were approved for 501(c)(4) than the tea party applications.

501(c)(3) (which the document references when talking about "progressive" groups) and 501(c)(4) (which the Fivethirtyeight tabulation uses) are two different categories with different application requirements.

EDIT: Plus, the document only singles out the "progressive" keyword, while the Fivethirtyeight tabulation references groups with “progress,” “progressive,” “liberal” and “equality” in the name. Note that the document also doesn't reference any keywords like "conservative" or "prosperity" or anything else commonly found in the names of right-wing political advocacy groups, unlike what it does with "progressive".

And:

ETA "Their progressive activities appear to show that (c)(3) may not be appropriate" is not the same as marking them as unsuitable

When combined with all the other verbiage in that entry on the document about how these groups are explicitly partisan, anti-Republican groups, however, it's pretty clear that the gist of the entry is "these groups are mostly not suitable for 501(c)(3) exemptions."

 

[AlBell]

What seems to be missing from this conversation of the paranoid right is the fact that
A. Virtually non of the organizations really deserve a non tax status
B. even if they received non tax status. The real and sole practical benefit to this is to hide the contributors list

Given the activities like the cock brothers for example far more scrutiny is required for any of these apps. - including the ones on the left - rather then less.

The teabaggers whining seems to be far more a about "we can't cheat as easily" than anything else.

You pack a lot of strawmen into very little space. Should make a nice fire. Want to borrow a match or do you have one?

Does the name Soros ring a bell? And most of Hollywood too.

 

[Ziggurat]

As jj points out in the OP, given the explicitly political (and and political advocacy) nature of the Tea Party astroturf movement, that's not exactly surprising.

And yet, "progressive" groups did not get the same treatment. There is a clear disparity between how tea party groups were treated (and your attempt to poison the well regarding "astroturf" is noted) and how progressive groups were treated, and it isn't based upon the political nature of tea party groups.

 

[AlBell]

That is simply false under current tax law. And if you think it's OK for the IRS to try to rewrite tax law to suit your preferences, then you're not only discarding the notion of separation of powers, you're basically saying you don't even value the democratic process.



Ha ha! That's so funny, because of hte ghey!

Jeeze, what are you, twelve?



Why did I bother asking?

You tried, for no good reason though. That poster is seldom funny and too often just mean.

 

[A'isha]

And yet, "progressive" groups did not get the same treatment. There is a clear disparity between how tea party groups were treated (and your attempt to poison the well regarding "astroturf" is noted) and how progressive groups were treated, and it isn't based upon the political nature of tea party groups.

Except "progressive" groups (like medical marijuana advocacy organizations) did get the same treatment. That is, when they weren't getting worse treatment for having "progressive" in their names on their Form 1023's.

 

[jj]

And yet, "progressive" groups did not get the same treatment.

Sorry, you're claiming facts not in evidence, via a special pleading that shows that while progressive causes were heavily screened, the word "progressive" did not.

If that's the best you've got, you might as well admit that all of Issa's misconduct constitutes an attempt at extortion via defamation.

 

[mikedenk]

I haven't been closely following this case since the news first broke. I thought that the IRS apologized for/admitted inappropriately targeting conservative (Tea Party) groups. As in, "We're sorry for our treatment of the Tea Party groups; we specifically selected for them and then subjected them to a abnormally high level of scrutiny".

Is this no longer the case? The Tea Party-linked groups were treated just like many other political groups from both sides of the aisle? What was the point of the apology, which seemed to be completely preemptive on the part of the IRS. And, of course, the subsequent statement from Obama where he acknowledged the bad behavior. If key words were spread across the political spectrum, why didn't the IRS just say: "We were selecting for numerous key words which indicated a wide range of potential political advocacy, it just happened that Tea Party-linked groups had a very high amount of applicants from 2010-2012".

Apologies in advance for being behind the times on this.

 

[A'isha]

I haven't been closely following this case since the news first broke. I thought that the IRS apologized for/admitted inappropriately targeting conservative (Tea Party) groups. As in, "We're sorry for our treatment of the Tea Party groups; we specifically selected for them and then subjected them to a abnormally high level of scrutiny".

Is this no longer the case? The Tea Party-linked groups were treated just like many other political groups from both sides of the aisle? What was the point of the apology, which seemed to be completely preemptive on the part of the IRS. And, of course, the subsequent statement from Obama where he acknowledged the bad behavior. If key words were spread across the political spectrum, why didn't the IRS just say: "We were selecting for numerous key words which indicated a wide range of potential political advocacy, it just happened that Tea Party-linked groups had a very high amount of applicants from 2010-2012".

Apologies in advance for being behind the times on this.

Maybe try reading the article linked in the OP?

 

[mikedenk]

Maybe try reading the article linked in the OP?

Sounds tedious.

Anyways, the article of course states that numerous key words indicating groups from the left and right were used in targeting. But it also states:

Neither the IRS document obtained by the AP or the 15 IRS lists of terms addressed how many progressive groups received close scrutiny or how the agency treated their requests

My basic question (maybe unanswerable at this point) is: Why did the IRS bring an avalanche of criticism on themselves with what clearly appeared to be an admission of wrongdoing? Their initial apology was specifically directed towards Tea Party groups. Just Asking Questions here.

 

[jj]

My basic question (maybe unanswerable at this point) is: Why did the IRS bring an avalanche of criticism on themselves with what clearly appeared to be an admission of wrongdoing? Their initial apology was specifically directed towards Tea Party groups. Just Asking Questions here.

Intentional political action by somebody who doesn't like the current administration?

I'd think that would be obvious, it was sabotage, plain and simple.

 

[eeyore1954]

Sounds tedious.

Anyways, the article of course states that numerous key words indicating groups from the left and right were used in targeting. But it also states:



My basic question (maybe unanswerable at this point) is: Why did the IRS bring an avalanche of criticism on themselves with what clearly appeared to be an admission of wrongdoing? Their initial apology was specifically directed towards Tea Party groups. Just Asking Questions here.

Because the facts clearly show that the Tea Party groups were subjected to much greater scrutiny and long delays because of the name.
Or maybe it was sabotage, plain and simple.

 

[A'isha]

Sounds tedious.

Not my problem.

My basic question (maybe unanswerable at this point) is: Why did the IRS bring an avalanche of criticism on themselves with what clearly appeared to be an admission of wrongdoing? Their initial apology was specifically directed towards Tea Party groups. Just Asking Questions here.

Because it was the right wing that howled like a stuck pig about it and then immediately tried to make political hay out of it. Now that it turns out that more than just Tea Party groups were targeted and it was done by Republican IRS employees, even Mitch McConnell is starting to backpedal.