DOJ Aide Caught "Red-handed" in IRS Scandal

[PhantomWolf]

The thing I don't get... If part of getting a tax exempt title is that you remain apolitical, then why is having extra scrutiny of groups that have political names such a bad thing?

I mean come on, if people are stupid enough to put that sort of target on themselves, they shouldn't be blaming the IRS for responding by shooting them.

 

[sunmaster14]

Treasury IG, revisiting IRS scandal, finds liberal groups got plenty of scrutiny alongside conservatives.



Turns out conservatives are the real winners of the special snowflake Olympics. Their ability to lie about being persecuted is unmatched.

Nice of you to bump this thread while I was on suspension and then abandon it before I got back, but you only managed to propagate fake news. Check your source again:

Correction: An earlier version of the story misstated the period covered by the inspector general's review. The new TIGTA report examines cases between 2004 and 2013. The previous report examined cases between 2010 and 2012.

To summarize, the new TIGTA report found 146 cases of liberal leaning groups which were given extra scrutiny over a 10-year period, of which 83 were definitely chosen because of name-based selection criteria.

But the old TIGTA report found 96 cases of conservative leaning groups chosen for intensive scrutiny because of name-based selection criteria, and this was only over a 3-year period (the one leading up to the 2012 election, naturally). Also, the congressional investigation found an additional 152 conservative leaning groups which were chosen for extra scrutiny because of name-based selection criteria over the same 3-year time period.

I'll note also that the scrutiny given to conservative groups was actually worse than an outright rejection. A rejection would allow the group to address the deficiencies or problems with its application, perhaps by revising its charter or replacing some key people, and try again. But the IRS chose instead to leave these groups in limbo for literally years. I think any fair-minded person would see that as deliberate sabotage. Certainly the judge in the case thought so (and still thinks so):

The IRS targeting scandal emerged in 2013 when former IRS official Lois Lerner admitted that the agency was providing extra scrutiny to conservative groups applying for nonprofit status, prolonging their applications for months and even years.

Engelbrecht's group and dozens of others sued the IRS to get the names of the officials involved in the scandal. Last week, Judge Reggie B. Walton of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said in addition to releasing the names of the employees involved, the IRS must also explain which groups were targeted and why.

The judge also ordered the tax agency to detail how it has tried to prevent further targeting and search for additional records in agency databases from 2009 to March 27, 2015.

 

[Leftus]

The thing I don't get... If part of getting a tax exempt title is that you remain apolitical, then why is having extra scrutiny of groups that have political names such a bad thing?

I mean come on, if people are stupid enough to put that sort of target on themselves, they shouldn't be blaming the IRS for responding by shooting them.

There is no requirement for 503c4 orgs to be apolitical.

Someone, it's unclear who, created a BOLO file that was widely shared to flag what they thought would make a that org 100% political, which would be against the 503c4 rules. When they ran across one of those names they put it in a do not process pile. They went to senior management and council to get some guidance and got none. So most of those cases just sat there on hold. Some employees exceeded their jurisdiction, and requested documentation they had no right to request due to the lack of actual oversight and guidance.

 

[PhantomWolf]

There is no requirement for 503c4 orgs to be apolitical.

Someone, it's unclear who, created a BOLO file that was widely shared to flag what they thought would make a that org 100% political, which would be against the 503c4 rules. When they ran across one of those names they put it in a do not process pile. They went to senior management and council to get some guidance and got none. So most of those cases just sat there on hold. Some employees exceeded their jurisdiction, and requested documentation they had no right to request due to the lack of actual oversight and guidance.

Ahh, thanks, I was getting 501c3 and 501c4 confused.

I can see why the IRS had issues, since 5014c are supposed to be civic leagues, social welfare organizations, and local associations of employees, and while they do have the power to lobby, they can only do so where the lobbying matches their core business. I guess they were trying to say they fitted under "Civic League" but when they call themselves something like "Conservatives against Obamacare" I can see the questions being raised as to if they are a genuine Civic Group or merely a Lobby group in disguise, and if the senior levels haven't created a protocol to deal with figuring it out, what do you do?

 

[Leftus]

Ahh, thanks, I was getting 501c3 and 501c4 confused.

I can see why the IRS had issues, since 5014c are supposed to be civic leagues, social welfare organizations, and local associations of employees, and while they do have the power to lobby, they can only do so where the lobbying matches their core business. I guess they were trying to say they fitted under "Civic League" but when they call themselves something like "Conservatives against Obamacare" I can see the questions being raised as to if they are a genuine Civic Group or merely a Lobby group in disguise, and if the senior levels haven't created a protocol to deal with figuring it out, what do you do?

Those who sat on the requests probably did the best thing they could. Wait until either management or the senior analysts made a decision. GS 7 Tax examiners aren't entrusted to make policy. What we saw was a lack of proper guidance in a politically charged situation. Everyone was left to themselves and they did everything between nothing and applying rules to the wrong org type such as asking for members and donor info for groups not required to provide it.

 

[PhantomWolf]

Those who sat on the requests probably did the best thing they could. Wait until either management or the senior analysts made a decision. GS 7 Tax examiners aren't entrusted to make policy. What we saw was a lack of proper guidance in a politically charged situation. Everyone was left to themselves and they did everything between nothing and applying rules to the wrong org type such as asking for members and donor info for groups not required to provide it.

It seems that rather being some sort of conspiracy, it was a case of the lower ranks being left without guidance to resolve a situation for which there was no protocol and so they either did nothing, or made up the rules as they went along based on what protocols they did have.

 

[Leftus]

It seems that rather being some sort of conspiracy, it was a case of the lower ranks being left without guidance to resolve a situation for which there was no protocol and so they either did nothing, or made up the rules as they went along based on what protocols they did have.

Yeah, it's fairly well documented in Issa's report. Page 16, for those following at home:

The lack of guidance was not for failure to ask. Several times during the latter months of 2010, Cindy Thomas inquired of Holly Paz about the status of Washington’s long-promised guidance. In one e-mail from late-October 2010, Thomas voiced her unit’s frustration with the process:

Hull could not provide guidance until he knew how the IRS as an agency would approach the Tea Party applications. Despite his decades of experience and his recognized expertise in the area, Hull could not make the determinations on his own. Instead, the test applications wound their way further up the IRS bureaucracy.

As the DOJ stated, bad management is not a crime.

 

[Stacko]

GOP Surrenders Cherished IRS Scandal at Last: The fiction served the GOP for years, yet died quietly this month, forsaken and alone.

Contrary to the Republican story, the IRS never targeted conservatives. The IRS targeted politics, which was pretty much what it was supposed to do.

In September, the Trump Justice Department reaffirmed the decision of the Obama Justice Department not to prosecute Lois Lerner, the IRS bureaucrat whom Republicans settled on as a criminal mastermind after they had failed to find an exploitable connection to Obama.

“The great thing about it for the Freedom Caucus and Capitol Hill,” Koskinen said of the GOP’s investigative shtick, “was that it could keep going. You start with the substance of the issue and, when that runs out, you go to the process. And when that runs out, you go after the messenger.”

 

[mgidm86]

<looks up and sees RandFan and misses such quality posters>